Finally Tested my .38 Thunderzap

Thunderzap anon here. I didn't want to make my own thread but there hasn't been an /rlg/ for a while. I got some FPS readings and managed to be the first person to ever shoot more than one round on film. I also did a drywall penetration test and was really impressed.

I'll be here for a while to answer any questions if y'all have any.

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Holy shit, good content on my /k/.

    What did you think about the terminal effects? Your experiment looks similar to what they reported back in its time, real but rather shallow wounding effects. It would be impressive stuffed into a MP5 for prison riots.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I was pretty impressed. It's a 36gr projectile moving ~2900fps out of a 4 5/8" barrel. I bet a levergun or something sealed with a long barrel would be insane. I might have to get a .38 snubnose to carry these with.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >a rifle would be insane
        naw
        typically 357 reaches 85% of its velocity potential with a 7.5 barrel (depending on the powder)
        with a normal 125 @ 1400 gets up to 1700 with 7.5 and from a revolver to a closed chamber (which i dont know if you can do with a thor thunderzap) you get about 2000 with most powders while some powders just give you lower velocities across the board past 4 inches and only give you 1700fps from a lever action

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Dont extremely light rounds tend to do better with longer barrels though?

    • 11 months ago
      Resident Wumbologist

      I remember this stuff being mentioned in an old Punisher comic from the 1980s. It was a bit of a fad at the time, but never caught on because performance and especially accuracy massively diminished beyond short range. Penetration as you can see is also (intentionally) very poor, which made it unsuitable for police use. If cops didn't want to carry it, then it made regular people leery and they preferred to stick with more conventional JHP/JSP/FMJ/LRN.

      It's still a great concept for CCW (which was less common at the time) and HD, so I think it's prime for a comeback. The low recoil and theoretically low manufacturing cost could help too.

      I'm not sure how well it would work in self-loading firearms though, since the physics involved take a considerable departure from conventional ammunition.

      As above, I'm curious if it would cycle in an MP-5 or even a Glock for instance. This may require a special adaptation like a lightweight bolt or a spring kit to run reliably, which would probably hamstring any serious interest in it.

      If somebody 3d printed bullets and loaded their own 9mm THOR the reliability results would be rather interesting.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        The punisher comic is how I found out about it too lol.
        I agree that it's perfect for HD/CC. Garandthumb just did his drywall pen test and basically every round will go right through a house.
        They made .45acp rounds too and apparently they worked well enough. I've never seen any of it come up for sale though.

        Shit I never thought I'd actually see tested. OP is a legend.

        Thank you!

        Neat test OP. They remind me of those blue plastic 7.62x51 training rounds from Germany, I put a bunch through my FR8 back in the day. Was that your little brother filming? I wanted to reach through the screen and give that punk a noogie.

        It's a similar idea, but I imagine the training rounds are underloaded.
        I'm hard up for camera men at the moment. I've got too many projects and not much time.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Neat test OP. They remind me of those blue plastic 7.62x51 training rounds from Germany, I put a bunch through my FR8 back in the day. Was that your little brother filming? I wanted to reach through the screen and give that punk a noogie.

          >It's a similar idea, but I imagine the training rounds are underloaded.
          The training rounds are either hollow or significantly porous on the inside. They weigh next to nothing, even less than thunderzap by a big margin, and barely damage anything even though the move at like 4000FPS.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Nah, they're not hollow it's just not a plug of teflon so it's not as dense. The DAG rounds are 10 gr at 4900 fps. Works out to 723j vs. 912j on the THOR rounds (rifle length vs. carry though).

            I'd be interested to see if you could slightly get better range/accuracy by reshaping the front for aerodynamics. Somehow get it to still collapse on itself to dump the energy though.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          the old weapon and gear spread at the end of war journals were actually pretty accurate lol

  2. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Thanks for the work anon…pretty intriguing results.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Thanks. The eventual goal is replicating them and loading my own new. I've got a guy who makes teflon bearings I need to get in touch with.

      nice, never heard of this ammo

      interesting stuff

      i wonder what it would do out of a smaller round like a .25 or a .32

      I'm not sure. They only ever sold .38 special and .45acp rounds. I bet they'd haul ass though

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        For once OP was not a gay. Definitely be interested in seeing a replication attempt - will you stick that up on YT too?

  3. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    nice, never heard of this ammo

    interesting stuff

    i wonder what it would do out of a smaller round like a .25 or a .32

  4. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    One wonders if you could mold these projectiles out of some of our more modern polymers.
    With injection molding, you could also make some hybrid materials, say a gilding jacket to prevent melting and fouling and some metal rods placed to initiate expansion.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      You probably could. The originals are turned on a lathe and the ones I get made will be too since I can't afford the expensive molds. A big company could probably eat the cost though.
      A 9mm version probably could use a jacket of some kind to help with not damaging the bullet during feeding.

      This is great. Thanks anon. Posts like this are why I keep coming back a decade later.
      Reloading is comfy I hope you can make a suitable clone.

      Thanks anon, positive reactions like this are why I record this stuff. My main hangup at the moment is finding a proper analog of the powder.

  5. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    This is great. Thanks anon. Posts like this are why I keep coming back a decade later.
    Reloading is comfy I hope you can make a suitable clone.

  6. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Find some of these to test too

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Never seen them before, what are they?

      we had a reloading thread just a day ago, the tourists keep fricking everything up. also I'd like everyone to take a look at repackbox.com , they make excellent ways to repackage your ammo so you're not some nonce with a sandwich bag of ammo, or forced to use the bulky plastic ammo containers . am I a shill? technically, but I like this product

      Damn I must have missed it. I was at the range most of yesterday with no signal.

      I wonder if you could use these to fire a steel pin fast enough to punch Kevlar.

      Probably, it'd basically be a sabot round moving at almost 5.56 velocity.

      Good to see this Anon.
      Great content.
      Keep us in the loop, and good luck finding a powder equivalent.

      Thank you

      Neat.
      Thanks for getting the testing on film.

      Nobody else has done it so I figured it had to be me. I see another box for sale so I might buy it to send some rounds to some youtubers for testing. Idk who would want them though, maybe Oxide or Forgotten Weapons?

      So its a teflon hollow point? neat

      Yep. See picrel

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        PMC Ultramag 38 Special +p

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Looks like a teflon wadcutter, basically.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          It's a PTFE manstopper without the rear cavity, I assume it wouldn't expand anyway.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Taifledermaus
        They test interesting ammunition

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          OP has actually been in communication with them, which is pretty neat.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Taofladermaus, usually does random shotgun ammo people have made but sure he will do that.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Damn that almost looked like the old flying ashtrays the .45 used to have available.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Damn that almost looked like the old flying ashtrays the .45 used to have available.

      dont lie to me this is filled with cum

  7. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    we had a reloading thread just a day ago, the tourists keep fricking everything up. also I'd like everyone to take a look at repackbox.com , they make excellent ways to repackage your ammo so you're not some nonce with a sandwich bag of ammo, or forced to use the bulky plastic ammo containers . am I a shill? technically, but I like this product

  8. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I wonder if you could use these to fire a steel pin fast enough to punch Kevlar.

  9. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Good to see this Anon.
    Great content.
    Keep us in the loop, and good luck finding a powder equivalent.

  10. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Neat.
    Thanks for getting the testing on film.

  11. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    So its a teflon hollow point? neat

  12. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Shit I never thought I'd actually see tested. OP is a legend.

  13. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Neat test OP. They remind me of those blue plastic 7.62x51 training rounds from Germany, I put a bunch through my FR8 back in the day. Was that your little brother filming? I wanted to reach through the screen and give that punk a noogie.

  14. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Why dont we see new rimfire cartridges? I want a .38 rimfire

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Because rimfire is inherently less reliable than centerfire. The only justification for its existence is cheap plinking and practice ammo to use under circumstances where you aren't betting your life on every shot.

  15. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    how did you end up making them?

