Post by nedchristiansen on Jul 2, 2022 13:40:49 GMT -5
I feel like I made a little history this week in Patrol Rifle class. Or revealed it, perhaps.
The Winchester Model 1907 in .351 WSL caliber is well-known of as a favorite rifle of deer hunters for a time, and, of course, G-Men and gangsters. Name the gangster shootout and chances are there was an ’07 there on one side or the other, or both. 180 grain bullets of .351 diameter at 1800-plus FPS, well it’s no .30-06 but it’s not nothing, either.
In each 5-day class we do FBI-protocol ballistic gel testing to show students what the capabilities and limitations are of their AR15’s. I waited until it was over, and pounced on two fresh blocks of gel left over.
My big question was, were the 180-grain soft points in use at the time any good? My presumption was that they were not, based on another presumption that the whole expanding bullet thing was far from fully developed then. While I’ve been through some info regarding the guns and their progression through the years of manufacture (1907-1956 with ~59,000 made), I’m not sure when the soft points came out. Ammo in the caliber is long out of production….. I make my own from .357 Maximum cases. You can still buy old stock but it is expensive. I recently acquired a handful of unpackaged vintage ammo of mixed brands (UMC and WRA). I don’t know how old they were but they had the soft point bullets- between UMC and WRA they were almost identical looking.
Into the gel they went, and here are the results. I was pleased to see that I was wrong about this bullet. It performed rather well and if you look at the FBI specs, these .351’s came very close to staying within those standards.
V- velocity
P- penetration
R- retained weight
D- diameter expanded to
Retrieval:
Through heavy clothing:
The Winchester Model 1907 in .351 WSL caliber is well-known of as a favorite rifle of deer hunters for a time, and, of course, G-Men and gangsters. Name the gangster shootout and chances are there was an ’07 there on one side or the other, or both. 180 grain bullets of .351 diameter at 1800-plus FPS, well it’s no .30-06 but it’s not nothing, either.
In each 5-day class we do FBI-protocol ballistic gel testing to show students what the capabilities and limitations are of their AR15’s. I waited until it was over, and pounced on two fresh blocks of gel left over.
My big question was, were the 180-grain soft points in use at the time any good? My presumption was that they were not, based on another presumption that the whole expanding bullet thing was far from fully developed then. While I’ve been through some info regarding the guns and their progression through the years of manufacture (1907-1956 with ~59,000 made), I’m not sure when the soft points came out. Ammo in the caliber is long out of production….. I make my own from .357 Maximum cases. You can still buy old stock but it is expensive. I recently acquired a handful of unpackaged vintage ammo of mixed brands (UMC and WRA). I don’t know how old they were but they had the soft point bullets- between UMC and WRA they were almost identical looking.
Into the gel they went, and here are the results. I was pleased to see that I was wrong about this bullet. It performed rather well and if you look at the FBI specs, these .351’s came very close to staying within those standards.
V- velocity
P- penetration
R- retained weight
D- diameter expanded to
Retrieval:
Through heavy clothing:
Through Bonnie and Clyde’s windshield. If you look at the pictures from that day, and confirmed by a little research into auto glass, by that time laminated windshields had already been in use for a few years.