Small Rifle help

[DieselPower]

Just another thought.... If the range is inside 100 yards or so, a carbine in .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum might be a good choice for this size game. Marlin, Winchester and Ruger make lever actions using these cartridges. Because of the large caliber, the energy is dissipated quickly into whatever it hits and over-penetration is not too great an issue.

Many years ago, my wife took a few deer with a Marlin 1894 carbine in .357 Mag. -- one of them with a lightly loaded cartridge rather than the heavy handloads just for the carbine. That shot was lethal but hit lower than expected, and the deer had to be tracked about 100 yards. Due to the slow moving bullet and the lighting, she still remarks on seeing the bullet rise and fall as she watched through the riflescope.

Hmm, you know you bring up a good point, or more to the point type of weapon. A carbine. I own 6 WW2 vintage M1 Carbines and they didn't even cross my mind. A .30 caliber carbine would be perfect for those pesky little critters and they make modern .30 M1 carbine rifles. I did some ballistic testing with handloads a couple of months ago with different bullets to test penetration. The following pic's are the results. The Siera #2020 125 Gr. HP bullet, Speer #1835 110 Gr. HP and the Hornady #31000 90 Gr. XTP/HP would make excellent rounds for what your hunting. The Hornady XTP would probably be best as it showed the lowest level of penetration indicating it exerted all of it's energy and would most likely not exit a water rat. The last picture is a .357 Magnum fired out of a carbine rifle. This would also make a excellent pest control load.

.357 Magnum fired out of a carbine rifle

 

[gsganzer]

Dieselpower,
That's some great first hand research. I did some similar tests when working up some handloads for my 9mm about a dozen years ago. I used wet newspaper as the test media. One bullet that always performed well in my tests was the remington golden saber. In fact, I had also worked up loads for that bullet in a .380, 9mm and 40 cal. They always expanded as advertised.

I use the XTP in a 44 mag lever action for hogs and close range deer. It's also an impressive bullet.

 

[thingy]

Wet newspaper,,whats the deal there,,the bullit surly don't expand as soon as it hits wet news paper,,does it?,,,,course guess if you had enough sheets? Fill a dummy in,,,thingy

 

[DieselPower]

News papers taped into 12 inch stacks and then soaked in water for 24 hours. Line up 4 or 5 stacks of the saturated paper (more for more powerful loads) at the backstop and fire into them from different ranges. It's a poor mans ballistic gelatin. It works though. I test everything from my rimfire rounds all the way up to my 50 BMG rounds in it and it works great. It is a excellent way to see how a bullet performs (expanssion and penetration) and how different charge weight's effect it's performance. When I am testing a round as a self defense round I also lay old denim pants and shirt material across the front of the pile. This simulates penetrating clothing. You might be suprised how effectively clothing can prevent some hollow point bullets from opening up.

Edited to add: Here's a example of how clothing can effect bullet performance. Notice the rounds fired through clothing penetrate further but do not expand as well. This is one reason to test bullets yourself. Just because a bullet expands when fired into gelatin does not mean it will in real life when fired through something.

 

[thingy]

This is indeed educational,,,,,your saving the bullit that way and everything,,,,,,would me shooting,[with that 7mm mag],into a filled milk jug show me anything? Got to thinking about my pumpkin idea,,most of them are hollow on inside,,so that probably wouldn't show anything,,,,,how about a watermellon,,,shame I know to waste two three of those,,,but believe I could sell it,,in kinda a water mellon busting eating thing,,[to my 9 year old],,reason I'm asking is I wanta know,,plus,our newspaper is only about 4 pages,,once a week,,,,thingy

 

[DieselPower]

Fruit and vegtables don't work to good. They just tend to explode. Don't get me wrong though, they are fun to shoot at. Same goes for water jug's, they explode (and trust me from personal experience, you don't want to fire a handgun into a water jug at close range). The tight newspaper packs work very well. They must be saturated with water. Dry newspaper does not allow the bullet to expand very well. The wet packs are about as close as you can get to firing into real flesh. Granted there are no bones, tendons and such but it is a good simulation. I would also think it impossible to find a bullet after being fired into mellons or water jug's. They are very easy to find in wet packs and it also makes it very easy to measure penetration.

 

[shvl73]

Fruit and vegtables don't work to good. They just tend to explode. Don't get me wrong though, they are fun to shoot at.

So are 14oz propane cylinders with small exploding targets adheared to them when shot at with 22LR.
From what I've been told anyway.

 

[EddieWalker]

All a bullet remaining in the animal means is that the bullet didn't have enough power to plow all the way through. Energy is a poor way to determine stopping or killing power. Caliber, bullet weight & shape probably have as much or more effect than kinetic energy once velocity is high enough to break skin.

Example:
.223 Remington, 55gr @ 3100fps = 1172 ft-lb energy
.45 Long Colt, 255gr @ 860fps = 418 ft-lb energy

.223 is virtually guaranteed to stay inside an elk whereas the .45 LC has a very good chance of going clear through.

Which do you want to use?

When I first read this, I thought you were making a joke. Not one thing you've said is true or even close to being accurate. Is this a joke?

Eddie

 

[DieselPower]

Here's a good clip on firing into water jug's. You will see what I mean about getting wet. This is a clip showing the 460 Rowland conversion kit in a M1911 .45 ACP.

 

[thingy]

I wasn't wanting to save the bullit,,was wanting to know if it would tell me which one had the biggest exit hole,,,,something small like a 22 yeah,,but don't know if I'd learn a thing or not with the 7mm mag?? well,,just have to try it and see,,,,,,propane bottles with 22,,,,will they blow up like with a fire or what,,never shot one,,yet,,[cost to much],,,,but if it make a big explosion or something,,could spluge,,,thingy