[Ferret]

Hmm... today was 'Ferret's experiment' time again.

After spending the morning taking some oaks down from the property I had a thought about what I could do with one of the rounds.

17" edge to edge, 20" tall. This sucker weighs a LOT.
Fun time methought.
The white thing on top is a 1lb bag of flour (in a ziplock bag and wrapped tightly in scotch tape), just so I could get a movie of it exploding. I put 3 rounds in that, then put two into the log itself.
Shot 4 made the oak round rock, shot 5 went straight through. Yeah... impressed me much!!! After checking the log afterwards, the balls hit dead centre, that means that number 5 went through 17" of newly cut oak!!! I am gonna have a go tomorrow at digging out ball number 4!

Check it out yourself!!!

Pietta 1860 Army (now thoroughly abused), 35gr Pyrodex P (nice boom), and a .451 round ball.
Shot from 25 yards.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/corinthian101/vidz/th_P1000507.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v699/corinthian101/vidz/?action=view&current=P1000507.flv)
Click on the image to make the vid play.

[Manyirons]

Wow! Movin pictures and everthin! Thanks Ferret!

[Ferret]

Yeah.... kewlio.
Looks like i may have even hit the flour bag on shot number 5. THROUGH the Oak round!:what:

[Derek]

IMPRESSIVE! Thankyou Ferret.

[sjohns]

cool

[Duncaninfrance]

Thanks for that Ferret. Problem is I couldn't find the popcorn stand before I sat down to watch it!!
Duncan

[Ferret]

Just thought...

Is this the best of "Black Powder / White Smoke"???

[Low Key]

COOL!! :D :D

I've gotta shoot some this weekend...it's been two weeks since I've had time to fire a shot. :(

[TexasRifleman]

it's been two weeks since I've had time to fire a shot

4 weeks here, and close to 4 months since I shot something that made smoke... I feel bad now.....

Very cool!

[HunterG]

:scrutiny:
Am I missing something? Are you saying that your 1860 army cap and ball pistol penetrated almost 1.5 feet of solid oak??? Well sorry Ferret, but I fear the elves have been hollowing out oak trees and filling them with styrafoam. I have fired 300 Weatherby handloads into very similar targets at point blank range, and not achieved complete penetration. True, they were light loads, only about 2800 ft/lbs@3000 fps with a 150 grain FMJ. . . . .lol. Nothing personal Ferret, but let's not turn this forum into a joke.

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

Don't reckon they mak'em like that any more pard'ner. How many ounces of powder did you say you had in that '60 chamber behind that there .44 ball?.....

[bigbadgun]

lolololololololol that was sooooooooooooo cooooool

[Jim K]

Hi, Ferret and HunterG,

Ferret, I have to admit that that amount of penetration seems unlikely. Can you section the oak chunk and take a pic of the results? That penetration in solid oak is the same as for a .30-'06 at 200 yards, when the bullet has achieved its best stability. For a percussion revolver it is really incredible.

HunterG, at very close range (under about 50+ yards) a rifle bullet will not achieve its best penetration since the bullet has not had a chance to stabilize so it will tumble. That is why Army penetration tests were usually conducted at 100-200 yards.

Jim

[dwave]

You all know that this thread is old and that Ferret hasn't logged on in over 6 months? I don't think you are going to get any answers.

[Jim K]

Thanks, I failed to notice that. I guess he is still measuring penetration of a .44 Army in solid oak.

Jim

[Im283]

I don't really know ballistics but comon sense is telling me that a .451 ball is not making it through 17 inches of oak.

and I have real doubt about two shots going in the exact same spot. not just off a bit but exactly the same spot.

Doesn't add up for me.

But just the same it does fire me up to go shooting. Maybe Friday if I get off early enough. If not, Saturday for sure. I will try my own oak log test.

[dwave]

Hey Jim, I figured that you didn't notice. Myself, I don't figure that it would be able to go through, I have a wood fence post made out of Locust Wood that the round balls will flatten themselves out when they hit it.

[K.A.T.]

Sir, I mean you no harm.

I don't know what kind of Oaks you have where you live, but here is what happened when I was shooting a stick of Whiteoak. I was useing the end of a stick of Whiteoak to hang a target on. This tree was 130 years old and 62" across, so the end of a stick made a good place to hang a target.

I shoot targets hanging on this piece of wood probably 250 times, with 4 different cap and ball pistols. My Colt Navy 36 cal. would barely stick in the wood, about half of the shots bounced back toward me 10 to 15 yds. from the target, I was 25yds. away. Didn't take many of those to figure out this was not a good idea. Tried the 44's, 1860 Army, Rem. 1858 with 30 grns. of powder. The balls would be about 1/4 of inch into the wood, most of them could be picked out with a knife blade.

After all the wood was gone I bought a Colt Walker and tried it out on the stump with 60 grns. It made the bark fly, you could still see the balls stuck in the wood.

After all this I finally decided that shooting trees or firewood with cap&ball pistols is not very safe. The lead balls do bounce back at you with small charges. It will also happen with one ball on top of another.

My advice, find another target and be safe.;)

[Marlin 45 carbine]

I'll betcha if you had made a 'hardtack' out of that bag of flour that derned ball would have bounced back and whacked you real good!:neener:

[Im283]

K.A.T. if your comments were aimed (pun intended :) ) at me I will keep your warning in mind. I do not recall balls bouncing off wood before though. My curiosity is up now. I'll make sure I stand back enough just in case.

