[arcticap]

This picture laden article also has a lot of relevance to the lethal performance of black powder revolvers.
There's penetration but no round ball expansion when the .44 balls pass through water jugs.

Enjoy! :)

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu66.htm

[Acorn Mush]

Forty grains of powder is one Hell of a load for a derringer!:what:
I have one identical to the one used in that test. It will easily put a ball through a piece of 1-1/8" plywood at a range of four feet. Don't know how that equates to water however.

Wonder why the fellow didn't try a thirty-grain load in the Kentucky pistol? It would have been interesting to learn how many water jugs the ball would penetrate.

[Schofield3]

Thanks for the post!

[Tomahawk674]

Some people in this forum have the ability to run a test with a silimar setup. We need to know water gallon penetration abilities of .36 navies, .44 armies, .44 remington, walkers, etc.

[zimmerstutzen]

milk jugs, anitfreeze style jugs, bleach jugs? I suppose I could line uparound 30 milk jugs in a row to shoot at. What range? 15 ft? What temperaturre water, would my hard well water be ok, or do you want nice soft water? If I have to buy pure distilled water, forget it. Since the viscosity of water decreases with temperature, should it be at exactly 33 degrees?

[Tomahawk674]

I'd be happy with any water at any temperature :D

But it's be nice to try different charges in different calibers.

[batjka]

I actually emailed Don from The Box O'Truth asking them to repeat the test using C&B revolvers. The answer was that he doesn't have access to any, but he's sure the results will match the posted ones.

However, I have to disagree. First of all, he was using a patched ball of .447 diameter weighing 128 gr. In .44s we are using .454 ball weighing 141 gr. Heavier ball - more penetration. Plus, with a patched ball gases escape around the ball, thus the velocity is lower.

In addition, I would like to see 200gr conicals tested. I'm sure they will way outperform the .128 gr. ball.

[sundance44s]

The longer barrel models will do much better ......even with a revolver .
The long barrel single shot pistols would be at the top of the list though because they would not loose any power from the cylinder gap the revolver has .
I have done these type test useing wet phone books instead of water jugs ...it can be interesting to say the least .

[arcticap]

Here's a 200 grain .44 special gel test bullet fired at a velocity of 905 FPS.
It's a Gold Dot hollowpoint but there may be some similarity with a larger capacity C&B revolver shooting a 190 grain Ballet or other conical.

http://www.brassfetcher.com/CCI%20Blazer%20200%20grain%20Gold%20Dot%20hollowpoint.html

They list more gel test pictures for other calibers including .38 Specials and various .45's.

[batjka]

The one you listed is .44 Special. We're talking about .44 Cap and Ball. Two different animals.

As far as the single shots go, they lose more power around the ball. That patch doesn't seal the bore completely and the gases escape. I think the cylinder gap would lose less power than a single shot.

The pistols above were tested with regular 1 gallon water jugs. I'm sure someone here can do a tests on 1858 Remington using a similar set-up.

[sundance44s]

I use to have a pic of a cap & revolver being fired at nite ...if you could see it you can tell a revolver looses more than a single shot pistol ...maybe someone else has the pic I`m refering to , it was posted on here once or twice .

[batjka]

I have seen that picture. It looks spectacular. However, we don't really know how much power is lost through the cylinder gap as opposed to the loss around the patched ball.
A chronograph would be helpful in this situation. Shoot the same ball through a single shot and the revolver and measure velocity. That would be a real proof.

[arcticap]

The one you listed is .44 Special. We're talking about .44 Cap and Ball. Two different animals.

Yes, they are different as I noted. But please read this Dixie Gun Works review by mec, THR's own author in residence which shows that the Ruger Old Army may be even more powerful than a .44 Special when firing .457 Buffalo Ballets at a velocity of 1066 FPS with the 40 grain volume equivalent of 777.
And these 190 grain Buffalo Ballets are not only moving faster than the 200 grain .44 Specials in the gel test that was listed, but they are pure lead conicals which are not jacketed. And turning these Ballets into hollow points would be an easy task.
I believe that these Ballets do provide a sound basis for comparing them to .44 Specials. :)

http://www.dixiegunworks.com/images/BT1201.JPG

This is a 190 grain swaged bullet with cupped base and a hatch-mark bullet retention pattern on the bearing surface. They are coated with some sort of lubricant- probably moly. The nose is rounded like a ball to gain optimum fit to loading rams the base is rebated to allow the bullets to seat in the chambers. Seating is in a straight line with no more distortion than desirable and the same for all bullets.