  16. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    How fast do they lose velocity?
    With such a light bullet for surface area they probably drop a bunch by 10yd and 20yd

  17. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    The concept seems to have a lot of flexibility in design. Someone with a home 3D printer could make their own bullets, with different sizes, shapes, & weights depending on what they are trying to accomplish. I'm very curious what types of 3D printer plastic are available and how they perform.

    I also have a fair bit of experience with Nylon 66 (a glass-fiber reinforced hard Nylon, very durable). My first thought was if some Nylon 66 rod stock can be cut & shaped to purpose. Round nose bullets would probably feed without any issues in a semi-automatic action. Or semi-round nose/semi-wad cutters, some sort of hybrid design ... assuming the flat nose assists in the impact/energy distribution. Wonder what a small hollow point cavity in the tip would do? Seems like it can't be any more damaging, but the experiment would still be fun.

    Since I'm invested in 9mm and .357 mag, could theoretically develop a bullet that can be loaded into either cartridge with whatever powder charge I feel comfortable with. Maybe even see if a ~50 grain bullet performs as well or better. I like the idea of having an extra magazine loaded with these for my 9mm ... Having the option of switching magazines to fit the situation I find myself in would be very nice.

    For survivors, there is the nightmare of not being able to remove the bullet fragments. They would be insanely difficult to find. You'd be carrying those pieces for life.

    I'm not personally crazy about .30 super carry (in general) ... but, these might have very serious potential in that caliber. Performance for that cartridge might make it worth a solid look, certainly a very interesting experiment.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Non round stock
      Literally read "Unintended Consequences" and buy a lathe.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        NYLON ROUND STOCK.

  18. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    damn those are nasty

  19. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Fascinating stuff anon, makes me wonder why nobody else has tried using teflon or plastic projectiles in handgun rounds to achieve similar effects

  20. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Oh cool, a real live thunderzap thread
    >Oh shit, his little brother is a mouthy c**t
    >Check out the channel, pretty based and factpilled Rittenhouse video
    >About Channel
    >"READ SIEGE BY JESUS"
    frick sake, edgelord shit master moronation.
    Just be cool, homosexual.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >>"READ SIEGE BY JESUS"
      kek he's based. u r gay n dum

  21. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Based OC poster.
    That's pretty cool, the polymer it's made out of really only lends itself to machining, it isn't very convenient to print. But practically any lathe should be plenty capable to make them.
    I wonder if they really even need the hollow point or what would happen if they had a normal round nose. Great stuff, OP.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      You know what kind of polymer is it? I have a clapped out lathe that would probably handle it, and reloading equipment. Do you think HDPE would work? I can probably scrounge some of that up at work.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        The patent says ptfe, aka Teflon.
        https://www.mcmaster.com/product/8546K12
        Here its $3/ft, and should work perfectly for this. Inshallah, post about your results.
        Teflon will work better than HDPE for a lot of reasons, it's stiffer, won't be inclined to melt, it's a lot denser and stronger.
        I'd just go straight for Teflon since it's cheap and easy to get.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        The patent says ptfe, aka Teflon.
        https://www.mcmaster.com/product/8546K12
        Here its $3/ft, and should work perfectly for this. Inshallah, post about your results.
        Teflon will work better than HDPE for a lot of reasons, it's stiffer, won't be inclined to melt, it's a lot denser and stronger.
        I'd just go straight for Teflon since it's cheap and easy to get.

        Essential beginner's reading:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene

        This is helpful:
        https://scipoly.com/density-of-polymers-by-density/

        > tl;dr
        PTFE (Teflon) has a density of 2.00 (or variants up to 2.20). It is the densest polymer of those listed on the above chart, part of it screencap'd in picrel.

        Any experimentation will want to be the densest shit you can find that will also withstand the brutal physics of being fired out of a gun. It's possible that Teflon might be the only practical option available. At least to normal humans.

        I suggested Kevlar:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar

        Not seeing it on that list, at least not on the dense end. Kevlar fibers mixed into a resin (epoxy) might offer enough added structure to allow some resins (once they set) to be fired without shattering and retain their mass until impact. Looks like a lot of room here for experimentation.

        If you look into resins, the basic start is that they should not be too brittle or they'll shatter upon firing. They need to be "rubbery" enough to withstand being shot and retain their shape. Kevlar or some similar fiber (carbon fibers?) might give a resin enough of that flexibility/cohesion once it sets.

        If I was casting resin bullets, I might consider placing a BB or lead pellet in the tip of the mold to increase weight and possibly increase penetration physics. Like a single-aught buckshot? BB or #1 shot? If the mold is designed correctly, a spherical pellet *should* center itself so the spin physics don't get completely out of whack. I'm also suggesting here that a slight increase in weight, like bumping to ~50 grains from ~30-ish, might be desirable. Combined with a metal nose, this should probably create a deeper wound cavity if you're concerned about how shallow pure Teflon behaves.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >kevlar
          what about the stuff they use in air fuselages like NOMEX?

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >densest shit you can find that will also withstand the brutal physics of being fired out of a gun. It's possible that Teflon might be the only practical option
          Why not polycarbonate or delrin? What makes ptfe special for this application?

          how the frick do you install from this setup?

          Same question

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Neither is as dense as teflon. PTFE is pretty much the densest polymer commonly available.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              You know what's even more dense? Lead or copper.
              You're kind of missing the point here Mr. Factoids.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I think the point here is to find a plastic alternative, moron. not just go to copper or lead.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >kind of missing the point here
                Perhaps if you were to read the room before posting moronic shit? Because, that's some pretty fricking moronic behavior on your part. Learn to shut up and learn things from your betters before jumping in and lecturing everyone about just how fricking moronic you are.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              If you were selecting a polymer to use as a sabot material, does it make more sense to use a lower density polymer in place of ptfe? Polycarbonate has the advantage of being easiest to bond a core msterial to it with adhesives but has pretty bad chemical/uv resistamce. Acetal is difficult to bond to, requiring some sort of adhesion promoter, then the adhesive, but still has very poor bonding strength. Hmdpe/ptfe are even worse to bond to, but acetal/ptfe/hmdpe are all much slicker and chemical resistance is much less a concern.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Neither is as dense as teflon. PTFE is pretty much the densest polymer commonly available.

          3D printed FPE has the same density as teflon and is heat/wear resistant, but flexible.
          what about that?
          even for just a partial print finished by a quick lathe spin and drill?
          what sort of effect would the flexibility have on it, I wonder?

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >what about that?
            It's an interesting possibility. For those of us who don't know what you're talking about, here's an opportunity to share some knowledge and links. The properties you describe make it sound intriguing with strong potential.

            If you know how to program a 3D printer to make very precise & constant bullets, some basic info there to get started would also be welcome. For example, just how precise can a 3D printer match specifications? If the diameter needs to be 0.312" ... and all other details meet a similar, rigorous quality control ... is that possible with the right printer? Software? Printing material?

            If there's a way to achieve "adequate" accuracy up to ~25 yards without involving a lathe, that starts to make it sound exciting.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              found the chart.
              I really don't know about the flex in this stuff though.
              you can wear it like a soft shoe. that is how flexible it is.
              so it might be closer to being a rubber bullet.
              but I can't help be curious about how it would do in various forms.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Holy crap, it out-competes plain vanilla PTFE density. Very interesting. If it can be found in rod stock, then 3D printing might not be necessary at all ... jump straight to lathing.

                As far as flexibility, there's a process called vulcanization. Normal black rubber is flexible enough to use as the soul of a shoe. But, expose it to a chemical & heating process (uses a lot of sulfur), and it cross-links all the polymer chains into a tight, hardened matrix. Then you get bowling balls. With less aggressive vulcanization, you get tires of various hardness for cars, trucks, tank treads, asphalt substitute for roads ....

