Brass Fetcher Ballistic Testing

Ballistic Art 2011

Know before you go...

Oleg invited us down again to visit/shoot ballistic gelatin blocks and make some great photographs in the process.  This year, the company representatives present for the shoot brought some interesting guns, to include a .338 Lapua bolt action rifle, a .458 SOCOM AR-15 and a direct impingement .45ACP AR-15.

For more of these photos and the great work of Oleg Volk, please visit http://www.olegvolk.net/

Here we see a 9x19mm Speer Gold Dot jacketed hollowpoint.  Gelatin is very ‘springy’ like muscle tissue, so most JHPs will be turned sideways at the end of their penetration track.  Note the cracks in the gelatin made by the Gold Dot while it was traveling face-forward, indicating that the bullet was creating the maximum hole diameter possible for its entire trip through the medium.

Opposite view of the above Gold Dot.

.22 Magnum 30gr ballistic tip from a handgun.  As seen with the 5.7x28mm cartridge, it is technically feasible to propel a lightweight 22 caliber bullet to the neighborhood of 2000 ft/sec from a handgun.  It is largely a matter of there being a significant market for this in the ammunition industry.  Brass Fetcher.com is focused on increasing the lethality of ammunition and guns available to civilians for self-defense, but we can’t do this by ourselves.  If you have a performance need for your ammunition, please call and send emails detailing your situation to the ammunition companies—they can only change their R&D efforts to match the market they can sell to.   

.338 Lapua Magnum.  This was a 300gr Sierra Matchking OTM bullet fired at 50m distance from the gelatin block.  Rare is the bullet that throws chunks of gelatin block out of the bullet entrance hole … but this load did it.  Please note the very short neck length (penetration before the bullet starts to tumble) … the actual neck length may have been longer, but this part of the gelatin block was damaged when the bullet yawed and fragmented.  Total penetration was in the neighborhood of 24” for this shot.

Fragments from the .338 Lapua shot.  The wounding mechanism of the Sierra Matchking bullet is usually a combination of expansion and fragmentation.  Being an open tip match (OTM) bullet is a consequence of the construction method used, called reverse draw jacketing.  In any event, this bullet is an outstanding choice for self-defense from .223REM on up.

International exposure!  While we think the FBI minimum penetration depth of 12.0” in 10% ballistic gelatin is a good guide, we do not hesitate to recommend bullets that penetrate to shallower depths but that yield high performance in other areas.

The .458 SOCOM cartridge is adaptable to existing 5.56x45mm systems and offers substantially higher initial kinetic energy and caliber.

As illustrated in the above photograph!