Informal 7.62x39 water jug test results

[MTMilitiaman]

The 10mm test results are in the general hangun board. Also posted the whole thing over in "general discussion" on THR.

Our household accumulates a decent amount of plastic 5 gallon buckets from laundry detergent and the like. Rather than immediately tossing them, I decided to set some of them aside for ballistics tests. These had been seperated from their lids when I found them, but I decided they could be used anyways. Of most immediate interest to me was a pair of loads for the 10mm Auto, and a pair of loads for the 7.62x39.
First I'd like to emphasize a couple points. I choose my mediums (water and river sand) because they were cheap, common, and universal--meaning I or someone else could conduct the tests at a later date and get similar results. While this allows the relative performance of multiple loads or conditions to be compared, I never meant for these results to be extrapilated into other mediums, such as tissue or ballistics gel. Second, I did this for fun out of my own personal curiosity. I don't claim to be a scientist but I did try to uphold scientific method as best as I could. So while I found the results interesting, I am not so sure they are scientifically valid on the same plane as Fackler, for example.
I tried a pair of loads from Wolf Ammunition through my Romanian AK clone. Two 5 gallon water buckets were set immediately in front of each other and a sand bucket at a distance of 25 yards from the muzzle. The first was a bi-metal jacket boat tail, the second a bi-metal jacketed hollow point boat tail. Both projectiles are magnetic when removed from their cases. Jacket material from both projectiles is folded up at the base, resulting in a hollow exposed section of core material, and the forward 1/3 of the projectile is hollow as well when the bullet is disected lengthwise. The FMJ penetrated both water buckets and about halfway into the sand bucket, coming to a rest flattened and weighing 112.7 gr. Core material was lost through the base but was not recovered. I have been told the JHP performs nearly identically to the FMJ, so I wasn't expecting much. But that is not what I found. The JHP blew apart the first bucket and penetrated into the second, but did not exit and did not make it to the sand bucket. It appeared this bullet was torn nearly inside out. A mangled peice of jacket material and a ring of material from around the base, as well as some small peices of core material is all that could be found. Total weight of all recovered peices was 39.75 gr. I was very surprised by the performance of this load and intend to test it along side the FMJ at a longer range (lower velocity) and through various mediums (penetration) at a later date.