Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Water Jug bullet testing?

I was bored and it was sort of warm yesterday so tested a couple of bullets in a newer rifle. I never shoot water jugs but seems like it is sort of common. Anyway, both bullets appeared to be very expansive and blew up 3 jugs emphatically. Then I think the bullets must have veered off or fragmented enough to only send fragments into 4th gallon.

Mostly a deer, antelope, coyote rig. Does killing 3 jugs mean anything? Got me out of the house for some shooting so all was not lost lol. Just don't have anything to compare it too.

Other than being entertaining, it does mean something. It means you can kill up to three jugs in one shot if you can get them to line up in the wild.

The only times I test bullets in water are to test for expansion in handguns with jacketed or cast bullets, or with cast bullets in rifles. Water-filled jugs are a very "friendly" expansion medium, and I don't think the results translate to animals, or at significantly different distances. The bullets don't get taxed too much, and the resistance is pretty consistent.

I don;t use them to test expansion, but they make great targets if filled with water and a little food coloring added. You have to be willing to pick them up after but lots of fun when nothing else is happening.

Rube Goldberg, Murphy(of Murphy's Law fame) and I used to test a lot of sporting rifle bullets in various forms of media...getting enough media, preparing it, bullet test boxes, even having a rancher friend call when he had a dead cow to shoot into....it's a huge hassle with a lot of variables. Comparing test bullets and bullets recovered from game, I believe that the easiest and most reliable unscientific results can be found by shooting at actual hunting ranges into cardboard boxes packed with high moisture snow. Easy to set up, endless supply of media, very little mess to clean up after. By being careful with a long sharp knife you can even see the cross section of the path of destruction. I tried hefty bags of snow, but I think cardboard adds a little more destructive force to the test.

Not much penetration

I've done that too with gallon plastic milk jugs, 5 gallon water filled cubes backed up with snow filled boxes. Probably my most informative water jug was when I added green food coloring to the water, set the jug on a box and shot the jug over fresh snow. I thought that most or all the spray pattern would go out to the rear. A lot did, but what surprised me the most was how much came back forward and then off to both sides in a cross shape pattern. I've seen that same blow back on that Forensic Files TV show when they are determining how far away a bullet was fired from a victim.

I do a lot of that myself. Half-liter water bottles are awesome for this, as well as gallon jugs at larger distances.

My brother and I used to have shoot-offs with half-liter bottles at 330 yards using improvised rests and our varmint rifle of choice. SOB would beat me by one bottle every time. Great times.

The best reason to use water filled jugs is that they provide a point of reference which is widely available. Water jugs are not meant to replicate animal results.

I keep looking for some of that endless white media... no luck so far!

Water jugs are really tough on bullets.

It's fun but not a good comparison to how the bullet will behave in flesh.

That's why JFK's head went forward when Oswald shot him from the front. Momentum is conserved. So, all the brain matter flying out the back of the head pushed the head forward.

In this video, the pieces of the watermelon struck by a .340 Wby round flew forward about 30 feet over our heads:

https://i.imgur.com/xMUu4AG.mp4

Interesting. I have caught enough in critters to know what bullets typically do. I caught a gamechanger this season. Somehow ended up in a hindquarter. It' looked good.

Hey Calvin,
What was the cartridge, bullet weght, velocity, animal, angle, etc. on the gamechanger you caught? They market them as being a little tougher. I'm thinking about trying some in my .270 if/when they become available again.

I’ve shot a pile of bullets in water jugs myself Kurt. As D270 says it is pretty tough on bullets but from what I’ve seen 3 jugs makes for an awesome deer getter. 5 or more have worked great for elk. The recovered bullets I’ve snagged from jugs and animals has looked pretty similar and what it does do easily is allows us fellas across the world to have a simple test medium that we can all compare.

Magazines and gel are too much goofing around for me, so plain old milk or water jugs get used.

And I’m not saying the numbers of jugs means a whole lot other than if a bullet will blast thru 2-3 water jugs, turning them to confetti they’ve usually been deer grenades. The 5 or more jugs usually has 3 destroyed and from 3 on shows penetration. Just my simple Marine view on it.

All in all, it’s better than just guessing, to me.

I have some swaging dies for 44 mag bullets. I swaged some using #9 shot and tested them using jugs of water. They were light and fast! I would shoot at just one jug of water with a piece of cardboard behind it and didn’t put any holes in the cardboard. I can’t remember if I made these before or after the glazer safety slug came out but I think they are made with loose fill shot and capped where mine the shot was pressed in. If I remember right they were accurate out to about 5 yards! lol

6.5 Creedmoor 130 grain. 80 yard shot. 2850 muzzle velocity. Retained 68%. Bullet looks bonded. quartering to me. I seem to remember it differently, but I found the bullet in the hindquarter.

Wasted some time on youtube today. Looks like most expanding bullets fired from 270, 308, 30-06, all manage to get about 3.5 jugs. Interesting overlaid with your experience. This rifle was the little 6/45 shooting 95 vld and 90 eld-x. Based on what I saw, things should go swimmingly. I just need to grab a rifle tag or two next year to get it on some meat. The jugs do seem rough on bullets but they are a consistent medium for discussing with others who have shot them.

Did a jug test myself today. 85 grain Sierra BTHP pushed to 3100 fps from my 243. Set up 4 water filled gallon milk jugs at 100 yards. Absolutely destroyed the first two and ended up in the third. The jacket and core had separated but together they weighed 56 grains. There was a small spray of pieces of lead and a few pieces of jacket around the 2nd jug. For a bullet with such a good reputation as a deer bullet I expected more. Then again I could use this performance as a baseline for good performance on broadside deer.

I've never tried water jugs, but have always heard that wet newspaper is a decent substitute.

Absolutely…. I think you’re on to something there!