After we got a feel for the guns and Gary had sighted in the Squire .45, it was time for making some videos.


Gopher was placed in position on top of the 50 yards target. I don't think he looks too happy to be there.


Hey, where'd everyone go? What are you guys doing with those guns? Don't I get a smoke and a blindfold at least?


The first shot on the poor gopher was with the Prairie III using a commercial mold slug that weighs 200gr. This slug was cast just to see what the most power I can get out of the P3 while still having a stable slug. The gun has made 278 FPE before but it really didn't like that slug. I think this slug is probably good out to 100 yards or so. I've not chrony'ed this slug yet but based on others close in weight, we're making over 250 FPE here.


The .32 200gr entrance wound. The hole is not perfectly round so maybe this was a bad slug and was going unstable or just wobbling a bit. Other slugs just like it were making round holes in the 100 yard backer so I can't explain what happened here...


Pretty good penetration.


Serious deformation, lots of power but this slug had to have hit with a good angle on it.


That had to hurt! That was a .62 slug.


Good penetration with the .62 400gr slug. Note that all these shots were at 50 yards so they reflect the energy that game would see.


After Gary dug the slug out of the back of gopher...

On to the Gel!

That's the 200gr .32 slug. It exits part way through the 4th block and keeps on going. At 250+ FPE we're looking at easy through and through shots on deer I think. Not that the P3 is a hunting gun but that power level is clearly more than enough.


That's the 80gr Falcon slug fired at 940 FPS (from previous testing). Penetration was almost 14".


This is a .45 ball fired from the Squire. This was a really neat shot as the ball found the track from the previous .32 shot and nearly followed the same path out of the gel. It sure put the hurt on the first block too, it nearly flipped it over!


Not every shot is perfect. At 50 yards with a smoothbore shooting at a 3.5" x 4.5" target, you're bound to miss occasionally . I didn't miss entirely though! Hopefully this posts well enough that you can see the slug come in and just glance off the top of the gel.


Here's the big 550gr .62 slug hitting. 26" of penetration at 50 yards range!


After the .62 shot the blocks were all out of line. That's a good bit of energy that got dissapated there.


We put the blocks back together so you could see the penetration and tracks the slugs made.


That's the .45 ball having made it almost through the 3rd block. The other track is from the .62 that was still going strong.


Gary admires his fine slug design. Note that that slug was fired from a smoothbore, flew 50 yards, penetrated 26" of ballistic gel and never tumbled! I'll take that!

We had a great day at the range. I hope you enjoy the pictures and videos.
Jerry

Awesome shooting! That looks like a productive day at the range. I wish I could have been there.
I hope nobody from PETA sees what you did to that gopher!

Thanks Scott. You would have had a great time, the conditions were great for just about any kind of shooting. Gary will have to re-mold gopher into a Mr. Bill if we see PETA on the horizon!

Great post and shooting guys. Sorry I missed it . . . was stuck here all day throwing around railroad ties and #57 gravel.

-- Jim

That's no excuse Jim . How long are we going to have to wait to see what the Alpine does to the ballistic gel? Huh? Huh?

Too bad you couldn't make it. We got so lucky that even though there was hardly any breeze at all, it was straight towards us (from the targets) so that when the farm hands came out to spread stuff on the fields behind us, we didn't smell a thing. I probably should have tried for some trophy groups as the conditions will probably never be that good again, but we had so much to do...

Well, I'm sure Jim's gonna tell you the Alpine parts are waiting for their hot salt bath ... but, still ... to take a day like yesterday ... give up an opportunity to shoot with us ... to lug around railroad ties..... well, I don't know. I just don't feel "special" anymore Jerry. How about you? haha.

Hey Scott ... the Gopher is a super hero. He's "Plasticity Man!" He can bend, he can flex, he can be squashed, bisected, inverted ... and come out unphased. Whattaguy!!! hahaha.

