So . . . finally found the duct sealer "pugs" at Home Depot in the electrical department. I bought a whole carton -- nine pounds of the stuff, I believe. I also bought a 100 amp steel subpanel enclosure -- about 1 foot by 10 inches. The plan is to make an indoor / outdoor portable silent trap. How thick do I need the sealer to be to trap, say 25 fpe (from my .22 Marauder and .32 Victory on its lowest power setting)?

-- Jim

Try it an inch thick. About one layer of the stuff.

Good job. We need highly detailed pics from that fancy pants camera of yours. haha.

Make some holes.

Gary

Here's a look at what I got . . . a carton of the duct sealer and the cheapest subpanel I could find that was at least 8-1/2" x 11":



Take the top off of the subpanel, and the plastic circuit breaker unit comes off with just one screw. Empty and ready for the sealer.



And the final fit. There's a little (1/3") empty gap at one end, which I could easily fill . . . but I want to test it out as-is first. Note that I have an extra "pug" of sealer left over. The "trap" has a nice flat base and is heavy enough to stand up on its own, but I'm sure I'll need to support it from the back or put it against a wall to keep it from getting knocked over etc.



The subpanel was around $22 and the duct sealer was $18. So about $40 plus tax should get me a nice, hopefully silent portable steel-backed trap that should catch a lot of energy and allow me to shoot at targets on Letter-sized paper.

More soon . . .

-- Jim



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2010 07:10PM by admin.

Shot a quick test off of my front step. Here are the results:



.22 Marauder shooting CPs @ 15 yards, filled to 2200 psi. Shot three clips off of the same fill. All shots caught by trap. Not sighted in at this close distance . . . first shot was low and sprayed a little mulch into the sealer. Nice and quiet.



Then I brought out my Barnes Victory 32 shooting Hornady 0 buckshot. Shown here with the Marauder for size comparison.



Couldn't do too much with it today . . . not sighted in yet with the new scope and I'm afraid to overshoot the target due to the lack of a proper backstop around here. The rifle is also shooting hot . . . much louder than I remember the Appaloosa 32 I shot last year in the shop. But, I managed to hit the trap several times. Grounded another one in front and sprayed all kinds of mulch and dirt into the sealer (yuck) . . . you can see the ricochet caught in the sealer with the engraved rifling readily visible. Got off another few that hit cleanly (e.g., the round in the lower left) . . . embedded deeply into the sealer but they don't look like they're all the way through. I stopped after just a few rounds as the rifle is a little too loud to shoot right now in a residential setting, and needs to be sighted in to make it safer!



More proof that the trap is doing its job . . . no deformation or "spawl" on the back of the box, meaning that the sealer is catching it pretty well. I'm pretty sure that none of the rounds actually made it to the steel. I may dig around in it later to see how deep they actually went.

-- Jim



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2010 08:29PM by admin.

Great - hope it all works well.

I can't imagine why your Victory pistol sounds so loud. You've mentioned it before. Should be very quiet. That's a mystery. Same action as the Appaloosa.

Gary

Now, in all fairness, I'm comparing it to the Marauder, which is pretty close to silent . . . just a "pffft" and slight "ping" from the rifle when squeezing off a round. But I could hear the Victory's report slightly echo off of the adjacent hillside. I seem to recall the action in your shop being quieter . . . you'll have to try it and let me know.

-- Jim

Have you turned the gun down? It's simple to do. There's absolutely nothing I can think of that could make it any louder than any of the other moderated Victory or Appaloosa models. They are about 60 something fpe with buckshot, and 80 something with the small slugs. No - it's not going to be like a dead silent ... but you aren't afraid to use a "staple gun" on your place ... are you? Shouldn't be any louder than that.

How about a "chalking gun?" .... hahah

Hey - can you hear your neighbor's lawn mower? What about that snowblower of yours ...

Got it ... let the snowblower set and idle ... then shoot all you want!



Gary

Jim,

You can attach a handle to the top (metal porch door handle) and bolt a large "paper clip" the kind that is made of spring steel, to the hole at the middle top to hold your target paper. One reason you'll need the handle is the trap is going to get real heavy with all that lead it will accumulate.

Don't forget to mold some animals for us to see take some hits. Also it works great as a slug stopper to test rifling etc.

I'd don't have a clue on the Victory being loud, mine so quiet, of course could be all that Teflon tape stuck in it.. Just an inside joke I'll let Gary explain. Ok I'll tell you, Hornady makes some 32 cal pistol bullets. HBWC's that are just a little undersized for this barrel..no problem.. I'll just wrap them with Teflon plumbers tape..NO DON'T DO THIS. anyway Gary had the opportunity to see inside the shroud it was collecting "Teflon snow". He told me he blew it all out or it could be the secret of my stealth Victory. These bullets aren't very accurate but make a neat mushroom when shot backwards into putty.

Kent

Hey Kent,

Sound like you need one of those punch and die swaging setups to expand your .32s to the correct bore size, sort like those "buck slugs" that Gary worked on a while back. Of course, unless they're cast of pure soft lead, they're gonna be tough to expand without a pretty good whack on the punch. They might also be a bit tough to chamber if they're too cylindrical, too much bearing area. Hmmm, in retrospect, it might just be better to stick with the slugs from Jerrys kids, forget I said anything.

Yeah Rotor, we've got a good thing here...no more ideas!

Actually, I've got a story to relate about swaging bullets down to size.