                Some similar treatment may be possible with base FPE to harden & stiffen it up. Lathe & cut all your bullets to spec, then soak them in a chemical bath for a few minutes or a few days and they come out the other end as hard as a bowling ball or tank tread. Or, close enough for use as bullets.

                Also suggesting ... I wonder if old bowling balls can be cut & lathed & repurposed into bullets? There might be opportunities to pick up a truckload for cheap or free. It's just highly vulcanized rubber, so a density check is needed.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                it doesn't come in rod stock.
                it comes in a filament spool like any other 3D printing material.

                >so do a rough print finished by a lathe spin, like I said, only not as shitty a job as you seem to have done on the lathe?
                I did not turn these on a lathe: I 3D-printed them and then sized the bearing bands down to caliber, using a sizing ring (sizing die?) that I turned myself.
                >It looks like that is after you shot them, but the lathe marks on that seem pretty rough... was it just that hard to turn?
                That's not the lathe marks, the lathe did not touch these projectiles. Those are 3D-printing lines. If you wanted to print then turn it on a lathe - why not just buy round stock to begin with?
                >Anyways FPE apparently has really good layer adhesion properties as well, so I doubt THAT will be as big an issue as you think.
                All my experience with PE so far has been mediocre at best. It shrinks a lot so printing a tolerance fit (like a bullet) is out of the question. Anyways, what is ''good layer adhesion'' to you? Most ABS can get 25-30 MPa tensile strength in the Z direction, but I can hardly find specs on PE online. My bullets were ABS and failed at about 400-500 m/s (1600FPS?), if you want 3000FPS Thunderzeplica's you would need an order of magnitude more strength (60-100 MPa tensile strength) at the very least.
                Finally, FPE filaments are probably not suitable because they are flexibles with a very low shore hardness. You need a more solid PE variant if you want to go in this direction.

                [...]
                >jump straight to lathing.
                This is the only option that makes sense. And it's called turning.
                > Lathe & cut all your bullets to spec, then soak them in a chemical bath for a few minutes or a few days and they come out the other end as hard as a bowling ball or tank tread.
                There's this thing called dimensional accuracy that will bite you there.

                you can't go to rod if there is no rod stock of it

                So here is a question.
                If FPE is too flexible... what happens if we then print a cap on it or even an internal skeleton suspended within it as well?
                You could still try lathe turning it after to smooth the shell.
                >dimensional accuracy
                the accuracy of an industrial FDM printer, which is what you would want to use for FPE, is about 0.2 mm.

                We got options here while we are tossing ideas around.
                So long as 3D printing is on the table why not have fun with the ideas here?
                You could 3D print layers that get assembled for the bullet and rely on the innate flexibility of FPE to make up for tolerances on the internals.
                You could laminate it, use a bit of adhesive to simply the structure or mess with the internal structure

                We got options here. What potential effects would we see?
                Pic related is a super shitty MS paint sketch of the core idea.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                and to add onto this, what sort of post printing and/or assembly options do we have to further mess with the structure of the plastics?
                chemical treating, heat treating, perhaps?
                you can anneal some types of 3D filament for greater hardness.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >If FPE is too flexible
                Then you use HDPE instead. Also a polyethylene, just with better rigidity and available as round stock.
                >the accuracy of an industrial FDM printer, which is what you would want to use for FPE, is about 0.2 mm.
                Match grade bullets are accurate to roughly in the neighborhood of 2 ten-thousandths in diameter, 2 thousandths of an inch would be considered hot garbage. That's about 0.05. Also, no, the accuracy of an industrial FDM printer is about 0.2mm for a 100x100x100 cube, which is what we mostly test with to calibrate dimensional accuracy. For smaller prints the absolute error can increase, and with it the relative error - that's not even getting into the fact you are approaching the nozzle diameter, which is your resolution limit. On a .75 cal that was already a problem and I was forced to use .25mm nozzles to get anywhere near decent resolution, you'd have to go down to .1mm for a .30 cal projctile and that brings a host of other issues.

                >So long as 3D printing is on the table why not have fun with the ideas here?
                You can have fun, sure, but don't get insulted when somebody gives you a reality check on your ideas. That's generally how ideas get turned into reality: by accepting the latter and adapting the idea accordingly.

                Your cored idea already works in conventional bullets, but won't work with 3D-printing due to the accuracy required. Maybe just injection mold the core and then double mold or coat the shell around it?
                >You could 3D print layers that get assembled for the bullet and rely on the innate flexibility of FPE to make up for tolerances on the internals.
                Internal tolerances might be fine (probably not), but any void gaps would cause imbalance and therefore inaccuracy.

                and to add onto this, what sort of post printing and/or assembly options do we have to further mess with the structure of the plastics?
                chemical treating, heat treating, perhaps?
                you can anneal some types of 3D filament for greater hardness.

                Most chemical and heat options would distort the shape and dimensional accuracy, so those are right out.

                Lathegay from earlier in the thread here with an update: I now have a couple feet of recycled PTFE in the most unnecessarily large box McMaster could have sent it in. Don't have my parting blade yet because I gambled on a local place having one and didn't order it at the same time I did the PTFE. Since this is just plastic, I might just try and fabricate something. Will mess around with this project a bit more over the weekend and update if I make any progress in this thread, or a reloading thread if this one has 404'd. I have both 3/8 and 1/2 rod, was planning on making .38 special, .357 mag, and .45 ACP loads.

                Also, big thanks to . Pirates never die, although it was a b***h to install on Windblows 10. Maybe I'm just out of practice.

                Nice.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                What is there for me to be insulted at?

                Anyway, anon can we really say that the .2 mm is so bad?
                This is not a long range bullet that requires as much accuracy.
                So long as you can mill it within tolerances on the outside, is it really so bad? That is what interests me here.
                How MUCH distortion though?
                What happens if you heat treat it BEFORE milling it down to tolerances?

                At this point the only issues I see are that
                >internal tolerances mean the ballistics of the bullet itself are gonna vary a bit because of the weight distribution differences.
                So what? This is a short range
                >external tolerance issues mean that a way to make the outside match required tolerances is vital because its a bullet
                and I am still trying to get a good answer on using a lathe to mill it.

                Give it some other name, because we can already reverse engineer actual Thunderzaps with lathe-turned teflon. Your idea is beyond that (and beyond reality).

                Not really, because by engineering stadnards I'm practically a comedian. You'd know that if you had ever met engineers, or studied engineering (which shows in your ideas). I've given you plenty of information to solve problems, you're just not listening to the sound of reality. You should get into management!

                he aint me, but I don't give a frick about the name lol.
                You are not the sound of reality.
                You are simply one dude acting as a convenient foil to narrow down what the core issues and needs are.

                picrel, a much easier two-part bullet to assemble. The soft/flexible FPE core might help with a seal ... although. Plastic. It's all going to make a great seal compared to copper or something.

                Check what else makes a good base:
                [...]
                [...]
                [...]

                Basically, something similar to some types of shotgun plastic wads.

                Revisiting the vulcanization concept [...], if a chemical process exists to harden up FPE (or whatever material of choice), it isn't necessary to harden the bullet consistently all the way through. If you put it in a chemical bath, only the outer, exposed surface needs to be hardened. It would take experimentation, but determining the optimum thickness of the blue shell could be adjusted by time immersed and chemical strength. Would 0.010" be enough? Might be better performance if the shell was 0.050"?

                You get the hard exterior shell & softer core without having to try & mate two pieces together that have near-perfect spin balance.

                And, yes, I hereby suggest this entire thread discussion be called the Open-Source Thunderzap Project. Or, maybe something not "Thunderzap." Thunder/k/apz? Thunder/k/atz? Thunder/k/ap Project?

                that was merely for the core concept. Its a 3D print. depending on what can be made accurately, and how flexible that stuff is, you can make a variety of shapes for that thing to work.

                At WHAT distance will distortions from the spin balance being off due to printing tolerances for the flexible inner parts matter so much?
                This doesn't have work for further than what, 20 yards? Less?

