Cheap kitty litter made from clay granules is an excellent ballistic media to test bullet performance. A 40 lb plastic bucket of the stuff is under $8 at Walmart/Sam's and you can get a rubber kitchen wastebasket for under $3. Fill the wastebasket up, shoot it, and pour the media back into the original container. It stops as good as sand, but does not destroy the bullet, allowing it to expand normally. Penetration in ballistic gel can be estimated by raising the penetration in inches kittly litter to the 1.5 power.

Expand better or worse if you leave the cat "lumps" in the litter?

When I go portable, will often fill small bags of litter for bench bags (un-recycled litter please) but I've never shot it...for a comparison between expanding bullets, it should be uniform enough...takes lots less than bags of water....can leave it on range without creating a bio-hazard....may give it a try.

Hey Loader,

I'll give you all you want for free after the cats are done with it!!!

:)

Kitty Litter????? I use kitty cats. The only problem is in getting them to line up, single file.

this is weird. why can't you just use normal stuffs? does saving money really mean that much to you?

let me know when you'll be in town, i'll give you some targets to do ammunition test.

Kitty litter is actually a better bullet stopper than sand, but allows normal and predictacle expansion. When finished with a batch, just wet it down in a hole and it will becime clay, encapsulating all of the lead.

i use plywood to test ammo. i put old rags on it sometime if i really want to see what hollow point does. i have every confident that federal and winchester hollow point can deliver the good. if the bullet doesn't expand that well, it will still be larger than .38 inche when you shoot it out of a .38 super hollow point.

i wonder if they make .44 magnum hollow point ammunition. it would be nice to test if there is anything out there that is tough enough to allow this beasty round to expand. i think most bad guys have body too soft for this round to expand.

I know at least one guy that would argue that point, if he were still around. You could stick your fist in the hole.

There are many .427 hollowpoints available. The lighter ones work better on human size people.

i use plywood to test ammo. i put old rags on it sometime if i really want to see what hollow point does. i have every confident that federal and winchester hollow point can deliver the good. if the bullet doesn't expand that well, it will still be larger than .38 inche when you shoot it out of a .38 super hollow point.

i wonder if they make .44 magnum hollow point ammunition. it would be nice to test if there is anything out there that is tough enough to allow this beasty round to expand. i think most bad guys have body too soft for this round to expand.

Testing on plywood doesn't do much good unless you think you might be attacked by a sheet of it.

Hollow-points are generally designed to expand on soft tissue (which has a high water content).

Kitty Litter????? I use kitty cats. The only problem is in getting them to line up, single file.

Yeah, I understand. I use dogs the same way---from hind end forward & the bigger the better. Seems my first job out of school was reading electric meters & in a way this is also a type of revenge for the teeth marks in my leg.

Ray, I have been dog-bit twice, but both times I was on the dog's property so I let it slide, I was once mauled by a cat, in my own car, and I have never forgiven the cat world for that. A cat had entered my car through an open window and stowed away under the front seat. I got into the car and headed for work....I was wearing shorts that day. About a mile from the house I heard this terrible moaning....didn't know what it was. All of a sudden this crazy cat came out from under the seat and commenced to rip me to shreds. My face. My arms. My bare legs. It was all I could do to roll the window down and allow that devil to escape. When I got to work I was a bloody mess, the company nurse patched me up. I am still in the process of making my neighborhood "cat free".

I use a Marlin .44 Magnum loaded with a 240 gr. LSWC resized to .427" over 1.75 gr. of Red Dot. Nine lives my butt!

Ray, I have been dog-bit twice, but both times I was on the dog's property so I let it slide, I was once mauled by a cat, in my own car, and I have never forgiven the cat world for that. A cat had entered my car through an open window and stowed away under the front seat. I got into the car and headed for work....I was wearing shorts that day. About a mile from the house I heard this terrible moaning....didn't know what it was. All of a sudden this crazy cat came out from under the seat and commenced to rip me to shreds. My face. My arms. My bare legs. It was all I could do to roll the window down and allow that devil to escape. When I got to work I was a bloody mess, the company nurse patched me up. I am still in the process of making my neighborhood "cat free".

I use a Marlin .44 Magnum loaded with a 240 gr. LSWC resized to .427" over 1.75 gr. of Red Dot. Nine lives my butt!

I suppose I've been fortunate by never having been attacked by a cat but I sure can't say the same thing about dogs! I have the 'beauty ' marks to prove it. I have a wrist chewed right well by a German Shepard when I stepped around the corner of the house where he lay sleeping intending to read the meter. Instantly he was on his feet & I began a retreat backward while he was doing his best to walk on his hind legs & place his paws on my sholder as he snapped at my face. All I had to defend myself was the book I wrote down the reading in. Thank goodness I didn't loose my balance & fall. He managed to do a job on my wrist like you wouldn't believe. There were two posts driven into the ground with a wire attached between them about 4 inches above the ground & he had a chain attached to the wire pretty much allowing him to roam the yard at will. The people were told to either put up the dog or their electricity would be cut off at the pole.
No ifs ands or buts. In those days that was just an unfortunate accident. Now days the people would be sued out of their skin. I left the Electric company after I became 18 but my dislike for dogs has never left me & I find a plain old .22 hollow point up the rectum does a nice lingering job. Unfortunately I can't see the look in their eyes at the moment of impact. My benefactors are those that have been allowed to roam & come into my yard late in the evening.