How do i catch a fired bullet without damaging it?

[Canadian Bushman]

They should be very common. Lots of them on craigslist in ALABAMA. They usually contain MILD pesticides or cleaning solutions. I know lots of guys buy them clean them out good, and make overhead showers or septic tanks at hunting clubs with them. How about if you got TWO 55 gallon plastic barrells, fill with water and line them up behind one another? I would think at 100 yards, it would stop a bullet? I use 5 gallon buckets of wet sand to do weight reteintion own 300 OTMs and Cutting Edge Bullets with my 338 Lapua at 100 yards. One 5 gallon bucket will stop a 300 gr OTM berger at 2950fps . It mangles the bullet up, so that may not be what you want, but it WILL stop bulllets also.

The plastic doesnt initiate expansion when the bullet hits it? I dont mind trashing the ogive i just wanna preserve as much of the bearing surface as possible. Im gonna look around for something like what you describe.

And what kind of putty do you use to patch the holes?

 

[steeltraps]

I am not sure of the name of the putty. Friend gave it to me. Its the putty that body shops use to fix plastic and fiberglass beds. My guess is it a fiberglass type body filler. basicly water proff bondo. Bullets go threw the plastic real easy. The water is what stops them. The tip is swelled up just a little, but other than than its OK. On the round nose 470 bullets we couldnt even tell much damage.

 

[Canadian Bushman]

My co-worker just offered me to use his pool. Its 10' deep. He said as long as i pay for anything i may damage to shoot all i want into it.

 

[MagnumManiac]

My co-worker just offered me to use his pool. Its 10' deep. He said as long as i pay for anything i may damage to shoot all i want into it.

Are you serious?
Unless you use a very REDUCED load, your bullets are going to turn into shrapnel firing them at NORMAL speeds into ANY body of water, including a pool or milk jugs or whatever. The only way this CAN work is if it's at considerable range, in excess of 200yrds may work.
Why do you think that a bullet with 60,000psi behind it will NOT obturate into the rifling?
I can assure you that slugging the bore will tell all, I can also tell you that the difference between a buttoned, cut or hammer forged barrel in sharpness of rifling all depends on the SHAPE and SHARPNESS of the tool used, not the method. Although, personally, I do not like buttons that are pushed through barrels, buttons pulled through barrels do a fine job, if they're sharp and smooth.

Um yeah, good luck with your endeavours.

gun)

 

[Canadian Bushman]

Are you serious?
Unless you use a very REDUCED load, your bullets are going to turn into shrapnel firing them at NORMAL speeds into ANY body of water, including a pool or milk jugs or whatever. The only way this CAN work is if it's at considerable range, in excess of 200yrds may work.
Why do you think that a bullet with 60,000psi behind it will NOT obturate into the rifling?
I can assure you that slugging the bore will tell all, I can also tell you that the difference between a buttoned, cut or hammer forged barrel in sharpness of rifling all depends on the SHAPE and SHARPNESS of the tool used, not the method. Although, personally, I do not like buttons that are pushed through barrels, buttons pulled through barrels do a fine job, if they're sharp and smooth.

Um yeah, good luck with your endeavours.

gun)

Dam hotshot, i guess you got all this figured out. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

 

[Deleted member 46119]

I guess no one watches Mythbusters.

 

[Korhil78]

Dam hotshot, i guess you got all this figured out. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

Haha...I enjoyed that.

 

[bigngreen]

The pool would work very well, the clean up may be another story! The best way I've found to get a good look at the base of a bullet is to shoot it into sand or dirt at extreme long range, the front get's a little road rash but you can measure the base and check the gas seal. Reducing the load will defeat your purpose so adding range is the best alternative, several barrels of water at ELR would be ideal but harder to execute.

 

[Edd]

I think you could use a heavy cardboard box that was about 2 ft square, a piece of plastic that was big enough to cover the inside of the box or a plastic bag that doesn't leak. Put the plastic in the box and fill it up with water. Then get as far away from it as your skill will allow.

 

[Canadian Bushman]

Well i stacked up about 2ft of closed cell foam on top of 1ft of folded carpet and shot a 215 with a tip full of dirt through it. I got the shovel and started digging. About 1ft down i found some small bits of lead ( i think ) and after 2ft more i found nothing. So it either exploded or went to china. So Rich you called that one!

I again stacked up all the carpet and foam but then set it on top of two 5 gallon buckets of water. This time i didnt clog the tip. Bullet went through all the foam and carpet blew up the first 5 gallon bucket and settled in the second.

Looks like im gonna do as bigngreen says and strech it out a bit. This load does about 1700 fps at 800yds so i may have to try to set some up this carpet and foam out on a hillside on top of some loose soil and see if i can catch one.

Edd, you and steel traps have a really good idea with shooting a water container but i gotta find something around here to hold a bunch of water first. Water will surely slow a bullet down, if i woulda clogged the second bullets tip i might of caught one.

 

[ohiohunter]

I think you could use a heavy cardboard box that was about 2 ft square, a piece of plastic that was big enough to cover the inside of the box or a plastic bag that doesn't leak. Put the plastic in the box and fill it up with water. Then get as far away from it as your skill will allow.

X2, this sound good, but depends on how many bullets you need for data. The box is going to be a mess in no time. Plus getting that much water to the target area may be an issue.

Know anyone w/ a swimming pool that doesn't mind possibly losing it to a bullet?

 

[MagnumManiac]

Dam hotshot, i guess you got all this figured out. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

I HAVE fired bullets into water, ballistic gel, wet clay and other forms of media, including wet newspaper in my bullet boxes. You CANNOT catch a bullet fired at normal velocities without damaging it, UNLESS you use a solid.
You CAN catch a bullet if you reduce the load.

As for the hotshot remark, there ARE people like myself who have far more knowledge than you and when you dismiss their experience you are only hurting your self.

Good luck.

 

[Canadian Bushman]

I HAVE fired bullets into water, ballistic gel, wet clay and other forms of media, including wet newspaper in my bullet boxes. You CANNOT catch a bullet fired at normal velocities without damaging it, UNLESS you use a solid.
You CAN catch a bullet if you reduce the load.

As for the hotshot remark, there ARE people like myself who have far more knowledge than you and when you dismiss their experience you are only hurting your self.

Good luck.

Im not dismissing your knowledge or experience, im dismissing your wonderful people skills and your sunny disposition.

 

[Varmint Hunter]

Here's how I caught a bullet (accidently) just last week.

I was trying out several loads with the Nosler 64gr bonded bullet in a custom .223 rifle. A load of 26.0gr of CFE223 in Lapua cases proved to be fairly accurate while producing the highest velocity of the loads tested.

I always have a few bowling pins hanging from some rope at the 300yds line so I decided to slap one of them with the little 64gr bullet. At the shot I saw the pin move but not very much. When I drove down range I noticed that the bullet struck the pin dead center with about 65% of the bullet exposed on the face of the pin. The pin actually caught that bullet like a catchers mitt. I took a needle nose plier and easily removed the bullet from the pin. The nose was flat but the bullet was intact.