Recovering Bullets

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  • Last Post 03 February 2018
nosee posted this 31 January 2018



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nosee posted this 31 January 2018

I wanted to recover some fired cast lead bullets, made a water trap, all the gas checks came off. I got lots of advice, decided it must be cooling that caused it. Fired these into sand trap, .227 bullet sized .225 mushroomed to.459, lyman 2, 1490 fps,100 yds.penitration 10 in. no signs of feathers on gas check, TERMINAL!

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OU812 posted this 31 January 2018

Cooling, feathers, terminal? WTF   What brand gas check is that? Gator or Hornady 

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OU812 posted this 31 January 2018

Looks like soft alloy. Does gas check grip soft alloy better? Try that test on harder linotype

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nosee posted this 31 January 2018

Hornady

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nosee posted this 31 January 2018

Lyman 2, should be 15 bhn. Hornady says gas checks are to be seated at .224, mine are .225, but it worked in sand not water. I don,t know,but that is how it turned out for me.

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GP Idaho posted this 31 January 2018

That expansion looks great. I don't see that you need to change a thing. Gp

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nosee posted this 01 February 2018

Yes,expansion is fine, Thank you. However I want better accuracy. I shot today, upped velocity from 1490 in five steps to 1900, still a 1.200 five shot group at 100. Not good enough, a Tikka .223, 1in 8 should do better. I,am going to move up to 25 yds!

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Bud Hyett posted this 02 February 2018

Four decades ago, Ed Doonan and I made several bullet recovery traps until we were successful. Out desire was to track bullet skidding as the velocity increased. To our surprise, we were able to see the bullet seating and transition to barrel alignment marks when fired. 

Success came with an eight foot long box filled with oiled sawdust. This looked like a coffin for a python folded over.

  • Ed was a carpenter, we had an endless supply of sawdust
  • Used motor oil to the point of being moist, not dripping wet
  • Hint: Wax paper inserts every foot to track the path of the bullet so you did not dig all the way to the end
  • Foam rubber inserts in the first foot, like a box fish trap, to hold the sawdust
  • We were able to see the full engraving on cast bullets and full factory hunting loads at all velocities
  • Varmint bullets at full velocity blew up, no usable results
  • The only cartridges that went the full eight foot were .45-70 500 grain government bullets at arsenal velocity and National Match .30-'06, they dented the back plate.

Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest

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45 2.1 posted this 03 February 2018

Four decades ago, Ed Doonan and I made several bullet recovery traps until we were successful. Out desire was to track bullet skidding as the velocity increased. To our surprise, we were able to see the bullet seating and transition to barrel alignment marks when fired. 

Success came with an eight foot long box filled with oiled sawdust.

  • Ed was a carpenter, we had an endless supply of sawdust
  • Used motor oil to the point of being moist, not dripping wet
  • Hint: Wax paper inserts every foot to track the path of the bullet so you did not dig all the way to the end
  • Foam rubber inserts in the first foot, like a box fish trap, to hold the sawdust
  • We were able to see the full engraving on cast bullets and full factory hunting loads at all velocities
  • Varmint bullets at full velocity blew up, no usable results
  • The only cartridges that went the full eight foot were .45-70 500 grain government bullets at arsenal velocity and National Match .30-'06, they dented the back plate.

Yep, BTDT.... oiled sawdust was outlined in Mann's book over a century ago... works well. Another thing that works is a pit of powdered white clay dust shot at very long range. You get to see what the bullet looked like after it left the muzzle.

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