9/29/2017 0 Comments Crack No Cd Black Whitetail![]() Elmer Keith's Semi-Wad Cutters. by Jim Taylor. I was 15 years old that summer. the time sticks in my mind even though it was nearly 50 years ago. Elmer's Bullets. Elmer Keith's Semi- Wad. Cuttersby Jim Taylor. I was 1. 5 years. Dad had gotten me my first 'big bore' revolver, a Ruger. Magnum 6 1/2" Blackhawk. He had also picked up a couple bullet. Elmer Keith's 1. 73 gr. Semi- Wad Cutter. ![]()
SWC) - Lyman #3. Having been a fan of all thing "Elmer". I used it for hunting. With it's. heavy front and rear bands and long nose the bullet was stable to. I tried a. number of different loads with it and settled on 1. Small Rifle Primer. We did not have a chronograph in those days but. Ford car rim at 2. I figured that would do. My first. . 3. 57'd coyote fell to this bullet and load. We used to shoot at a. Phoenix where a large flood control dike had been put in. This dike ran across a good portion of what is now Paradise. Valley for quite a few miles.) It was a good location, great backstop, and. Dad pulled the car. I got out of the car. My pistol came up and WHAM.. Mr. Coyote bit the. Over the years. I found that what Elmer said about these slugs was no exaggeration. They worked like he said they would. Later on when. I started shooting the . Colt's I obtained the Keith SWC bullet for it. The first mold I got was the Lyman #4. My mold cast this. I have driven it full- length through deer on occasion. Out of the 4. 54 Casull at 1. And the bullet has proven accurate over the years to distances beyond 1/4. With the Keith. design the front shoulder serves purposes. It helps the bullet line. Such shooting was common in the early parts of the last. It still is with those who want to know exactly how well. Getting as clean a. IOFA's still do on occasion!! At standard. revolver velocities (we are talking of years before Ruger or Freedom Arms. But they are lousy for any type of long- range. I am not talking of running them 1. I am. speaking here of running them at velocities safe in a S& W Model 1. Colt SAA. Say 8. Even bullets of a wide. LBT WFN lose accuracy at distances when compared to. Keith- size meplat (such as the LBT LFN). They just. I once set a 5. gallon bucket full of rocks at 3. Then I proceeded to shoot at it with various bullets and loads using my. Freedom Arms 4. 54 Casull. The 3. 50 gr. LBT WFN would not stay in a 1. Neither. would the 3. LBT WFN. The LBT. LFN's of all weights that I had were very accurate at that velocity. So was the. Keith 2. SWC. If I did my part the bucket got thumped regularly. When I kicked. the velocity of the 3. LBT WFN's up over 1. To get top accuracy from the 3. I had. to run it around 1. This was outside the parameters of the. What I was trying to see was the accuracy of bullets at. Century. Or. what you would get from a . Special or Colt SAA or some other firearm. Tests run. using my Ruger . Magnum and a S& W Model 1. Full- wadcutters are. The Keith. SWC's in . They also perform well as game bullets and as target bullets. I got good. accuracy over a wide range of velocities with the Keith bullets. Fast or slow they shot well. They are pretty much an "all- around". The nose of. the bullet - or "meplat" to get technical - is the working end of the. The flat part is what is the most effective at disrupting. The meplat of the LBT LFN is approximately the same diameter. Keith bullet (as is the meplat of the SSK 2. I have fired through a number of critters). Wound diameters and disruption seemed to be similar in all the animals I. On occasion I. have observed fluids being blown out of the animals shot with the Keith. I was about 5. 0 yards out in front and off to the side when. Dad shot a Whitetail through the head from behind. His shot was. The bullet entered between and behind. At the shot. I saw a "spray" fan out in front of the deer for about a foot and. His load was the Keith . SWC (Lyman #4. 29. Magnum single action. I shot a large. Javelina sow at about 7. Ruger . 4. 5 and the Keith SWC. Lyman #4. 54. 42. The hit was a little too far back. At the shot there was a large fan- shaped spray. The spray went up about double the body. The sow started shaking. I don't know. if others have ever observed something like this but I am sure some must. And I am sure it does not happen just with the Keith. I have only seen it twice and both times just happened to. Over the years. people have copied, changed and sometimes boogered up the original. The original Keith design has a wide, flat- bottomed. And it had 3 bands of equal width: front, middle and. It also had a beveled crimp groove. It has a fairly long. And it is a flat- base, plain- base bullet. The RCBS . KT. mold and their . KT mold come very close to the originals, at least in. I have. The Lyman design was changed to a rounded grease. OK (and I have shot a lot of them) was not. Is it important? Probably not.. I