.177 pellet ballistic gel penetration test

[nced]

"if you can get a HP to be accurate in your rifle, then they make sense, especially for heart/lung shots"
I suppose that matters depending on the power level of the gun, however at R9 power levels shooting round noses, various hollow points and wadcutters, I found that at 14ish fpe muzzle levels the plain Jane round nose giving two holes with one shot (one in and one out) was better for double lung hits.  LOL....I've had more than a couple squirrels take a 100+fpe hit through the ribs and still travel several feet to get into a tree hole so I really don't think that a hollowpoint through the ribs at maybe 8fpe would be any more effective.

I do have to say however that when I had my .20 cal R9 souped up to shoot Beeman Crow Magnum pellets at 17fpe they were reliable with hits to the vitals, however, when they missed the vitals they weren't as effective as a .177 dome that hit the vitals! LOL 

Anywhoo....the .20 CM pellet did work well with good hits, however to get a "good hit" past 25 yards was a "lottery shot" with the accuracy I got. Here are a couple pics of a mushroomed .20 CM pellet extracted from a squirrel when cleaning.........


LOL....the pics look good, however I really don't think it worked any better than a dome to the same place, certainly not good enough to overcome the poor accuracy past the 30 yard "zero distance"!

Still...after messing with .20, .22 and "trick pellets" from my R9 for a season I sold both the .20 & .22 barrel (the .22 was a R1 barrel that was chopped and choked for the R9) and reverted back to plain Jane dome pellets.

[lloyd-ss]

Here is a picture of another real life penetration test. On occasion, I have built furniture, and really like using wood that has a story to go with it. Years ago I was living near Christiansburg VA where an old night club was being torn down. The kind that used to be a house, and you had to knock on the door and were only let in if they knew you.  Come to find out, this place was framed in rough sawn American Chestnut. Actually, it was sawn after the Chestnut blight killed all the chestnuts and the worms got into them. I was able to salvage a lot of the framing lumber and made some decent pieces of furniture. Two items were a pair of 3-drawer bedside dressers. I remember catching one of the boards on the out-feed from the planer and thinking, darn, that nail just ruined the planer knives. But I looked at it a little closer and it was a lead bullet that had been cut in half by the planer. I don't know if the bullet was in the tree, or was from late one night at that night club. Anyway, it penetrated pretty good into that Chestnut, and is there at my bedside now.

[rsterne]

Could it be a Civil War remnant?.... 

Bob

[lloyd-ss]

Golly, I don't know Bob. It looked to be about a 32 cal solid lead bullet. The lumber would have been sawn in the early 1900's.

[Nuts4re]

Just had to say thank you for all the info in this thread.

I really dont care for .177 much "but".....I have 3 Hatsan 135's in .22, .25 and .30, so....... I just ordered one in .177 to have the whole set.

Doing research on pellet weight and velocities. Seems I need to stay above 10 grains and see what the Hatsan 135 .177 likes when it arrives.
Also have a 1988 Diana 52 in .177 and my chronograph arrived this week so hoping to see what the Old lady can still do FPS wise later this morning.
I saw the red warning about bumping an older thread, but really wanted to say thank you as much of this info is exactly what I was looking for and wanted those who participated to know their  hard work  and diligence was relevant and appreciated..
Apologies if resurrecting the thread is frowned upon.

[Mark Davis]

I'm glad for the resurrection.
Good info.