This one is sized .457 and should work in Ubert Chambers-Possibly a bit large for pietta but will likely work in those too. I ordered them for the Ruger Old Army- a revolver set up around .457" balls and bullets. They loaded in a straight line and the optimum load provided a five shot group of 1.8" at 60 feet. Best consistency among loads tested was identical volume of Hodgdon's H777 to 40 grains of black powder.
Chronographed velocity/ calculated energy was:

40Gr./Vol. H 777 1066 fps 51fps spread 479ft/lbs

Other combinations provided good accuracy but larger extreme spreads. These bullets in both this diameter and 36 are as accurate or almost as accurate as round ball and provide optimum downrange energy

http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_reviews_info.php?products_id=3631&reviews_id=566

[batjka]

This data sounds awfully powerful. If true, these guns ARE very impressive.

I still think that even a .454 ball backed by 35gr of Pyrodex P is a formidable load. A 200gr conical with 30gr of Pyrodex P should be even more effective.

So, anyone up for testing their .44 C&Bs through water jugs?

[Voodoochile]

I'll get the kids to drink more milk & have to get back to you on that one.

I've tested my .44 caliber Pietta NMA w/ 5.5" barrel at a 2' X 2' X 2' box filled with wet newsprint & magazines & the 220gr. Lee Conical would penetrate an average of 9" from 15 yards, this was with my normal load of 30gr. FFFG Goex.

[Tomahawk674]

I've just watched some vids on youtube with a guy using gallon jugs filled with wet newspaper. His results are very close to the gelatin results posted by the manufacturer:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tnoutdoors9#g/c/BDB9A9740F47C67A

[trickshot]

It appears to me at the end of the test, he is implying that a 38 Special is a more lethal weapon. And to say that a certain gun is more lethal because the bullet penetrates deeper when shot into water, is as flawed as comparing ft-lbs of energy. These kind of tests are interesting, fun to see, and even more fun to do; but what do they really prove?

Elmer Keith said that the Colt Navy was better at killing both man and beast than the 38 Special. He based his opinion on his personal experience shooting a lot of wild animals, and what veterans of the civil war and cowboys of the old west taught him.

Still, I would like to see someone conduct penetration tests with all the different C&B revolvers, from the pocket pistols to the Walker. Also with some muzzleloading pistols, from 36 caliber on up. That would be really cool. Maybe wet phone books would be a more realistic medium than water.

[batjka]

He's also shooting 150gr projectile out of .38 Special and compares it to 128gr projectile out of a percussion pistol. That's a 22gr difference. Which equals more penetration. A comparison to a 141gr ball would have been a more fair one. And even there there's a 9gr difference.

I think the test is flawed even due to the differences in projectile weight.

The derringer test with 30gr of FFFG must have been flawed as well. It only penetrated 1 jug of water, when a 40gr of FFFG penetrated 4 jugs. Something went wrong there. Maybe he didn't get full ignition. Maybe there was oil in the barrel or the nipple.

I don't know what load John Wilkes Booth was hooting, but it sure did Lincoln in. According to reports, the ball was lodged 6" into Lincoln't skull.

[arcticap]

A comparison to a 141gr ball would have been a more fair one. And even there there's a 9gr difference.

But even having equal weights there would be the difference in diameter between the .357 bullet and ~.447 round ball as it approximately measures after exiting the barrel, and the .357 would have the advantage of a better sectional density.


The derringer test with 30gr of FFFG must have been flawed as well. It only penetrated 1 jug of water, when a 40gr of FFFG penetrated 4 jugs. Something went wrong there. Maybe he didn't get full ignition. Maybe there was oil in the barrel or the nipple.

I don't think that the test was flawed at all. The results are just descriptive of the performance curve from the very short derringer barrel. And I trust that each of the guns were performing properly mostly because of the reputation of the tester.

Plus Booth fired an unknown powder charge at point blank range which entered Lincoln's skull right behind his ear. Maybe penetrating 6 inches of Lincoln's skull really is equivalent to a similar round ball penetrating 3+ gallon jugs of water as was illustrated in the test.