An experiment to get .22 cal NSA's to pop open easier. It works !!

I was reading this post yesterday got my jewelers screwdriver out and made some NSA 23X .217 hollowpoints. Shot them at 50 yards this morning.

These were shot with my crown 380 at 860 ft./s - I got absolutely no expansion in a gallon jug of water at 50 yards. If I get time I will throw on my 600 which pushes them out at 980 ft./s and see what happens. I’ll try the 17.5’s in both bbls also

Because I like to beat dead horses… Shot the NSA 23X at 1000 ft./s from the 600 mm: zero expansion at 50yds. 

5 shot group size980 ft./s)

23 .257

23X 1.245

Zan 23X the same power setting 990 ft./s zero expansion

NSA 17.5X the same power setting 1090 ft./s zero expansion

I’m done

 I do believe Nick stated that the hollow point was incorporated in the design to move the center of gravity, not to aid expansion..

Yes thanks I’m aware and I think that was stated earlier in the post. I was just trying to duplicate motorheads expansion results using the Phillips screwdriver tapping it into the hollow point of the slug (23X, 17.5X etc). Unfortunately I failed at this endeavor

1 gal jugs water

Whoa!?!?!? That is pretty awesome. Have you tried 12.5 slug at low speed? I’m going to try that myself later. If works then it would knock the socks off of critters.

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Not tried slower ... being this whole experiment was based around getting the small caliber NSA's to open up at all. Both my dedicated sluggers in .177 & .22 are very hard shooters as i use them.



I don't think the 12.5 has a deep enough HP cavity to really mushroom at velocities 800 or lower ? tho just a WAG .... try it and report back please.

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Found sometime to try this on 12.5 grain 177 slugs at low speed. Speed was 750fps, target is 2 inch squares block bee wax and then fist sized orange to mimic a squirrel. Tried different screw drivers and depth but they will not open even a little bit. Not hugely surprising though, although they are excellent if you need penetrating capabilities of an ice pick.

It wasn't a surprise at all just given the speed, from looking at the size of hollow point is and how thick the lead wall is no way it would open up reliably. I totally get NSA did it so he can produce them from the high speed swage machines but honestly I would rather see NSA forgo the hollow point and just put a round nose in the front to get better BC. The round nose might even be more effective than the pointed hollow point. 

I would rather see NSA forgo the hollow point and just put a round nose in the front to get better BC. The round nose might even be more effective than the pointed hollow point.

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As cosmic stated above, I think the hollow point wasn't intended to expand, but it does something to the stability (moving the CG aft).

The main 2 reasons I want to use slugs are:

(1) Reduce wind drift in comparison to pellets — and the NSA slugs deliver that, at only a couple of cents more than JSB pellets.

(2) Increase the energy delievered at long range targets — and again NSA delievers.

Sure, if on top of the above advantated the slug HP also opened up massively on impact, that would be an additional nice feature of slugs....



BTW, over at GTA, the resident ballistician, Miles Morris, and Bob Sterne found that at higher velocities the BC of current HP slugs is better than the G1 drag model predicts.

Link: https://www.gatewaytoairguns.org/GTA/index.php?topic=187505.0



Matthias

Having shot many rabbits with pellets and found little damage to their heads when compared to an unmodified NSA 23 gr hollow-point slug shot from my Impact at 980 FPS. The pop the NSA makes on impact compared to a pellets thump, at roughly 50 yards with flesh and bone blown out the backside of the head and the brain matter sprayed all across the gravel where they were sitting, I've never had a pellet do that kind of damage. Have also had HOSPS and Starlings pop in a plume of feathers and massives holes blown out the exiting side like they had been exploded from within. I have never retrieved one of the slugs after being shot to check for expansion, but the visible damage to the critter is unmistakable. The same explosive damage is done to the heads of my birdseed raiding squirrels, but most of those shots are inside of 10 yards. Modified or not, expansion or not, to me the damage they do speaks for itself.

Woodchucks -groundhogs- are the only thing I’ve been able to recover slugs from - rabbits squirrels anything else they've just passed through. 
I’m 100% with tracker1955 so much so that I no longer shoot pellets - 23 nsa out of the crown and while still a work in progress, 36.2 nsa out of the 25 maverick. 

@JungleShooter: pretty sure the the goal of HP is not just to move the CG back because the 12.5 grain has a dish base, just remove the dish base and CG is way back. By having a rounder nose in a subsonic projectile will increase BC significantly which will reduce wind drift and deliver more energy down range. It might make the slug a bit heavy but I would love to see a round nosed/high BC 177 slug. 


@tracker1955: I also had similar experience with 23grain NSA hunting rabbits shooting at lowly 830fps. Like you said, expansion or not the damage is devastating! So much so I try to avoid shooting any areas I want to eat. Have not hunted with 177 but pretty sure it would not do the same damage as 22 slugs though.

qball,

what you say sounds right. (I just had something stuck in my overloaded memory that there was something weird about the HP. I'll check my notes — if I don't forget....)





tracker1955,

at almost 50 (fifty!) foot-pounds out of a .22cal gun I fully believe the gory, but humane, critter devastation. Congrats!  

Thank you, and also cra627, for sharing your results.



Of course, there are some who'd like to increase the rather mediocre "devastation" that our lower powered guns have produced to date....

Matthias

 

Bullet on the far left is 33 grain swagged hp shot at about 55 ft lbs into a 5 gallon bucket of water.. immediately to its right,..same bullet razor cut at the hollow point shot into the same 5 gallons of water. Bullet on the far right is a bbt 38 grain done the same way. The expansion is much better . The swagged has a talon-look to it. By setting the in a stack of washers I can achieve the same depth every time. Works wonders on varmints and predators. I think knifemaker on the gta did a similar test with a Phillips? .. bit a while back. 

Oneshot61,

would you make some recommendations what tools to use and how to achieve consistency?

Your comment on using a stack of washers is great!

Matthias

I use the washers super glued together and a razor blade. The washers are marked at 90 degrees, .. I drop the bullet in and press the razor blade down till it contacts the washer. It’s the same every time.. slow process but only for hunting. The swagged are more consistent in weight compared to the cast as a whole , but weighing and sorting helps with the cast. If I could attach the op’s original design to a press for consistent depth that would be consistent and I think better than the razor .. but it works.

I’ve only tried this with my armada.25 but see no reason it won’t work for other calibers.

Thanks, Oneshot — I think I'm finally ready to try this — I've been reading about this for a long time — not it's TIME for action!!

Matthias

oneshot61 said:

I use the washers super glued together and a razor blade. The washers are marked at 90 degrees, .. I drop the bullet in and press the razor blade down till it contacts the washer. It’s the same every time.. slow process but only for hunting. The swagged are more consistent in weight compared to the cast as a whole , but weighing and sorting helps with the cast. If I could attach the op’s original design to a press for consistent depth that would be consistent and I think better than the razor .. but it works.

I’ve only tried this with my armada.25 but see no reason it won’t work for other calibers.

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@oneshot61 , could you take a picture of the tool you made?

JungleShooter said:

Oneshot61,

would you make some recommendations what tools to use and how to achieve consistency?

Your comment on using a stack of washers is great!

Matthias

Click to expand...

This makes a good tutorial video.