Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Penetrating gallon water jugs

I'm going to embark on a little project here to shoot some bullets through water jugs. Just as a comparison of cartridges and bullet types.

If any of you have done this, how about you share the methodology and the data. I would rather utilize an existing data base to build on then to reinvent the wheel.

Distance from the muzzle to the first jug would be a critical starting point, then what cartridges velocities and projectile types. With the corresponding amount of penetration, ( how many jugs)

Where they on a table or stand of some sort? on the ground? anything else of value I can mimic to add to the already collected data you have.

I will start with 44 special, 44 magnum, 45 ACP, 9mm, 357 magnum 38 special.

All will be shot with hollow points, FMJ and hard cast bullets. All will be shot through my chronograph as well. The type of gun seems to be less relevent then the bullet weight, type and speed.

I don't know if I will have enough jugs to see the amount a 310grain HC bullet from the .44 mag will go through. I may just have a set number and if it clears them all state that value and call it good.

If I had a S&W 50, a Ruger 480, and a casull 454 I would see how they worked out but not having them handy makes the mega handguns difficult to add to the mix. Plus, it would require a whole massive supply of jugs for testing. I just cannot consume that much milk!

Sounds like a fun project. I will be watching for results.

I did this a couple weeks ago with a 40 and 45 winchester white box HP's 40 -180's 45- 230's used 2 liter pop bottles lined up edge at about 15 ft from pistol, the 40 was caught in the 3rd bottle and the 45 was hung up in the outer side of the second bottle but did not break into the third one , both expanded to almost equal sized mushrooms yeap one shot in each so real limited I know was just bored ,so take the outcome as you will.oh yea mine were on the ground I laid down to shoot. and with a snub nose 38 had 158 agauilia hp's it did not expand but can not remember how manyu bottles it went through, and that lead me to a couple of the treads I have started lately

I just bumped RJM's testing:

...a few bullets tests...

Thanks JOG...I was about to post the link....

Ran out of jugs and then it got a little cool for testing. I still have some of Safarimans 10mm ammo to test and finally found a friend with a 10mm to test them in...will start again in the spring.

Bob

Make sure you get all the water from the same place. All water is not the same hardness.

270s will bounce off.

Cool, I will share what I learn I'm also gonna rope in mark to participate as well,With this data collection.

Have done some of this over the years. Settled on one-gallon plastic milk jugs, filled with water and lined up. Tell ya, some of those heavy, cast lead bullets or FMJ's can really penetrate!

Most of my water-jug killin' has been with rifles, but I do have some handgun stuff. Did the rifles at 20 yards, and the handguns at 10 yards. Just measured penetration by noting which jug the bullet was recovered from. Also got the retained weight and expanded diameter if applicable.

Will post some up here in a bit.

Guy

Box of truth adds another dimension. Gives an idea about wall penetration.

http://www.theboxotruth.com

129 grain .38 +P Federal factory cartridge from a 2.5" barrel:



Gallon jugs sitting on a pair of 4x4's with about a 1" gap between them. Helps letting the water go somewhere when hit with a big boomer.


240 gr JHP Federal American Eagle. MV 1250 fps. Recovered from the 4th jug, still weighing 240 grains. I was pretty impressed:


More later if this is what you're looking for. I've got some stuff from the .500 S&W too.

Guy

.500 S&W results:

350 gr JHP XTP factory Hornady ammo. 1650 fps actual mv.
Recovered from the 5th jug, expanded to .925" and weighs 311 grains.

440 gr Cast Performance handload. 1380 fps mv. Penetrated 12+ jugs. Not recovered.

.45 ACP Blazer, 230 gr FMJ @ 781 fps (5" 1911) went through 7 jugs and wasn't recovered.

.45 ACP Winchester SXT @ 837 fps (5" 1911) recovered from 3rd jug. Expanded to .8" dia and weighed 231 grains.

22 magnum, 4" kit gun
40g win hp
penenetrated 6 jugs, bullet not recovered

Here are some jug test from some good 'ole boys from handguns to rifles with interesting results.



Jayco

I've performed a lot of penetration testing. Water jugs I have used a number of times. See below a video of my .475 Linebaugh shooting a 420 grain flat-nosed hardcast bullet at 1,350 fps (at the muzzle). It exited the 14th water jug and decimated the first 5 or so. Had we had 20 water jugs set up, I would make a healthy wager we wouldn't have captured the bullet.





Here's the video:

Wow a wealth if information, guess I don't need to gather up all the milk jugs now! The data is nearly complete!

I quit using gallon jugs long ago. Too many plastic surfaces to penetrate which tends to distort the load's abilities.
I like the 2.5 gallon water jugs. They are almost a foot long when stacked end to end. They also give good indications of wound channel making ability by how well the jugs are disrupted. E