have used the Lyman design. Are the Keith. bullets better than ____________? (you fill in the blank with the. No. They. work. They work well. But if I am going to shoot bullets. Keith designed I will go to LBT or bullets like that for the. Keith designs put too much bullet back into. It's a. personal preference of mine. I have shot the Keith. They were accurate. I. just prefer a bullet that seats out further. When it comes. to standard weight bullets though, for most uses I will stick with Elmer's. They are accurate further than you can see. They give you. plenty of power for most anything that walks crawls or flies. And they are. pure "Elmer". My reasoning is based on nothing less than nostalgia. Old School". The. I handload in my . Special. There two reasons: (1) it is very accurate and (2). I own for the . 4. The. First reason is the reason for the Second reason. For what I do with. Special I just do not have a need for a different bullet. Elmer Keith. once wrote me that a friend of his had shot 7 Black Bears off a dump in. Montana. All were shot using a Ruger . Magnum single action loaded. Keith #4. 29. 42. All were broadside. All were one- shot kills. No bullets were recovered. All gave. complete penetration. You can't do better than that. Handgun Self- Defense Ammunition - Ballistic Testing Data. Shortcuts. Updates. Project Summary. Ballistics Testing in Plain English. Lucky Gunner Testing Standards. How to Read the Results. Ballistics Test Results. Conclusions. Updates. Update 4/4/2. 01. We now have test data for 3. Special and . 3. 57 Magnum! Those results are up on a new Labs post, but you can still use the navigation menu above to head directly to the test results for each caliber. Update 8/4/2. 01. We just finished testing another 2. Winchester, Federal, and Remington, bringing our total count to 1. Data for the new loads has been added to the charts below along with a “***NEW***” tag following the name of the load so you can easily identify them. If you want to see only the new loads in the charts, click on the search box at the top of each chart and type in “*NEW”. That will hide the data for all loads except the new ones. Here’s a complete list of the new loads we tested. ACPFederal 9. 9 gr HSTWinchester 9. Ranger. 9mm. Federal 1. HST +PFederal 1. 35 gr Tactical Bonded +PFederal 1. HST +PFederal 1. 50 gr Micro HSTMagtech 1. Bonded JHPRemington 1. Golden Saber Black Belt +PRemington 1. Golden Saber Bonded. Speer 1. 24 gr Gold Dot. Winchester 1. 24 gr Ranger T- Series +PWinchester 1. Ranger T- Series +P+Winchester 1. PDX- 1. Winchester 1. Ranger Bonded. Winchester 1. Ranger T- Series. S& WFederal 1. HSTFederal 1. 65 gr Tactical Bonded. Speer 1. 55 gr Gold Dot. Winchester 1. 65 gr Ranger Bonded. Winchester 1. 65 gr Ranger T- Series. Winchester 1. 80 gr Ranger Bonded. Winchester 1. 80 gr Ranger T- Series. ACPFederal 2. 30 gr Tactical Bonded +PMagtech 2. Bonded JHPSpeer 1. Gold Dot. Speer 2. Gold Dot Short Barrel. Winchester 2. 30 gr Ranger T- Series +PWinchester 2. Ranger T- Series. Winchester 2. 30 gr Ranger Bonded. Project Summary. Over the last few months, I’ve been working with the rest of the Lucky Gunner team on another one of our epic experiments, which we’re proud to finally unveil: ballistics gelatin testing for over 1. This testing will be ongoing, and we’ll keep adding to the results as we have the chance to test more loads. Watch the video below for a brief overview of the project and an explanation of how to read the results. If you came here just to see the data from our tests, you can use the handy menu at the top of the page to skip right to the results section. If this whole ballistics testing thing is new to you, or you want to know more about our process, then you might want to keep reading. If you’re more of a “bottom line” kind of person, you can skip over both the setup and the test results and check out the conclusions section. However you use this information, we hope you find it helpful when picking out your next self- defense load. Recovering bullets fired into a block of ballistics gel. Ballistics Testing in Plain English. The science of wound ballistics can be a daunting topic, especially if you’re not inclined to use your leisure time to study physics and anatomy. At the end of the day, it’s really just the study of how and why bullets inflict damage. That sounds fairly straightforward, but even experts who study this for a living can’t seem to all agree when it comes to the effectiveness of handgun ammo. The reason for this lack of consensus is simple: handguns suck. If someone wants to kill you, and the only way to prevent that from happening is to shoot them, a handgun is far from the ideal firearm to use — they just happen to be the type of firearm we’re most likely to have immediate access to. Contrary to what Hollywood has ingrained into our consciousness, shooting bad guys with pistols doesn’t