doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Single pellet clay breaks

More power to ya Don.

Quite a project.

Targets are a variable, which makes the task more daunting.

White Flyer are the absolute best. They are the trap shooters choice.

Lawry are harder, but they pay off for the SC clubs. Champions are variable... they are often broken by the trap, but dusted by the shooter (!).

Your research has the chance of being valuable, but the target variability issue is going to be a problem.

One thing I've wondered all along is whether Dr. Jones' research, conducted in England I believe, might not have been done on clay birds that are different enough from ours to make that a variable one would have to eliminate.

Don, it's been a while since I glanced over "the book" and I assume other readers here may not have even glanced. How about explaining how you or the author do testing to determine the effectiveness of one pellet hits.

Dr. Jones set up a test rig with a variable speed hand drill spinning the plastic lid off a "pot of Christmas nuts." The lid, by happen stance, was sized for a clay to "snap on" with little influence on the results. Dr. J usedanairpistolfor his velocity generator - - - about 450fps with a single pellet (in this case, size didn't matter) and based breaks on pellet energy. Clay pieces were captured in a box lined with insulation. The analysis of breaks vs non-breaks is the first attempt at defining lethal dose for a clay. Testing by Dr. J is not the end all, rather a pointer of direction. I'm planning a live firing test to extend Dr. J's currently published work. Jones' work focused on statistical analysis of the energy necessary to break a target with zone of the clay and angle of strike as variables.

As noted above, the brand/lot/design of the clay is a variable worthy of testing for understanding of lethal dose (how many pellets of what energy at what spots on the target).

The good news is that both of us are doing testing that can be repeated by others and extended as time/money/interest/usefulness indicate.

450 fps is the velocity for a no. 8, or 7 1/2 at what distance, when launched at 1250 fps?


And, was that air pistol firing no. 7 1/2, or no. 8, shot? Or was it firing steel BB's?

Stan

Stan, good question. It was firing various larger sizes of lead shot so as to generate energies typical of smaller shot as used on clay targets. Data showed that the target was broken by impact energy via shock propagation within the brittle material, not by pellet diameter aspenetrationofthe clay was unusual. The shock wave would result in fractures at discontinuities and/or the side opposite the impact. The rotational force actually pulled the pieces apart. No steel BB's. A cleaning wad was used as the barrel sealer. The next logical step in this line of experimentation is to use an air rifle, perhaps a pump-up version than can achieve various velocities.

Doesn't seem relevant to me if the tests are not utilizing the exact type shot at the same velocity ranges that would be present when actually shooting clays with a shotgun. "Close to the same" just isn't good enough, if you're going to all this trouble to try and get useful data.

Stan

A #8 with a muzzle velocity of 1200 fps has a retained velocity of about 840 fps at 20 yards; just over 700 fps at 30 yards.

"Empirical" is looking better all the time.