Berry's 124gr HHP 9mm Bullet Gel Test

[USBP379]

I've seen a number of posts related to the new Berry's HHP line of bullets but, up until now, haven't seen anyone firing these into gel.

I've seen a few threads where these bullets have been fired into water jugs or some other test material so I thought I'd try a bullet in 10% gel from Clear Ballistics. While it is true that this synthetic gel isn't a direct match for true ballistic gel it likely is a better representative than water, wet phone books, sand, etc.

Anyway, this is the 124gr loaded with a +P charge of Ramshot Silhouette. Seated length of 1.145" with a Federal primer. Chrono'ed average from 10ft is right at 1,150fps from a SIG P320 Carry.

I only loaded six of these. Five were used for chrono with last one being fired into the gel.

Here are some photos of the bullet. Penetration was just at 10" and the bullet appears to have expanded within the first 1.5" of gel. The one missing petal broke off at the 2" mark.











Of course I forgot to bring my little battery operated scale to the range. But I'll get a retained weight this evening.

Overall I am pleased and impressed with the HHP. More experimentation is in order. I'm also eager to try the 147gr loaded up to 1,000fps or so.

Thanks for reading!

 

[kcofohio]

USBP379, thanks for sharing your fIndings! I have been curious of how those bullets do.

I chrony'd some using HS-6 at about 1130 fps.

Your results look good. Again, thank you!

 

[USBP379]

Really pretty surprising performance from an inexpensive bullet.

I'm curious to see how the 147's work at about 1,000 fps.

 

[USBP379]

For comparison here is the RMR 124gr.





Penetration was 16+ inches but expansion is .550" at the widest point. Fired at about the same M.V.

 

[Dudedog]

Thanks for the pics.
How a bout a clear gel thread telling us how you like it? Easy to use? etc
Have thought buying some.

 

[Mr.Revolverguy]

what was the penetration depth in the Gel by Berry's?

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Thank you for the report.

One thing, you said you made 6 rounds and used 5 for the chronograph and 1 for the gel. You could have set up the chronograph in front of the gel and sent them all into the gel while recording the velocity of each.

It looks like that bullet performed well, thanks again.

 

[Phlier]

what was the penetration depth in the Gel by Berry's?

Penetration was just at 10"

Was looking at buying some of those the other day, but hadn't found any test information on them. Thanks for the review.

 

[Mr.Revolverguy]

Reading is fundamental LOL, how did I just read past that in the original post LOL.

 

[USBP379]

Thank you for the report.

One thing, you said you made 6 rounds and used 5 for the chronograph and 1 for the gel. You could have set up the chronograph in front of the gel and sent them all into the gel while recording the velocity of each.

It looks like that bullet performed well, thanks again.

Indeed and as I learn how well the gel holds up from multiple rounds I'll adjust accordingly.

I have a handful of the 147's loaded up with a stiff charge of Blue Dot and another handful of the 124's loaded with Silhouette. I also scored two pairs of Levi's jeans at the local thrift store.

Hopefully I'll get a few rounds fired through denim tomorrow or Tuesday.

 

[USBP379]

Thanks for the pics.
How a bout a clear gel thread telling us how you like it? Easy to use? etc
Have thought buying some.

I might do up a thread later on the gel.

Previously I've only done stuff like shooting into gallon milk jugs and stuff like that. That's certainly the cheaper way to go.

I'll post up some stuff later once I see how much work it is to melt and re-mold, etc.

 

[Artofgolf]

Thanks for the HHP report & great pics, USBP379. Looks like you've had better expansion results than I've seen in previous tests.

 

[jojo4711]

Those are some good results as far as expansion, but im not crazy about only 10" of penetration. Wish they were at the "magic" 12" depth lol.

 

[USBP379]

Those are some good results as far as expansion, but im not crazy about only 10" of penetration. Wish they were at the "magic" 12" depth lol.

We'll see what happens when I back the powder charge down to standard pressure levels.

 

[USBP379]

So I shot a couple of the 147's through gel with some interesting results.
First off, I don't have a Clear Ballistics mold so I used a hard plastic tub that's about 14.5" long. It is roughly the same cubic area but shorter and wider than the Clear Ballistics block.
The plastic seemed to work well as a mold. I kept the heat at 225° just to be safe. This makes for a long process. Cook and melt time is about 6 hours at the lower temp. Add cool down time and it is an all day affair.

Anyways, the 147's were loaded with 5.8 grains of Alliant Blue Dot which is their listed load for the 147 GDHP and each round was fired with chronograph sky screens in front of the block.
First shot with four layers of genuine Levi's denim was just under 1,000 fps and was a complete pass through. Second shot also under 1k fps and another pass through.
Third shot was into bare gel without a barrier. Penetration was just under 12" with beautiful expansion and no loss of material. Again velocity was just under a Grand.

After the pass through with the 147's I next tried one of the 124's loaded with 5.7 grains of Silhouette. Chrono for these loads is 1,050 fps. One shot with denim barrier was a pass through. The second shot with no barrier penetrated about 9" and the bullet broke apart. This surprised me given my +P load was about 90fps faster.

The gel block is melting now and I'll hopefully be able to try again tomorrow. I'm going to try to make another smaller block to place behind to catch the bullets after they penetrate the denim.