make them fly backwards through the air, crashing into a bloody, motionless heap. In reality, the effects of wounds from handguns are unpredictable and often not very dramatic. So the study of handgun wound ballistics is not always clear cut, and any speculation we can make about how a given self- defense load will perform in the real world will be, at best, an educated guess. Just a few of the 1. Bullets fired from handguns do only one thing: poke little holes in stuff. If the little hole doesn’t go through something that’s important for a human being’s body to remain upright and functioning, that person can still go about their business, which may include trying to hurt other people. Of course, sometimes violent attackers give up or flee before shots are actually fired. When the mere sight of a gun in the hands of a would- be victim doesn’t do the trick, an assailant will often give up once fired upon, even if they haven’t sustained wounds that would cause their bodies to shut down right away. But these are examples of what Bob Ross would have called “happy little accidents”. It’s great if the bad guy gives up, but we can’t count on that happening. We have a gun to prepare for the worst, and in the worst kind of violent attacks, the bad guy doesn’t give up until he is physically incapable of doing you harm. So with that in mind, a handgun can quickly and definitively stop a determined attacker only if two conditions are met: The gun must be fired at a so- called “vital area” of the attacker. This usually means the heart or the brain/spine. Hits to the lungs and other organs can also be effective, but results may be slower. The bullet must have the ability to penetrate whatever is between the muzzle and those vital organs in order to disrupt their function — for non- uniformed civilians, this typically includes clothing, tissue, and bone. That’s it. No matter what else may happen during the course of a lethal confrontation, if you shoot the guy in the right spot with a bullet that penetrates deep enough, the threat will go down. The first condition depends on the person operating the gun. No amount of bullet technology can make up for a miss. But as for the second condition — how do we know if the ammo we have in our self- defense gun is up to the task? Conventional wisdom says to use ammunition with a hollow point bullet. These bullets are designed to expand upon impact with soft tissue. The expansion deforms the bullet and increases its diameter, which increases the likelihood of the bullet hitting something vital inside the target. Commercial hollow point technology is decades old, and there are dozens of different bullet designs on the market for all of the popular handgun calibers. So aside from the marketing materials put out by the ammo manufacturers, how are we supposed to know which bullets are the most effective? Left: Jacketed hollow point bullet pulled from an unfired Federal HST 1. Right: An expanded 1. HST recovered from a block of ballistics gelatin. That’s where ballistic gelatin testing comes in. Back in the late 1. FBI began to use blocks of gelatin made from a solution of water and a powdered form of miscellaneous animal parts — called “ordnance gelatin” or “ballistics gel” — as a substitute for living tissue for testing the effects of duty ammunition. Firing bullets into the gelatin gave them some idea of what the bullet could do inside a person — in particular, how deep the bullet could penetrate, and the degree to which the bullet might expand or deform. Ordnance gelatin isn’t an exact simulation of living flesh. People and animals have skin, bones, tendons, and organs that are all different in terms of hardness and density. These variables can cause bullets to deflect, fragment, or otherwise behave in unpredictable ways. Conversely, ordnance gelatin is homogeneous, and free of internal obstructions, so the way a bullet behaves in gelatin is indicative of a real life best case scenario. Bullets will not always provide the same results on living tissue that we see in gelatin, but we can expect bullets that perform poorly in gelatin to have a lower success rate on humans, and bullets that perform well in gelatin are more likely to overcome some of the unpredictable variables encountered in the real world. The other advantage of using a consistent medium like gelatin is that it allows for an “apples to apples” comparison between ammo loads. Each block of gelatin has the same physical properties, so bullet A fired into block A can be compared to bullet B fired into block B. This provides a much more scientific and objective method for comparing ammunition loads than anecdotal reports from real life shootings where there are a plethora of unknown variables to consider. Today, this type of testing is made even easier with the advent of synthetic ballistic materials.
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