                And what if we can mill the inner layer down to tolerances?
                What if we can use a simple enough shape that milling can remove those tolerance imbalances with ease?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                0.2mm is bad, mkay? Even if you can achieve that on an FDM-printed .30 cal bullet (and you can't), it would be four times worse than 20 thou (0.05) which is already garbage for handgun rounds. For reference, a .30 cal bullet is actually .308 and runs through a .300 bore. Imagine the pressure signs if you used a .328 bullet due to manufacturing inaccuracy. If you want to try, just load an 8mm Mauser bullet, that would actually be smaller...
                >So long as you can mill it within tolerances on the outside, is it really so bad?
                For round diamters, you'd use a lathe, not a mill. Why bother 3D-printing a weaker feedstock if you can just buy round bar and then turning that straight away? You'd reduce manufacturing time immensely and the product would not have printing lines, meaning it would be stronger.
                >How MUCH distortion though?
                In the range of printing inaccuracy (0.1-0.5mm).
                >What happens if you heat treat it BEFORE milling it down to tolerances?
                If you do that there's two options: either you don't heat treat enough and you will machine through it, or you heat treat enough and it destroys tooling as well as reducing accuracy a lot. I'm betting on the former.

                >This is a short range
                For reference, 10 meter accuracy on my 3D printed slugs was about 10 inches for a five shot group. Hot garbage. It would only get worse with smaller projectiles, increased relative error and higher velocity.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Open a manufacturing engineering book and redo the entire process, please.
                >FPE core Print
                Why printing when you can do any other plastic manufacturing tech, that doesn't result in weak and inconsistent products?
                >Mill core to spec
                Turn to spec - and why not use a primary process that eliminates this need?
                >additional post process (?)
                Why not use a material that can actually beat the heat? It would only require you to drop the idea for 3D-printing...
                >Shell print
                See above: many other different processes would be better. This would mainly be forming processes, wouldn't even have to be typical processes for plastic but sheet forming could also be used
                >Assemble and Anneal Bullet
                Annealing would not be needed if you used better materials, and annealing still loses accuracy.
                >Mill Shell to spec
                Either your annealling is weak and you can turn it on a lathe (and your bullet will probably fail), or you have to annealing it even harder and spend a lot of time on grinding. Good luck grinding plastics into a tolerance fit.

                >six steps, two pieces
                Or, since that requires you to have the equipment to "mill" (turn) the bullet in the first place... you could just get PTFE rod stock and make the one-piece bullet in one step, exactly like they did in the '80s?

                I know you like your 3D printer, and there's lots of good projects for them, but this is not one. All you're doing by shoehorning printing in is running up the cost and complexity.

                >0.2mm is bad, mkay? Even if you can achieve that on an FDM-printed .30 cal bullet (and you can't), it would be four times worse than 20 thou (0.05) which is already garbage for handgun rounds. For reference, a .30 cal bullet is actually .308 and runs through a .300 bore. Imagine the pressure signs if you used a .328 bullet due to manufacturing inaccuracy.
                Check your math, anon. 0.05mm is 2 thou, not 20.

                the entire point of this thought experiment was to avoid using teflon.
                FPE is a plastic that has similar density, and everything was built around using that.
                are you moronic?
                and why are you using your shitty gross horribly scuffed looking slugs as an example?
                why are you acting like annealed plastic is just gonna DESTROY tooled steel?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >the entire point of this thought experiment was to avoid using teflon.
                Why bother changing a critical variable, when that variable appears to work? You're outside of normal parameters, stick to what you know.
                >and why are you using your shitty gross horribly scuffed looking slugs as an example?
                Because that is what you're going to get with 3D-printed projectiles, except about four times worse with projectiles half the size.
                >why are you acting like annealed plastic is just gonna DESTROY tooled steel?
                Because some kinds of plastic actually destroy tool steel. There's a reason tool steel nozzles exist and even those can be destroyed by some kind of fibrous, abrasive plastics such as carbon. Machining soft plastics can be easy and great for tool life, but once you get into the fancy stuff you might need extreme spindle speeds to even get to the required cutting speed. If you don't it might cut down tool life significantly.

                >0.2mm is bad, mkay? Even if you can achieve that on an FDM-printed .30 cal bullet (and you can't)
                people claim you can on a fancier one, which is what is required for the material in question anyways
                did you not read that when it was mentioned earlier?

                >people claim you can on a fancier one
                A lot of people claim a lot of things, last I checked I'm the only one in this thread to have tried it. I teach 3D-printing for a living and have printed with industrial machines costing upwards of 100K USD, so I have the experience that this will be extremely challenging. If you can meet a UCL and LCL range of 0.2mm you did great on a much larger part, nevermind a spindly .30 cal bullet.

                [...]

                >Is that .38 special or .357mag?
                I used .38 Special cases and OAL. The 14 grain loads are obviously impossible, the 9 grains were below SAAMI .38 Special pressures and the 10.x loads were below 26KPSI, which is roughly typical of a .38 Special +P load. Going to a higher pressure full house .357 Magnum didn't do much for velocities, but I think the simulation is just throwing a hissyfit because of these wierd parameters (30 grain .38 Special) and because I don't know the right powder.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I think I'm just gonna have to work the loads out in real life. Start out low and work up.
                The point of making it a .357 is mainly so that the guns are less likely to explode because while I'm willing to blow up for this project, most people aren't. And if this is gonna be any kind of commercial it can't be blowing up guns.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >0.2mm is bad, mkay? Even if you can achieve that on an FDM-printed .30 cal bullet (and you can't)
                people claim you can on a fancier one, which is what is required for the material in question anyways
                did you not read that when it was mentioned earlier?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                if you have to do finish operations to get it to dimension what's the point of 3d printing it to begin with? the part is already dead simple to make out of round stock. according to saami the tolerance for bullet diameter is +0-.003. if a 3d printer is only good to .2mm that's .007. I'm not a reloader but I'm pretty sure wrong sized bullets are kind of a big deal.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                read

                [...]
                [...]
                the entire point of this thought experiment was to avoid using teflon.
                FPE is a plastic that has similar density, and everything was built around using that.
                are you moronic?
                and why are you using your shitty gross horribly scuffed looking slugs as an example?
                why are you acting like annealed plastic is just gonna DESTROY tooled steel?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >if you have to do finish operations to get it to dimension what's the point of 3d printing it to begin with?
                The main reason to 3D-print is to make non-critical parts at a low volume for a relatively high price with lots of design freedom.
                Bullets are critical parts with a lot of stress on them, that are produced in bulk quantities. It's a market filled with cheapskate customers that want high performance for pennies on the dollar and balk at paying 1 dollar for a projectile, especially with handguns. The main advantage of 3D-printing, it's design freedom, is completely negated by A. using the wrong machines for the wrong resolution and B. making a shape that can easily be made using conventional machinery, nevermind CNC stuff. So yeah, no real poin in 3D-printing - unless you actively take advantage of that design freedom somehow.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                well for something like what OP is fooling around with we don't WANT typical bullet high performance, do we?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                picrel, a much easier two-part bullet to assemble. The soft/flexible FPE core might help with a seal ... although. Plastic. It's all going to make a great seal compared to copper or something.

                Check what else makes a good base:

                >penetrator
                Some central american dude thought that up in the 80s. Being that ptfe is fairly dense, you'd need a fairly heavy core material that isnt a restricted metal, and have to keep the sabot under 25% of the total weight to keep from running afoul of AP manufacturing laws at least on the federal level.