Here are a few photos. From looking at the cavities left by the 147's it appears that they're mushrooming nicely and I noticed no detached petals, etc. The permanent cavities are difficult to photo clearly.


Here's the biggest swath left by one of the 147's on the way through the gel. Both pass through bullets left much larger cavities in the gel than the non-denim shots.

 

[USBP379]

Again, none of the bullets fired with the denim barrier were recovered but here is the 147 fired into bare gel.

 

[USBP379]

The bare gel 147's expansion.

 

[USBP379]

And here's the 124 HHP after recovery. Not nearly as impressive as the last time....

 

[vaalpens]

Thanks for posting your test results and the great pictures.

I only have water jugs to test against, and the HHP's definitely did not hold up with 357sig velocities in water jugs. I have tested a few other bullets also, and the trend I see is that the quality bullets will at least show now jacket separation when testing using water jugs. The bullet will also retain most of the weight and land up in the third jug.

Based on your testing it seems that test conditions and velocity must be perfect for the HHP to perform as advertised.

 

[USBP379]

The 124 HHP that broke apart at standard pressure was probably (hopefully) a fluke. I'll shoot a couple more once the block has been reformed both with and without the denim barrier.

I'm very interested to see what the de

Thanks for posting your test results and the great pictures.

I only have water jugs to test against, and the HHP's definitely did not hold up with 357sig velocities in water jugs. I have tested a few other bullets also, and the trend I see is that the quality bullets will at least show now jacket separation when testing using water jugs. The bullet will also retain most of the weight and land up in the third jug.

Based on your testing it seems that test conditions and velocity must be perfect for the HHP to perform as advertised.

Not too surprised that the bullets didn't hold up to .357 SIG velocities since the Berry's website shows a recommended MV of 1,100-ish feet per second, depending on bullet weight.

I'm curious to know what Berry plans to do with the HHP line. They seem to be on to something with the general idea and, with some product development, could have a very nice bullet here.

Anyway, the block(s) have been out of the oven for about ten hours and are ready to shoot. I'll try the denim tests again this morning and see if I can't recover a couple bullets. Fingers crossed.

 

[USBP379]

Test three is equally disappointing.

Today I shot a 124gr Speer Gold Dot loaded with 6.0gr of Silhouette alongside an HHP loaded with the same powder charge. Chrono shows 1,140's for this combo. Both bullets were fired into two blocks laid end to end yielding nearly 30" of gel. Four layers of denim was placed in front.

In both cases, the bullets passed through the entire thickness.

Also another attempt was made with yesterday's 147gr HHP over 5.8gr of Blue Dot. This bullet also went through the entire thickness and was lost in the backstop.

So now that I'm digging into the block to begin the breakup and melt process I find that the core is still fairly warm inside. Could enough residual heat from the over be effecting the block(s) to the point that the material is too soft for reliable testing? The blocks aren't hot, per se, but the temperature inside the centers is quite a bit warmer to the touch than the exterior surfaces.

Tonight I will try to put the melted blocks in the refrigerator and see what that does. One way or the other I'm determined to recover one of these bullets after hitting denim!

 

[USBP379]

Before I broke everything down on the range and tore too far into the blocks I figured I'd try a few non-denim shots. This would indicate that gel core temps don't have too much impact on penetration nor expansion.

My Speer Gold Dot load penetrated the 15" block and was found just barely stuck in the second block. I pulled it out easily with fingers.

The 147 HHP with Blue Dot penetrated 12" and expanded perfectly.

The 124 HHP with 6.0 of Silhouette went 9" with violent expansion but didn't break apart like the bullet from yesterday.

Yesterday's bare gel bullets are on the left and today's are on the right. The Gold Dot is in the middle.

 

[wally]

I'm curious to know what Berry plans to do with the HHP line. They seem to be on to something with the general idea

IMHO it'd be nice to have an inexpensive HP that performs decently. Years ago I scored a GI ammo can full of .45ACP 185gr JHP for a price barely above FMJ. I had no plans for using reloads for Self defense, YMMV, but we sure had a lot of fun exploding water filled jugs and cans with them -- way more visual effect than FMJ or hardcast bullets. Was a sad day when we'd used up the last of them.

 

[vaalpens]

IMHO it'd be nice to have an inexpensive HP that performs decently. Years ago I scored a GI ammo can full of .45ACP 185gr JHP for a price barely above FMJ. I had no plans for using reloads for Self defense, YMMV, but we sure had a lot of fun exploding water filled jugs and cans with them -- way more visual effect than FMJ or hardcast bullets. Was a sad day when we'd used up the last of them.

The inexpensive expanding JHP's are great for that. I use the RMR 124gr expanding JHP's in 357sig. They are accurate and are great for hitting water jugs and cans. Currently they go for $63 per 500, and $116 per 1k.

 

[USBP379]

It would appear that, given my limited gel testing, the 124gr RMR is probably the better bullet. It appears to be tougher and withstand higher velocities and it is also less expensive that the HHP. It doesn't expand as much as the HHP but it does seem to penetrate better.

I need to melt and remold the gel and do some additional shooting but it looks like the 147gr HHP might be the best option in the Berry's line. It seems to penetrate to about 12" vs the 10" of the 124 and it seems to expand better without the concern for disintegration.