Gary

That's right. Here's proof, Plasticity man is about to enjoy a cup of coffee and he is sporting his new belly button insert!

I just noticed something I think is kinda neat. If you watch the Falcon video and keep hitting the back to front botton just as you see the impact, you can see the air from the temporary cavity being "spit" back out of the front of the gel!

Jerry,

I thought I saw some cavitation.

Did you see the videos that are now in the video forum? All the big bore shots create a temporary cavity!

Lame, I know . . . but the area I was working on will eventually house my own "shootin' shack"!

-- Jim

Just remember Grasshopper ....

Some men shoot ... while other men are always getting ready to shoot.



ahummmmmmmmmmm

Aha, but also don't forget that some men work on the house and keep the wife happy . . . and others live alone.

-- Jim

Great videos guys

Very interesting results.
By the clarity of the video, you can see that you put alot of effort into getting the shots!!

Nice one

Hoping to getting round to mounting my camera on the gun. I can contribute to the videos too then....

Gary, in that last pic you look like the guy in Jurassic Park digging for the prehistoric bugs trapped in amber. "MOSQUITO!"

-- Jim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2009 11:58AM by Jim.

And there, you've laid your finger on the problem. The guy in the movie was a good 20 years older then, than I am now. Thanks ALOT buddy ...

And yet ... I think there may have been a mosquito in there ....

Gary

Gopher quotes:

"When you said we were gonna play "catch" ... I thought you met ...."

"Forward observer?"

"Are you sure the chicks come right by here ...?"

"Yeah ,,, they took a slug outta me, right here, back in 63."

"It's not easy being clay"

"INCOMING!!!!"

Quote- "Yeah ,,, they took a slug outta me, right here, back in 63." -Quote

LMAO

Can't help but laugh, every time the Gopher hits the deck, and it shakes and wobbles ... Sa-lAPP!!! ... THUMP ... THump ...Thump ... ump ... mp.

(laff

Also ... I keep kicking myself over the 62 video. That was a perfect shot ... however; the camera had "timed out", between tests, and I restarted it. When I did, I didn't notice that it had reset to default focus ... and thus was not zoomed in on the gel blocks to catch the incredible energy of that shot. Bummer.

Have to do it again, I guess. heheh.

Gary

Nice work with the camera Jerry. You can see how heavy Gary's gopher is when it hits the deck in that first video, and shakes, rattles and rolls that piece of ply.....

Love those ballistic gel shots too. When are you getting your ultra slowmo camera Jerry, I wanna see the bullet in the air?

Neil,

"Nice work with the camera" ? Oh. I'm pained!! I hit that little guy with a smoothbore from 50 yards and even the gel and you talk about the camera work! Thanks!

Sorry, but my camera budget is tapped out. I would so like to get a super slow motion camera though. Know anyone who has one or cares to donate one? Oh, I know the video of the glancing shot is too short but if you keep hitting replay and watch to the left of the target, you can see the slug coming in fast. If you keep hitting replay and watch the gel, you can see the slug bounce off the top.

It's all in the angles. If I set the camera square to the target there will be less definition of the slug as it crosses unless the view is pretty broad. If I set up along the line of the shot, seeing the slug is easy but the view of the impact is minimal. We'll just have to shoot everything twice!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2009 12:59AM by Jerry.

I watched some "trick shooting" on TV last evening. A segment I've seen before - watched some again. I noted that the stuff they showed where you could actually watch the bullet (and it was still fast) ... was 20,000 frames per second.

So - anybody wishing to get a camera and add to Jerry's videos ... you need to get something that will do 20,000 frames plus.

Gary

Ya know ... there's the entire internet at the click of a mouse ... yet; I sit here with a cup of coffee .... and I enjoy looking at these posts again. That was a fun time ... and I see something different every time I look at them again.

Gary

Nice post guys, I love the slow mo action. Does anyone have a movie maker that will frame by frame a "regular" video? Got to get me some movement to go with future posts.

