I might end up buying some ballistics gel just to have something to compare them to with other data ive collected. I never see ducks locally we just have geese literally everywhere.

Milt, plenty of info on making your own ballistics gel. I want to make some to test rifle loads. Best part is you can reuse it too.

What I have been wondering about with the ballistics gel though it says its only stable up to 95F so I would have to find a way to keep it cool during testing. I am more interested in how different shot sizes react to striking bone which doing some rough math plywood is around 50% the density of bone so im now wondering if say a 1" plywood sheet would be similar if a projectile hit 1/2" of bone just as a example.

the one inch plwwood should do for testing for penertration test.....I read a book on wild fowling and they used plywood for there tests...they used the 8 ga and 4 ga guns for testing....seems like the name of the book was the esturary....it was a british book....I believe tom armbrust wrote in his book about it not sure....charlie

The data I found lists birch core plywood at .60 g/cm3 and human bone(couldnt find a source for a goose probably less dense though) as around 1.20 g/cm3. I know the T and F lead coyote loads I tested punched through 3/4" plywood at 40 yards and imbedded into some 4x4 posts at the 100 yard berm. I am interested to see how large bismuth performs, F shot is legal in GA so I could cast some of those as well. Charlie I bet the book you're talking about is Dark Estuary a member here recommended it to me awhile for some cool 8 gauge stories IIRC.

Charlie I think the Army used to use 1" pine boards for ballistic testing with the 45/70 they figured if it can punch through the board at X range then its still carrying enough energy to be lethal to a enemy. I want to say it would still go through the pine board at 3200 yards or something like that of course there was no accuracy at that range but a interesting study on the practicality of long range volley fire etc.

Milt, if you have a local butcher or processor near you they may be able to supply you with bones for testing?

Mike’s idea of using bones from a processing plant sounds like the way to go. You could mix your own ballistic gel and mold the bones into the gel to get a better idea of the penetration thru both soft tissue and bone.

I was thinking about this earlier since we do have quite a few places locally that process game meat I could mold it inside the ballistics gel probably as close as accurate you could get besides field testing. I read for geese you want around 2.5" of gel penetration but thats just for hitting vital organs I want to see what it takes to get a complete pass through.

the dark estuary was the name of that book....wish I could get a copy of this book...charlie