Great Video on Ballistics by Lucky Gunner!

[Flamingo]

This is a great video!

[cornstalker]

No kidding. That was a good one!

[ST911]

For those wanting to avoid clickbait and wasted time, here is a summary of the (12:47) content:

Today, we're talking to a couple of actual ammo experts (not just a pretend internet expert like myself). I recently spent some time with Johann Boden and Chris Laack from Federal Ammunition and they addressed some of the most common questions you guys have asked me about handgun ballistics. Find out how we know ballistic gel gives us a good idea of what to expect from handgun ammo, why muzzle energy and velocity don't, and why the "caliber wars" are a waste of time.

No new info, but well done. Most useful for the novice to average owner.

[Robinson]

That was well done, and breaks down the topic pretty nicely.

[the Schwartz]

It is nice to see that the large domestic ammunition manufacturers rely on 10% ordnance gelatin to conduct their T&E for new products.

Perhaps seeing this practice for themselves will encourage the folks over at Lucky Gunner to start using properly prepared 10% ordnance gelatin instead of relying on the Clear Ballistics junk.

[BBMW]

The problem is, as Chris from Lucky Gunner stated, that proper organic ordinance gelatin is a PITA to work with. I don't know that, given the resources a company like Lucky Gunner has to work with, they could have compiled the mass of data they did, for the variety of calibers, rounds, and guns that they did, trying to do it with ordinance gelatin. Certainly for individuals, synthetic makes testing much more possible.

I'd like to see Clear Ballistics work the bugs out of their product, so that it performs identically to organic ordinance gelatin. Alternately, maybe the FBI or other organization could recalibrate the wound ballistics standards from ordinance gelatin to a standard synthetic, and develop a conversion factor that could normalize the data from ordinance gelatin to the standardized synthetic.

It is nice to see that the large domestic ammunition manufacturers rely on 10% ordnance gelatin to conduct their T&E for new products.

Perhaps seeing this practice for themselves will encourage the folks over at Lucky Gunner to start using properly prepared 10% ordnance gelatin instead of relying on the Clear Ballistics junk.

[JamesCC]

Really well done thanks for posting this. I’ll share for sure.

[the Schwartz]

The problem is, as Chris from Lucky Gunner stated, that proper organic ordinance gelatin is a PITA to work with. I don't know that, given the resources a company like Lucky Gunner has to work with, they could have compiled the mass of data they did, for the variety of calibers, rounds, and guns that they did, trying to do it with ordinance gelatin. Certainly for individuals, synthetic makes testing much more possible.

I've prepared and used 10% ordnance gelatin in the past and, using both Dr. Fackler's and Dr. Roberts' techniques, found it to be fairly easy to work with. Cost is not prohibitive, and its formulation if done following the correct procedure, making sure that no entrainment of air bubbles occurs while mixing, is as easy as putting the filled mold into a decent refrigeration unit and waiting for it to set and stabilize at the correct temperature. If they have a dedicated space in which they are currently conducting their work the only real expense that they would need to incur would be a couple of high quality refrigerators which, I suspect, would be within Lucky Gunner's budgetary allowances given their prior investment in what they have been doing so far. Paraphrasing Dr. Roberts from a prior thread in this sub-forum, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right."

Of course, there are numerous hobbyists that perform small-scale testing that might benefit from the reduced technical effort required to employ a synthetic test medium, but the cost effiency of such surrogates, which is not has great as it is portrayed to be, still comes with the reduced representative accuracy as compared to testing conducted in gelatin or water.

I'd like to see Clear Ballistics work the bugs out of their product, so that it performs identically to organic ordinance gelatin. Alternately, maybe the FBI or other organization could recalibrate the wound ballistics standards from ordinance gelatin to a standard synthetic, and develop a conversion factor that could normalize the data from ordinance gelatin to the standardized synthetic.

So would I, but I am not holding my breath.

Given the nature of the component elastomer and plasticizer being used, especially as it relates to the final mass density of the CBG stuff, they would need to completely reformulate the product which, in the end, might result in different or even unwanted elastic, shear and compressive response properties. The physical and material properties of properly calibrated 10% ordnance gelatin, which are correlated to swine thigh tissue and by extension as an analog to human muscle tissue, are unlikely to change, so it is difficult to believe at the FBI would voluntarily depart from that decades-long-standing and well-researched standard.

As has been confirmed in comparative testing conducted by John Ervin, Mech. Eng. of Brassfetcher and other sources, the terminal performance of projectiles in CBG is clearly non-linear and unpredictably variable meaning that any mathematical normalization scheme for making test data obtained in CBG comparable to or equivalent to that obtained in 10% concentration ordnance gelatin would be at best, tremendously complicated and most likely even more difficult than using one of the two proven tissue simulants already extant.

[Lester Polfus]

While I appreciate the stuff that the Lucky Gunner folks did as an honest effort, I think the important thing to remember about most of the gel testing being done on the internet isn't to provide meaningful data, it's to post a video on YouTube that will generate views, followers and advertising dollars.

The interview with the two guys from Federal was great, and I was poised to post a link to another forum I frequent where guns are sometimes discussed, then I realized that mostly it would mostly generate agreement from people who already understood this stuff and argument from people who have a well-worn copy of Street Stoppers on the back of their toilet and carry a 135 grain 10mm loads because of "energy dump."

[TGS]

Alternately, maybe the FBI or other organization could recalibrate the wound ballistics standards from ordinance gelatin to a standard synthetic, and develop a conversion factor that could normalize the data from ordinance gelatin to the standardized synthetic.

I don't think you can, given that nearly everything performs well in clear gel. As in, shit rounds that do nothing near the FBI or IWBA specs will perform almost identically to some premium defensive rounds. I seem to remember seeing 380 rounds that are notably underpenetrated in proper testing do almost as well as 9mm Gold Dot when both are shot into clear gel.

The margins are too close, and the clear gel doesn't actually test for robust construction. Almost everything expands well, and almost everything penetrates well.