I was discussing some shooting-related topics one day with a friend and we started talking about reloading, and bullet casting in particular. He was a fan of cast bullets due to the cost, but was dead-set against swaging them. I had brought it up in relation to a magazine article that I had read about swaging your own bullets from pure, soft lead wire. Turns out that he'd tried swaging bullets himself, he was trying to re-size some bulk cast bullets that didn't shoot well.

Long story short, those cast bullets were so hard that they got stuck in the die, he literally couldn't force them through. After having to remove the die and melt the lead out of it for the third time, he just gave up on it entirely. He still shoots cast bullets, but he just shops around until he finds some that shoot well straight from the box.

Yeah - in swagging, you need dead soft lead. As, once the die cavity is filled, the remainder is expelled thru weep holes, in the form of lead strings. Hard lead will never do that.

I made dies to reshape ball into slugs. However; it's far more time consuming than casting. In fact ... the person I knew who swagged alot, actually first cast his initial billet pcs., from which he then swagged the slugs. He did this in order to get a precise quantity of lead to go into the die.

The other issue is getting the swagged bullet out of the die. You have to push it out, in order to have any speed at all. So; that means you can't have any side shaped to the slug. Has to be smooth, in order to eject from the mold. Therefore; all you can swage is a smooth flat sided slug - unless you have a way to have a several pc. die that can open from around the swagged form. Then, if that exists, it would have to be automated or you'd never get any speed.

People go to huge efforts to NOT cast. When it's so simple, and I've demonstrated extreme accuracy beyond doubt, I don't know why more don't try it. I suspect some of it is the lead panic that's been instilled in the culture thru decades of endless hounding that we're all gonna die from everything we do.

Gary

How's the trap working Jim?

Do you have a spot in the basement to try it out yet?

Gary

Rotor, I tried the wack'it with a hammer and swage through a "hand crafted" die and was shooting a very random object that shot poorly to say the least. BTW the excessive breech pressures developed was, well let's just say, rough on the Victory. This excessive pressure was hard for me to wrap my head around until I digested the reasoning Gary explained to me. SureFire casts all my slugs for me. I still shoot some of the slugs I cast a long time ago for the second Erwin Cup. It's not a hard process just one that Jerry has perfected at a very reasonable cost. It's also a way to keep the factory open for the specialty slugs (match large bore) that all that expertise the boys have gained make possible.

Kent

Jer-ry, Jer-ry, Jer-reeee

THats pretty cool. That sure is one awesome looking PISTOLA.

I too have used electical junction boxes as targets/bullet traps and i tell ya, they are SUPER TOUGH. They even stop my Glock 10mm bullets at 40 yrds with nothing in them.

Hey Cedric,

I forget - what did you use to shoot that hog that you video taped? I recall it dropped like a stone - frontal head shot. I was thinking of that recently. I always thought the hog's skull was really thick and hard - sloped as well - I figured that would be a low percentage shot.

There's a huge game reserve (thousands of acres) in Pa., that has "management hunts" now that are cheaper than usual.

Gary

Mr. GB,

I used the LOWLY Dragon Slayer 454 shooting Sure Fire 220 gr Raptors at .454". The distance was roughly 35 yards and the hog was walking towards me but i had a clear shot just behind her right eye and i was elevated upwards above the hog in a stand. The RAPTOR struck between the eye and ear and travelled down to the left shoulder and was recovered.

Man, SUREFIRE sure does make nice accurate slugs..lol. Seriously, they do. For up close ranges, i don't think too many a bullet could hit harder than the RAPTOR. Nice wide Meplat and it has such a cool RINGING sound when it travels.

And yes, before the hunt we were warned to not make FULL FRONTAL head shots as the hogs head is at a very steap angle. Some say that bullets have been known to GLANCE off of a hogs head when presented with a full frontal head shot and leave the hogs in excrutiating pain. I can definitely see how a bullet could glance off of there skulls if the wrong shot is taken or the wrong angle is presented.

The exact bullet used. Photo taken in the stand before the hog was shot. OK, SO WHAT....I WAS BORED:


The recoverd bullet:




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2010 04:06AM by Tofazfou.

Thanks Cedric,

That's neat. Wow - you really "RUINED" that bullet! You're gonna need another one now! haha.

Gary

Yup, shot the purple clean off of it. Gonna have to get it re-dyed, at the very least.

Hey Tofazfou

Your D-slayer is a .454? I thought they were a 50 (.495?) did you put a different barrel on yours? And if so, Why?

Surefire does offer a bullet restoration service...

Now Jerry ... is that under the "written or implied warrenty?" So long as you have your origonal (unopened) shipping box. Packing slip. Invoice. Receipt. Order form. Order confirmation #. And PayPal records.



Gary

Hehe, good result with that Barnes(who is that guy??)Raptor 2Faz! Pity to ruin Jerry's handiwork though....
Cheers
Neil

Now Gary, we wouldn't ask for all that paperwork! ...since the restoration process costs little less than new "virgin" slugs!

Hey Tofazfou,

They must make those electrical boxes out of much stouter stuff over there where you are. The U. S. made boxes would be VERY hard pressed to stand up to that kind of use. If you hit one of those "knockout" plugs with any kind of center-fire pistol bullet, it'd zip right on through the back. I've seen much thicker steel than the stuff our boxes are made out of hammered into all kinds of weird shapes from pistol bullet impacts, and the 10mm is towards the upper end of the power spectrum for semi-auto pistols.