                I actually pulled 5 a few months ago and weighed the bullet and powder

                I think a round nose would penetrate too much. The patent mentions that testing other shapes ended up with almost AP levels of penetration.
                [...]
                I'm definitely going to order rod stock if it's about to get expensive.
                I really want to get a hold of a lever action or single shot .357 to test with, but I don't know anybody with one.
                All the pieces I could see were tiny shards. I never found any bigger pieces.
                I don't think a glass filler would be too bad. Even if it does damage the barrel, this is purely supposed to be a SD round. Not something you shoot a lot of.
                Thanks for the info dump, you've given me some stuff to look into
                [...]
                It's PTFE, or teflon. If you want dimensions or even a sample bullet leave a comment on the youtube video or hit me up on telegram.
                [...]
                This is good stuff.
                [...]
                Don't do this it makes mustard gas

                Basically, something similar to some types of shotgun plastic wads.

                Revisiting the vulcanization concept

                Holy crap, it out-competes plain vanilla PTFE density. Very interesting. If it can be found in rod stock, then 3D printing might not be necessary at all ... jump straight to lathing.

                As far as flexibility, there's a process called vulcanization. Normal black rubber is flexible enough to use as the soul of a shoe. But, expose it to a chemical & heating process (uses a lot of sulfur), and it cross-links all the polymer chains into a tight, hardened matrix. Then you get bowling balls. With less aggressive vulcanization, you get tires of various hardness for cars, trucks, tank treads, asphalt substitute for roads ....

                Some similar treatment may be possible with base FPE to harden & stiffen it up. Lathe & cut all your bullets to spec, then soak them in a chemical bath for a few minutes or a few days and they come out the other end as hard as a bowling ball or tank tread. Or, close enough for use as bullets.

                Also suggesting ... I wonder if old bowling balls can be cut & lathed & repurposed into bullets? There might be opportunities to pick up a truckload for cheap or free. It's just highly vulcanized rubber, so a density check is needed.

                , if a chemical process exists to harden up FPE (or whatever material of choice), it isn't necessary to harden the bullet consistently all the way through. If you put it in a chemical bath, only the outer, exposed surface needs to be hardened. It would take experimentation, but determining the optimum thickness of the blue shell could be adjusted by time immersed and chemical strength. Would 0.010" be enough? Might be better performance if the shell was 0.050"?

                You get the hard exterior shell & softer core without having to try & mate two pieces together that have near-perfect spin balance.

                And, yes, I hereby suggest this entire thread discussion be called the Open-Source Thunderzap Project. Or, maybe something not "Thunderzap." Thunder/k/apz? Thunder/k/atz? Thunder/k/ap Project?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Give it some other name, because we can already reverse engineer actual Thunderzaps with lathe-turned teflon. Your idea is beyond that (and beyond reality).

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Anyone ever tell you that you come off as a humorless homosexual? Because, you're coming off as a humorless homosexual. Put some of that energy into solving problems instead of dumping troll shit in other peoples' faces.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Not really, because by engineering stadnards I'm practically a comedian. You'd know that if you had ever met engineers, or studied engineering (which shows in your ideas). I've given you plenty of information to solve problems, you're just not listening to the sound of reality. You should get into management!

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I don't know where that 2.16 number comes from, but the one FPE datasheet I can find gives a density of 1.15 g/cm3. A typo maybe?
                >https://www.plastic2print.com/media/TDS_FPE45D.pdf

                [...]
                [...]
                the entire point of this thought experiment was to avoid using teflon.
                FPE is a plastic that has similar density, and everything was built around using that.
                are you moronic?
                and why are you using your shitty gross horribly scuffed looking slugs as an example?
                why are you acting like annealed plastic is just gonna DESTROY tooled steel?

                >FPE is a plastic that has similar density
                Where is your source for that?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >where is yur sourse
                you are looking at it.
                I linked the site.

                >the entire point of this thought experiment was to avoid using teflon.
                Why bother changing a critical variable, when that variable appears to work? You're outside of normal parameters, stick to what you know.
                >and why are you using your shitty gross horribly scuffed looking slugs as an example?
                Because that is what you're going to get with 3D-printed projectiles, except about four times worse with projectiles half the size.
                >why are you acting like annealed plastic is just gonna DESTROY tooled steel?
                Because some kinds of plastic actually destroy tool steel. There's a reason tool steel nozzles exist and even those can be destroyed by some kind of fibrous, abrasive plastics such as carbon. Machining soft plastics can be easy and great for tool life, but once you get into the fancy stuff you might need extreme spindle speeds to even get to the required cutting speed. If you don't it might cut down tool life significantly.

                [...]
                >people claim you can on a fancier one
                A lot of people claim a lot of things, last I checked I'm the only one in this thread to have tried it. I teach 3D-printing for a living and have printed with industrial machines costing upwards of 100K USD, so I have the experience that this will be extremely challenging. If you can meet a UCL and LCL range of 0.2mm you did great on a much larger part, nevermind a spindly .30 cal bullet.

                [...]
                >Is that .38 special or .357mag?
                I used .38 Special cases and OAL. The 14 grain loads are obviously impossible, the 9 grains were below SAAMI .38 Special pressures and the 10.x loads were below 26KPSI, which is roughly typical of a .38 Special +P load. Going to a higher pressure full house .357 Magnum didn't do much for velocities, but I think the simulation is just throwing a hissyfit because of these wierd parameters (30 grain .38 Special) and because I don't know the right powder.

                >Why bother changing a critical variable
                because someone ASKED you moron.

                >the entire point of this thought experiment was to avoid using teflon.
                Why bother changing a critical variable, when that variable appears to work? You're outside of normal parameters, stick to what you know.
                >and why are you using your shitty gross horribly scuffed looking slugs as an example?
                Because that is what you're going to get with 3D-printed projectiles, except about four times worse with projectiles half the size.
                >why are you acting like annealed plastic is just gonna DESTROY tooled steel?
                Because some kinds of plastic actually destroy tool steel. There's a reason tool steel nozzles exist and even those can be destroyed by some kind of fibrous, abrasive plastics such as carbon. Machining soft plastics can be easy and great for tool life, but once you get into the fancy stuff you might need extreme spindle speeds to even get to the required cutting speed. If you don't it might cut down tool life significantly.

                [...]
                >people claim you can on a fancier one
                A lot of people claim a lot of things, last I checked I'm the only one in this thread to have tried it. I teach 3D-printing for a living and have printed with industrial machines costing upwards of 100K USD, so I have the experience that this will be extremely challenging. If you can meet a UCL and LCL range of 0.2mm you did great on a much larger part, nevermind a spindly .30 cal bullet.

                [...]
                >Is that .38 special or .357mag?
                I used .38 Special cases and OAL. The 14 grain loads are obviously impossible, the 9 grains were below SAAMI .38 Special pressures and the 10.x loads were below 26KPSI, which is roughly typical of a .38 Special +P load. Going to a higher pressure full house .357 Magnum didn't do much for velocities, but I think the simulation is just throwing a hissyfit because of these wierd parameters (30 grain .38 Special) and because I don't know the right powder.

                >mu spindly .30 cal
                why are you always making this about a rifle bullet when the subject at hand was always a stubby wadcutter looking bullet for .357?

                well since SOMEONE wants to cry about having fun with FPE and screwing around with bullet structure.

                lets look at other plastics by density.
                As far as thermoplastics go we got
                >PCTFE - Polymonochlorotrifluoroethylene
                which has a higher melting point than pure teflon and a similar density
                and
                >PPS, Glass fiber & Mineral-filled
                which has a slightly lower melting point but similar density.

                PPS has a MOH of about 5.11, so its harder than copper.
                PCTFE gave me a rockwell hardness level of 75-85, and as far as I can tell that puts it above PPS and above teflon in hardness (50-65)

                so perhaps we don't need to stick to teflon to satisfy the pseudo-engineer who keeps pulling dubious arguments?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                wew. PCTFE is pricey though.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                So your source appears to be:
                >https://bitfab.io/blog/3d-printing-materials-densities/
                Note that they do not link to any primary source material. This really appears to be a typo, considering the 1.15 g/cm3 mentioned by this datasheet:
                >https://www.plastic2print.com/media/TDS_FPE45D.pdf

                >why are you always making this about a rifle bullet when the subject at hand was always a stubby wadcutter looking bullet for .357?
                Because even on a .357 you'd be hard pressed to stay within the required tolerance limits.