While I doubt it can go through a wood log I would have thought it might penetrate a little bit anyway.

[Pulp]

I've shot myself twice with bounce back round balls. One hit me in the thumb of my shooting hand, the other in my chest. Neither left a bruise, but like KAT, I've since found better things to shoot at.

[bigbadgun]

After looking at the movie closly for the 3rd time if you take a close look at the last shot it looks as if the ball passed under the cardboard and ontop of the log. I like the floor bag shooting nice effect.

[Misfire99]

After looking at the movie closly for the 3rd time if you take a close look at the last shot it looks as if the ball passed under the cardboard and ontop of the log. I like the floor bag shooting nice effect.

I checked out if the fifth shot went under the cardboard or through the round. It's very hard to tell but it does look as if the ball hit the flour bag that is about six inches or so below the cardboard. Now it could have gone under the cardboard and then hit something and bounced back to hit the flour bag I just can't tell. It does seem unlikely that a 44 ball would travel through 17 inches of oak. But if there was a defect in the wood, such as a large crack that ran all the way through, then it might have happened but not through the solid oak itself.

[pohill]

Slow the movie clip down, and look to the far right of the log, at the grassy knoll...is that an image of a second shooter?

[Shawnee]

WOW ! :what:

I think you're right, pohill - and he's wearing the BLOODY GLOVE !!! :eek:


:cool:

[bigbadgun]

So there is a second shooter.YUP down and to the right , down and to the right.

[JJBlanche]

Perhaps the original poster was mistaken (I hate telling someone flat out they're wrong), but like others I just can't swallow this. Just the other day a few friends and I were shooting at a recently cut oak stump that was maybe 10" in diameter, probably less. We had a Beretta 92, 9mm FMJ; a Kimber 1911, .45 FMJ; and a Kel Tek, .380 FMJ. We were shooting from between 7 and 25 yards. Much to my surprise, not a single round came even close to penetrating, and we're talking a good 2 hours of shooting (and, yes, we were hitting it).

Although I know the old cap and balls have merit, I don't think anyone would claim that they out-penetrate a 9mm FMJ. In fact, I think one of their best aspects is that they dump energy into their target quick, and lack the [over]penetration of modern FMJ cartridges.

...I just don't think there is any way that a .44 soft led ball going at around 800 FPS can penetrate nearly double what a .355 jacketed bullet at 1200 FPS can do.

[DuncanSA]

Lets be kind to Ferret and simply say that we feel its very unlikely that a round ball from an 1860 Army would penetrate 17" of solid oak.

[Macmac]

Ain't no way the round ball passed that much oak... I understand the thread is dated.. but still thar's no way he did what he said and I don't care what he says.

However it is possible with light loads to shoot yourself on a rickotche' (sp), if you shoot an object hard enough that the ball won't at least go into it some.

As to the log even being oak, not by the look of the bark it isn't. Not on my system anyway. I like the white cedars in moss though..

I don't think you guys see the 2nd shooter, I think that is D B Cooper. Isn't that money laying around?

For you cold weather dwellers.. If you really want to get bummed out, freeze solid a joint compound bucket full of water, let it freeze rock solid and shoot that.. Just don't expect much with a cap and ball pistol..

Maybe a stoked Walker might stand some chance...

[scrat]

wow cool video

[mobayjd]

I have often shot into and thru oak logs of that size with my colt pocket .31 also I have shot quail and dove on the wing, damn fine little gun!

[Pancho]

My backstop is an oak log 4' in diameter and 15" thick and I've never had a muzzleloading rifle round go all the way through. There is a soft spot in the center that I shot a powerbelt through and continued on 50 yds and went clear through a 4" thick green white ash. I've got the slab stood upright so I shoot into the endgrain. I figure once it rots away I'll be able to retreive most on my lead.

[sundance44s]

My black powder 45/70 loads shoot through rail road ties ....405 gr lead bullet over 65 grs of goex 3f . I`ve heard of the 1858 Remmie putting a round ball through 7 pine boards ...I thought that was impresive enough . Oak ,..hummm tough as steel around these parts .

[JJBlanche]

sundance: I've always wondered about the recoil on those heavy 45-70's...how is it?

[sundance44s]

JJ I never feel the recoil from it in a hunting scenerio ...But Bench shooting it with the crescent shaped butt ..puts tears in my eyes .

[mnw42]

I've shot into the end of a log with my .45 from about 20 yds. and they bounced back at me. The 230gr ball just made a little dimple in the log.

[Steve499]

I shot some .45 LC rounds at the butt end of a maple log some time back. I wondered what kind of penetration they were doing so I cut one out on my bandsaw. They were 250 grain pure lead bullets on top of either 33 or 35 grains of 3f Swiss. They fell considerably short of 17 inches.

Several years ago, I shot through an oak tree about the size of the stump shown at the beginning of the thread. I had glommed on to some WWII era 30-06 black tipped armor piercing stuff which I was shooting just to empty the cases for reloading. I'm not sure when they started going completely through but after 5 or 6 shots the back of the tree was well splintered.

[Jamie C.]

Y'know, the U.S.S. Constitution earned the nickname "Old Ironsides" for bouncing British cannon balls off her oak-planked hull, way back in 1812...

Now given that those planks were only 7 inches thick, I think I'd feel fairly safe hiding behind 17 inches of seasoned oak, if someone were shooting at me with any BP firearm.

Green or dry rotted oak I'm not so sure about... It can be fairly soft in the right (wrong) condition.


J.C.