Posted: 5/27/2009 9:45:35 PM EDT
I finally made some wax bullets and spent the entire day testing different amounts of wax, depth the wax goes into the cartridge, nose shape of the bullet etc... I found the best depth is to leave about a 1/4" of space at the bottom. I think that air pocket allows more compression of the wax bullet and it keeps the wax away from the hot primer. I also found the best blend of wax is to use the canning wax blocks. Do not heat the wax up and drip it into the bullet; it doesn't work very well. It also doesn't work as well if you heat up the wax bar to make it easier to push in the brass case. I drilled out the hole (I forget the name of it) to 1/8" but didn't try any other size. The size seemed to work well though. I also tested the penetration power of each type of wax bullet I made. The best penetration was through 2 thick pieces of cardboard and the wax bullet kept on going! I then made the cardboard 4 thick and the wax bullets consistently penetrated 2 pieces. The nose tip shape that penetrated the best was a small pointed tip type (as seen in my picture). This tip also seemed to yield the best accuracy. I got the wax bullets to give an accuracy of about 5 moa at 70feet! I was pretty impressed by how much accuracy I was able to get out of the best combination. I know this isn't amazing accuracy but I think it is quite good for something I made in my house. I am eventually going to make a mold for these bullets so they will come out consistently the same and should yield better results. I would love to eventually be able to sell these too! I am having a great time shooting these in my back yard and hope you guys will be able to gain something from this so you can too. I also had my brother shoot me from about 50 feet away. Well, the wax bullet hit me in my kidney (I was only wearing a thin T-shirt) and it hurt a little more than a paintball. It left a welt bigger than a quarter and stung for a long time. I know that was stupid but I wanted to know how much something like this could hurt someone. The only way to know was to get shot.
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"I also had my brother shoot me from about 50 feet away." 
I hope you will feel free to approach your colleagues here on ARFCOM in the future prior to establishing any tests on the the terminal characteristics of any kind of firearm load. I promise we will help come up with something more precise with a whole lot less risk to personal safety. |
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Quoted:
"I also had my brother shoot me from about 50 feet away."
I hope you will feel free to approach your colleagues here on ARFCOM in the future prior to establishing any tests on the the terminal characteristics of any kind of firearm load. I promise we will help come up with something more precise with a whole lot less risk to personal safety.  I did it for shits and giggles really. I really didn't care at the time. In reality I am just a redneck. My town has 500 people in it.
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Quoted:
You would have liked my thread regarding 'glue bullets'. Seems to have gone into limbo between the archive and the forum. I will dig up some info for you and send it your way if I remember. Definitely!! That sounds great. I never thought of using glue. Are you using hot glue from a glue gun or what? I am interested... |
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I recently read a thread on castboolits about glue boolits as they call them, and figured I would give it a shot. So i get out the hot glue gun and my recently acquired bullet molds and set to work. First I cleaned out all the residue and grease from the previous owners casting experiments. Then I Started pushing as much hot glue into the mold. I found that if you let the newly formed gluelit cool too long it would stick to the mold something fierce and if not cooled enough, the center of the gluelit would become hollow. After making a few of these, I stuck one into a freshly primed case and loaded her up into my 1911. Accuracy was amazing at 15'. It shot to POA and though I didnt shoot for groups, it probably will get around an 1.5" or 2" no problem. The glue boolit also went through the IDPA cardboard target and onward for some ways. I fired 2 rounds (it was dark) and was able to recover one (the darker looking one in the picture) and I plan to shoot it again and again. No Glue residue in the chamber or barrel. Cost of this experiment? 10 primers and about .25 in glue.  All right, how about some numbers? Chronograph placed 1' in front of target, target shot at 15'. Both sets were shot offhand, unsupported with a S&W 1911 PD (Commander Length). Test #1 - Standard brass (Not drilled). Average bullet weight 22 grains. Average Velocity - 420 FPS. 5 shot group was right at 2". Would have been 1.5" except for one shot that may or may not have been me. Test #2 - Brass drilled with 1/8" bit Average bullet weight 22 grains Average Velocity - 400 FPS. 5 shot group was right at 1.5". Both tests had a wide deviation in FPS, +/- 15 fps either side of the average. A long range test was performed with a single shot at 50 feet. The chronograph had a result of 358 FPS and the shot itself was fairly close to point of aim. Energy calculations place this at 8ft lbs of force (Not sure what that means, but a 25 ACP is around 50 ft lbs if I recall correctly.) Most of the recovered bullets were fine except of few that appeared to have shattered after hitting the plywood backstop. 80% recovery rate and 75% of those are reusable. Original thread: http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=17577 |
| I tried reading that forum but after the second page, the links were broken. I am really interested in the rifle glue bullets but can't read any more about it. Has anyone ever tried making a rifle glue bullet? If so, I would love more info on this topic. I am going to go do research on this now... |
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Quoted: I tried reading that forum but after the second page, the links were broken. I am really interested in the rifle glue bullets but can't read any more about it. Has anyone ever tried making a rifle glue bullet? If so, I would love more info on this topic. I am going to go do research on this now... There are some on page 5 or so of the cast boolits thread. I think they were a 17 |
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Quoted: While i have yet to test it myself, I would think it would be easier to just use a pan of paraffin wax and wait until it is semi-cool, then push a primed case of .XX caliber into the wax and remove it, making your bullet. If I had any paraffin, I'd try it now. Yes and no. The paraffin is a little messy for extended shooting and if it is recovered it would have to be reconstituted. The glue bullets, when recovered, only require a fresh primed case to re-fire. I have made a bullet trap consisting of a cardboard box filled with rags for 100% recovery. |
| A Warrant Officer I worked for in the Marine Corps told a story about rats in the hooches in Vietnam. They would pull the bullets and dump out the powder in a 5.56 round. Taket the primed case and push it into a bar of soap. They would shoot the rats with soap bullets and kill most of the shot rats. |
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Quoted: How much noise do these little glue/wax cartridges make when they go off? I'm guessing that it would still be enough to alert the neighbors. Do they cycle the gun? About as loud as a nail gun or air gun, which for me is not a problem. They do not cycle the gun. |