                >PCTFE
                Expensive as frig.
                >PPS w/ filler
                Sure, let's just put some abrasives in there. This surely won't hurt our tooling or abrade the barrel away!

                For the marginal gains in density, with all the other restrictions that new materials bring, why bother moving away from teflon?
                >Pseudo-engineer
                Post degree or shut up.

                well for something like what OP is fooling around with we don't WANT typical bullet high performance, do we?

                What you might consider as ''low performance'' for a bullet is actually high performance as far as normal materials go. Normal materials don't need to be accelerated under pressure like bullets do.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                anon.
                I would expect "normal" bullet ability to be able to go through multiple layers of drywalls and then the chicken.
                not go through ONE layer of drywall and explode on the chicken.
                Teflon does just fine under pressure.
                I went for materials similar to it in basic properties under the assumption that things like density, hardness, melting point, etc were important for that.
                Any issues with hardness and melting points can be overcome via a shell.
                Other plastics are around with similar basic properties to teflon as well.
                It gets tiring to hear a bunch of nay saying from people who don't want to even look at numbers and speculate on the properties.
                If FPT aint so dense, fine. Toss it.
                But don't bullshit me by whining about things outside the parameters like you so obviously are.
                >acts like a pseudo-engineer
                >gets called one
                >cries about posting degrees
                >doesn't post his
                if you can't even act like an engineer in this why are you whining about degrees?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                ah, I got it pegged what makes me call you a pseudo-engineer
                Instead of approaching things like
                >how can we do X task?
                >how could we solve Y issue?
                you say
                >we CANT do x
                >no doing Y is impossible
                >do it Z way that someone else made up already

                there is no engineering mindset here.
                more like an overly promoted manager burnt out and unable to rise further who doesn't want to try.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >what about that?
            It's an interesting possibility. For those of us who don't know what you're talking about, here's an opportunity to share some knowledge and links. The properties you describe make it sound intriguing with strong potential.

            If you know how to program a 3D printer to make very precise & constant bullets, some basic info there to get started would also be welcome. For example, just how precise can a 3D printer match specifications? If the diameter needs to be 0.312" ... and all other details meet a similar, rigorous quality control ... is that possible with the right printer? Software? Printing material?

            If there's a way to achieve "adequate" accuracy up to ~25 yards without involving a lathe, that starts to make it sound exciting.

            Conventional 3D-printing (FDM) is not accurate enough to print projectiles. I printed these 12 gauge slugs oversized and then sized them down using a lathe-turned sizing ring, to get them in the right neighborhood. Note that these are roughly .75 cal, the relative error would be about 2.5 larger on a .313 cal projectile.
            Honestly, you'd be better off with a lathe. Don't even get me started on the layer separations.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              so do a rough print finished by a lathe spin, like I said, only not as shitty a job as you seem to have done on the lathe? It looks like that is after you shot them, but the lathe marks on that seem pretty rough... was it just that hard to turn?
              Anyways FPE apparently has really good layer adhesion properties as well, so I doubt THAT will be as big an issue as you think.

              >what about that?
              It's an interesting possibility. For those of us who don't know what you're talking about, here's an opportunity to share some knowledge and links. The properties you describe make it sound intriguing with strong potential.

              If you know how to program a 3D printer to make very precise & constant bullets, some basic info there to get started would also be welcome. For example, just how precise can a 3D printer match specifications? If the diameter needs to be 0.312" ... and all other details meet a similar, rigorous quality control ... is that possible with the right printer? Software? Printing material?

              If there's a way to achieve "adequate" accuracy up to ~25 yards without involving a lathe, that starts to make it sound exciting.

              doesn't have to be so precise.
              make it as precise as is reasonable, print up a batch in one go stacked up, then spin them on a lathe.
              here is where I looked into its properties and uses, there is also a chart somewhere about its density and its the most dense filament I saw.
              https://www.monofilamentdirect.com/3d-printer-filament-types-and-uses/
              >Flexible PolyEster (FPE) is a combination of rigid and soft properties that makes it suitable for professional and demanding 3D printing applications. 3D printed parts are strong, flexible, and heat resistant, as well as having high layer-to-layer adhesion. Since FPE is not the easiest to print, they are ideal for industrial use.
              I just decided to see if there was anything with the right density. The only possible issue with this could be its flexibility, since I have no clue what that could do to change its ballistic properties.

              This would be a higher tech print job anyways, not some basic shit you could shit out on a cheaper printer like I suspect did (though if you COULD it would be a lot more useful) This stuff reads like you need something more serious to work with it anyways.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >so do a rough print finished by a lathe spin, like I said, only not as shitty a job as you seem to have done on the lathe?
                I did not turn these on a lathe: I 3D-printed them and then sized the bearing bands down to caliber, using a sizing ring (sizing die?) that I turned myself.
                >It looks like that is after you shot them, but the lathe marks on that seem pretty rough... was it just that hard to turn?
                That's not the lathe marks, the lathe did not touch these projectiles. Those are 3D-printing lines. If you wanted to print then turn it on a lathe - why not just buy round stock to begin with?
                >Anyways FPE apparently has really good layer adhesion properties as well, so I doubt THAT will be as big an issue as you think.
                All my experience with PE so far has been mediocre at best. It shrinks a lot so printing a tolerance fit (like a bullet) is out of the question. Anyways, what is ''good layer adhesion'' to you? Most ABS can get 25-30 MPa tensile strength in the Z direction, but I can hardly find specs on PE online. My bullets were ABS and failed at about 400-500 m/s (1600FPS?), if you want 3000FPS Thunderzeplica's you would need an order of magnitude more strength (60-100 MPa tensile strength) at the very least.
                Finally, FPE filaments are probably not suitable because they are flexibles with a very low shore hardness. You need a more solid PE variant if you want to go in this direction.

                Holy crap, it out-competes plain vanilla PTFE density. Very interesting. If it can be found in rod stock, then 3D printing might not be necessary at all ... jump straight to lathing.

                As far as flexibility, there's a process called vulcanization. Normal black rubber is flexible enough to use as the soul of a shoe. But, expose it to a chemical & heating process (uses a lot of sulfur), and it cross-links all the polymer chains into a tight, hardened matrix. Then you get bowling balls. With less aggressive vulcanization, you get tires of various hardness for cars, trucks, tank treads, asphalt substitute for roads ....

                Some similar treatment may be possible with base FPE to harden & stiffen it up. Lathe & cut all your bullets to spec, then soak them in a chemical bath for a few minutes or a few days and they come out the other end as hard as a bowling ball or tank tread. Or, close enough for use as bullets.

                Also suggesting ... I wonder if old bowling balls can be cut & lathed & repurposed into bullets? There might be opportunities to pick up a truckload for cheap or free. It's just highly vulcanized rubber, so a density check is needed.

                >jump straight to lathing.
                This is the only option that makes sense. And it's called turning.
                > Lathe & cut all your bullets to spec, then soak them in a chemical bath for a few minutes or a few days and they come out the other end as hard as a bowling ball or tank tread.
                There's this thing called dimensional accuracy that will bite you there.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I think a round nose would penetrate too much. The patent mentions that testing other shapes ended up with almost AP levels of penetration.

      [...]
      >plastic
      That's an entire specialty to dive into. Teflon uses fluorine in the polymer, which gives it incredible toughness and heat resistance. Also, teflon basically doesn't react with almost anything. The "slickness" is just a by-product of these other properties. eflon is going to become more expensive & harder to find because it's recently been revealed that du Pont covered up major environmental contamination issues in its manufacture. If you find some cheap now, might be a good time to stock up if you think you'll be using it a lot.

      What is important is how incredibly tough it is, which probably is what allows it to spin and survive being fired at all. It will deform to engage rifling and form the most perfect seal imaginable. In guns without a cylinder gap, you will get the best efficiency imaginable, and the teflon cannot block or damage the barrel. Due to it's "slickness" factor.