Jerry, can you give me a quick how to on posting videos from the "Bucket" site? , thanks.

Gee, I do hope the State of California has certified the putty as safe. Are you guys pulling out all the slugs to keep Gopher lead free? My bear is probably 25% heavy metal at this point. It only bothers things when trying to get an intact slug to check the rifling, etc.

Kent

Hi Kent,

Oh yeah ... we're complying with all the restrictions we've "read". ;?)


Photobucket site: [www.photobucket.com]

You go there and register for a free account.

After that, when you log in, you'll be offered a banner that says something like "Upload stills / video" Click that.

Then, there's a box to "search your computer" (or something like that).

You find what you want ... hit open ... and photobucket uploads it. It will put it in your own gallery.

Once the video, or still, is in your gallery ... you can just highlight it .... and it will drop down into four choices. Choose the "embedded" (I think it says html too) ... and it will automatically copy the url for that filed video into your browser/mouse/copy function - whatever.

Now ... you go make your post on Rendezvous before you use the copy function anymore ... and wherever you want to place your movie ... you just his Control/V ... and it will paste in the long url for your filed movie.

Works pretty simple. Does a good job.

To answer your other question: many movie edit programs will offer you a chance to take a "still" of a movie you stopped in progress. Things like i-movie .... movie makers programs. What they cannot do ... is make any sort of stop action. The file simply isn't there. For instance ... the movie of me shooting the clay rat in the shop. One frame the rat is there ... the next it's gone. You are only shooting 30 frames per second for normal movies. The camera simply does not catch anything between frames ... and the action is too quick.

I saw Jerry's camera on the net a couple of days ago offered between $479 and $599 depending upon dealer. That;'s the only thing that's close to being able to do what we want. Casio (same brand) makes a $1,000 camera that will do 1,200 frames ... but doesn't have as great a zoom. What you need to actually catch a bullet in the air is 20,000 frames per second. That's big bucks.

Thanks for posting.

Gary

Sweet! I need to leave you guys alone more often.....

Good stuff!

There's some show on Dish Network that features a couple of guys playing around with a super-high-speed camera. The setup for each shot takes WAY, WAY longer than anything they'll ever film. The camera they use is all-digital and only records like ten or twenty seconds at something like 20-30 thousand frames a second.

You'd think that synchronising things would be impossible, but the way the thing works is that it just keeps re-writing over its twenty seconds of video again and again until you hit the stop button. As long as you don't wait more than twenty seconds after it's all over to push the button, you always get the shot...pretty clever.

It's obviously a pretty expensive rig, they use a series of sacrificial blast shields and such to protect the camera from whatever they're filming at the moment. It's also notable that their supplemental lighting is almost arc-light bright. Of course, with only 1/20,000th of a second exposure time, you'd expect some pretty dark shots otherwise. I've seen episodes showing a shotgun shooting claybirds, and you can see the shotcup open up in flight and the pellets spread out into a long stream. The initial pellets break the bird into chunks, and the later pellets break up the chunks into smaller chunks, etc. Pretty neat to watch, and you wouldn't believe how much the shooters face moves around with the recoil.

They showed another one where some guy could throw playing cards so fast that they'd cut right through candles, apples, pumpkins, etc. His fingers flicked so fast that they'd bend in weird, unnatural ways at the end of the "snap", it was kinda creepy to watch that part.

I'll bet to a camera like that, an airgun pellet is practically standing still. When they show arrows being shot, the first thing you notice is that the arrow bends like crazy at the moment of release. In fact, it wiggles around all the way to the target. Strange, but true.

All neat stuff to watch. Amazing the things that happen "while we are watching", that we never see.

Yeah ... I'd love to have a fast camera. Maybe someday. Until then, I'll just have to bum along with Jerry. hehe.

Gary

Gary, remember when we used to go shooting with a gopher?

Yes .... He had such fun!!!

I must call him, and see how he's doing ... in Therapy ....