      Also, it is fairly dense for an organic polymer, which helps bump the weight up a bit. I'm even more curious now what the fragmentation looks like. When you shoot meat & bone targets, try to recover pieces. Teflon shouldn't vaporize, it has a huge tolerance for heat.

      One reason I suggested Nylon 66 is that it has structural integrity and is fairly dense (maybe less than teflon?). Which may make it a possible substitute.

      HOWEVER, I didn't think of it in the original post, but the glass fiber filler that gives Nylon 66 its strength might also have negative effects on the barrel. Glass might abrade steel, even though contact is minimal. Or, in a gun environment, what little glass is in contact might just powder before it can do damage? Chrome & nitride barrels might be even more resistant. If this happens ... it should be minimal? Possibly not even a measurable effect, but it would take research.

      Maybe Kevlar is a possible alternate? It's also abrasive, but I'm not sure how much or how aggressive, or if it can abrade steel ... maybe just softer metals like copper.

      I'm definitely going to order rod stock if it's about to get expensive.
      I really want to get a hold of a lever action or single shot .357 to test with, but I don't know anybody with one.
      All the pieces I could see were tiny shards. I never found any bigger pieces.
      I don't think a glass filler would be too bad. Even if it does damage the barrel, this is purely supposed to be a SD round. Not something you shoot a lot of.
      Thanks for the info dump, you've given me some stuff to look into

      You know what kind of polymer is it? I have a clapped out lathe that would probably handle it, and reloading equipment. Do you think HDPE would work? I can probably scrounge some of that up at work.

      It's PTFE, or teflon. If you want dimensions or even a sample bullet leave a comment on the youtube video or hit me up on telegram.

      [...]
      Essential beginner's reading:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene

      This is helpful:
      https://scipoly.com/density-of-polymers-by-density/

      > tl;dr
      PTFE (Teflon) has a density of 2.00 (or variants up to 2.20). It is the densest polymer of those listed on the above chart, part of it screencap'd in picrel.

      Any experimentation will want to be the densest shit you can find that will also withstand the brutal physics of being fired out of a gun. It's possible that Teflon might be the only practical option available. At least to normal humans.

      I suggested Kevlar:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar

      Not seeing it on that list, at least not on the dense end. Kevlar fibers mixed into a resin (epoxy) might offer enough added structure to allow some resins (once they set) to be fired without shattering and retain their mass until impact. Looks like a lot of room here for experimentation.

      If you look into resins, the basic start is that they should not be too brittle or they'll shatter upon firing. They need to be "rubbery" enough to withstand being shot and retain their shape. Kevlar or some similar fiber (carbon fibers?) might give a resin enough of that flexibility/cohesion once it sets.

      If I was casting resin bullets, I might consider placing a BB or lead pellet in the tip of the mold to increase weight and possibly increase penetration physics. Like a single-aught buckshot? BB or #1 shot? If the mold is designed correctly, a spherical pellet *should* center itself so the spin physics don't get completely out of whack. I'm also suggesting here that a slight increase in weight, like bumping to ~50 grains from ~30-ish, might be desirable. Combined with a metal nose, this should probably create a deeper wound cavity if you're concerned about how shallow pure Teflon behaves.

      This is good stuff.

      I wonder what would happen if you could get picrel to stick onto a standard round nose bullet.

      Don't do this it makes mustard gas

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Can you just measure a bullet with a pair of calipers? Length, diameter, and groove spacing should be enough for me to poorly replicate it on my crappy lathe. I wonder if they are oversized by a few thou or not. I will probably try both PTFE and HDPE, since I can likely dig up some HDPE for free at work, and I've never turned plastic before, although I'm sure it can't be hard. It has similar tensile strength, but lower impact strength, and for some reason it's listed with rockwell hardness in the McMaster catalog instead of durometer like most plastics. PTFE is cheap enough that I will get a couple sizes of that too. Will probably try .38 special and .45ACP.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          I've got a (shitty) cad model on the telegram channel in the description of the video. I'm not home so I can't do much more than that right now. If you do make some I'd love to buy a couple off you.

  22. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    >plastic
    That's an entire specialty to dive into. Teflon uses fluorine in the polymer, which gives it incredible toughness and heat resistance. Also, teflon basically doesn't react with almost anything. The "slickness" is just a by-product of these other properties. eflon is going to become more expensive & harder to find because it's recently been revealed that du Pont covered up major environmental contamination issues in its manufacture. If you find some cheap now, might be a good time to stock up if you think you'll be using it a lot.

    What is important is how incredibly tough it is, which probably is what allows it to spin and survive being fired at all. It will deform to engage rifling and form the most perfect seal imaginable. In guns without a cylinder gap, you will get the best efficiency imaginable, and the teflon cannot block or damage the barrel. Due to it's "slickness" factor.

    Also, it is fairly dense for an organic polymer, which helps bump the weight up a bit. I'm even more curious now what the fragmentation looks like. When you shoot meat & bone targets, try to recover pieces. Teflon shouldn't vaporize, it has a huge tolerance for heat.

    One reason I suggested Nylon 66 is that it has structural integrity and is fairly dense (maybe less than teflon?). Which may make it a possible substitute.

    HOWEVER, I didn't think of it in the original post, but the glass fiber filler that gives Nylon 66 its strength might also have negative effects on the barrel. Glass might abrade steel, even though contact is minimal. Or, in a gun environment, what little glass is in contact might just powder before it can do damage? Chrome & nitride barrels might be even more resistant. If this happens ... it should be minimal? Possibly not even a measurable effect, but it would take research.

    Maybe Kevlar is a possible alternate? It's also abrasive, but I'm not sure how much or how aggressive, or if it can abrade steel ... maybe just softer metals like copper.

  23. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I wonder what would happen if you could get picrel to stick onto a standard round nose bullet.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Some people have had very good luck paper patching lead bullets with Teflon tape

  24. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Lmao your brother obviously helped you film this. Fascinating round, really appreciate you seeking these out to let curious people see how they work.

  25. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Didn't jack Carrillo make some shit like this for crack head removal in the 70s?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Jim cirillo did

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I'm not sure, these are from the late 80's.

      this would actually be a pretty neat option for carrying a snubnose, would buy

      They come up for sale from time to time. I just bought a second box. They cost me $180 each though so not very economical.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        yeah that's a bit steep. looking forward to what you find out though.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Ouch. At that price you should really look into actual gel and do it right rather than testing on food.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          He knew his audience, /k/ is a ribs supremacy board.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          I know, these tests were a spur of the moment deal. I haven't found a decent bulk gelatin seller either and I can't afford the proper expensive stuff.

          so what is there really to figure out here? You already have the shape and material of the bullet so it's just powder loading, right?

          The main thing is getting a batch of the bullets made and figuring out the powder load. An anon made me a chart a while back of possible powders so I need to order some of them to test.

          Looks like a teflon wadcutter, basically.

          More of a teflon hollowpoint

          He knew his audience, /k/ is a ribs supremacy board.

          I'd like to send some to garandthumb or someone with the ballistic gel dummy sponsorship. No clue how I'd get a hold of someone that big.

          I remember you posting about these a while back Thunderzapanon. Good work my man.

          Thank you! Support from here is the whole reason I'm trying to make more instead of just hoarding them for myself.

          [...]
          [...]
          [...]
          [...]

          alright so I watched OPs video (little brother a shit) and I want some of these in 380 ACP

          Semi-auto rounds are in the pipeline, but it'll be a long time.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Pull a bullet and weigh the powder charge. With rusty, a picture of three powder, and chronograph results it should be pretty easy to figure out what was used.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              I actually pulled 5 a few months ago and weighed the bullet and powder

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                assuming someone doesn't have a proper lathe, you could probably chuck some round stock of the appropriate material and "mill" out some rounds with a screwdriver. then just do handloads starting like 10 gr of powder and up until you start getting chrono readings that match the original round's performance. these projectiles are like 36 gr right? The lightest normal .38 sp loads I'm seeing are like 75 gr. So maybe start low at 10-15 gr of powder and increment on up?
                >t. never actually reloaded but have family who does that I've watched over their shoulder
                >I also wouldn't be opposed to a Paul Harrel style test

                interesting, I pulled a random number out of my ass and it was within that range

                Pretty much. Accuracy is likely in the shitter anyway.

                >maybe start low at 10-15 gr of powder
                That's not exactly starting low considering the speed of powder you're going to need for this.
                If the thought of loading 10gr Titegroup doesn't cause immediate pucker you should probably stick to the book.

                >If the thought of loading 10gr Titegroup doesn't cause immediate pucker you should probably stick to the book
                oh I freely admit I've never personally reloaded before, but OP found that the average load was 14.33 gr in his pic it seems. just need to identify the powder right?

                Afaik there aren't any laws against it in my home state of Tennessee or else I wouldn't post them online
                [...]
                Yeah they said there's trouble getting a .357 revolver and if they find one then they'll get back to me.
                [...]
                I'm gonna try and get some bullets made in the next few weeks and order some powder soon and I'll start testing
                [...]
                Luckily my test gun is a blackhawk so I'm not too worried about blowing it up. Anything that I make for distribution will be in 357 mag shells instead of .38 special like the originals

                OP I'm not trying to tell you what to do again like with the signposts but you might wanna cover your serial numbers. I like those grips btw, Houge is the best imho

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I'm not worried about serial numbers. All my guns are cash at a gunshow type deal.

                Funny, I would've thought OG would have a .357 tucked away.

                [...]
                No you can't just "ID the powder", especially with an oddball like this. You've got to work up with a chrono, and in a case like this you want to start way low with something that will tolerate low fill. Once you've got some data you can start plugging numbers into Quickload and see how far off the model you are, and then you either keep working up very slowly or make some educated guess/calculations.
                I'd put a tenner on it being Bullseye, but I wouldn't bet a gun on it.

                Yeah I did too. Are they in a ban state or something?

                Taofladermaus, usually does random shotgun ammo people have made but sure he will do that.

                Already talking to him. Maybe Forgotten weapons or Oxide would be down. No clue how to get ahold of either though.

                >No you can't just "ID the powder", especially with an oddball like this. You've got to work up with a chrono, and in a case like this you want to start way low with something that will tolerate low fill. Once you've got some data you can start plugging numbers into Quickload and see how far off the model you are, and then you either keep working up very slowly or make some educated guess/calculations.
                >I'd put a tenner on it being Bullseye, but I wouldn't bet a gun on it.
                that's pretty much what I suggested lol

                That's basically my plan except for not being able to afford reloading computer apps

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >afford reloading computer apps
                There's this thing called piracy. Hell, I can upload my copy somewhere if you want it.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I'd really appreciate it. I'm away from my computer until the weekend though because of my job.

                You also suggested 10gr of fast powder was low. It's usually a pipe bomb.

                [...]
                Can't think of anywhere you won't get a revolver, and cops get to have all the fun toys in CA anyway.

                It's a bit weird so I don't really know

                This, mainly. I don't need gel to tell me the lethality of a number of rounds. I do want to see how those rounds may go through a fridge, drywall, or wood etc. that various test mediums bring to the table.

                I'm up for shooting through basically anything if it's cool

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I've moved the folder around and it seems to be portable. I'll chuck it on catbox, it's only 8mb.
                v3.6 with v3.9 database.
                catbox.moe/keapp7.rar

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Fricked up the link didn't I.
                files.catbox.moe/keapp7.rar

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Thanks, I'll fiddle around with it a little this weekend

                To get the most out of this round, would it make more sense to load it in smaller calibers like .25acp or in larger ones like .500S&W? They supposedly had .50BMG ones in Grenada but who knows how effective they were.

                I think anything that can take high pressure would work. .25acp would probably explode before it got near the proper velocity. That's one of the reasons they never made 9mm TZ.

                Anon if you ever make enough for this to be a (niche, admittedly) legal side business for ammo, I'd frick with some 9mm and .300 if you can get around the feeding issues

                I have no clue how to legally sell ammo and haven't even began working on other calibers. It'll be a minute before I manage to sell any (if I ever do).

                >.25acp
                Those can be finicky as normal in autoloaders, and this stuff would be tricky too I bet. Though I would love to see that tested as I have my eye on little Berettas.

                [...]
                [...]
                If OPs reloading experiments work and he starts selling these on fuddbroker I will buy his pissin hot thunderzaps, I'll buy Neon Forest memerunner grips from that other anon when he gets them done and then I'll carry pic related with a Clipdraw

                The same store I bought my box from has singular rounds for sale if you're really interested right now. They're $4.75 a pop though. That sounds like a really based cyberpunk loadout though

                I suspect the most important thing is getting enough speed out of them. As long as you're getting near or past 3000fps you're probably golden. If smaller rounds were penetrating insufficiently I bet moving to a solid design would alleviate the problem somewhat.

                At any size larger than the .38 specials, provided you still have the same super speed, I suspect you're going to see very impressive performance.

                I agree, speed is the most important factor with these rounds

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Hold on, turns out I'm not smart and the database installs to Docs. It's old school but not THAT old school. I've got the original isos around here somewhere but the several dozen tb search is taking a while.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I suspect the most important thing is getting enough speed out of them. As long as you're getting near or past 3000fps you're probably golden. If smaller rounds were penetrating insufficiently I bet moving to a solid design would alleviate the problem somewhat.

                At any size larger than the .38 specials, provided you still have the same super speed, I suspect you're going to see very impressive performance.

                >I think anything that can take high pressure would work. .25acp would probably explode before it got near the proper velocity. That's one of the reasons they never made 9mm TZ
                That's surprising. I was about to ask if it would be possible to handload some 9mm for use in something like

                >.25acp
                Those can be finicky as normal in autoloaders, and this stuff would be tricky too I bet. Though I would love to see that tested as I have my eye on little Berettas.

                [...]
                [...]
                If OPs reloading experiments work and he starts selling these on fuddbroker I will buy his pissin hot thunderzaps, I'll buy Neon Forest memerunner grips from that other anon when he gets them done and then I'll carry pic related with a Clipdraw

                >The same store I bought my box from has singular rounds for sale if you're really interested right now. They're $4.75 a pop though.
                that's a bit too rich for my blood but I'll look into it, thanks OP. please make sure to post results after messing with that other guy's loading software

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                With a lot of R&D I'm sure it's possible. But personally I'd say something like .357sig or .30super carry is more reasonable.
                I hope to be posting updates the whole way.

                Near as I'm aware all you really need is an FFL to be able to sell ammo online as a business, in person should be fine so long as you aren't in a cucked state but online gets murkier because you have to know the laws for any state that an order is shipped to.

                I really don't want to get an FFL just because of the heat it brings. Maybe I'll stick to local gunshows and let it spread out from there.

                Found 'em.
                >QL 3.6
                https://files.catbox.moe/ji47aw.rar
                >DB 3.9
                https://files.catbox.moe/us0toc.7z

                3.8 is floating around somewhere but I could never get it to install properly, and the DB is what matters.

                Thanks anon

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                9x25 Dillon Thunderzap for the three people alive based enough to carry it.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                That would be hilarious and I'd love to make it happen

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Might run into some trouble with the recoil spring rate there.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I hadn't thought of that.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Near as I'm aware all you really need is an FFL to be able to sell ammo online as a business, in person should be fine so long as you aren't in a cucked state but online gets murkier because you have to know the laws for any state that an order is shipped to.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I am extremely tempted to start a side hustle loading ammo.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                If I had a lathe, I'd just turn custom bullets. Orders of one hundred or so at a time. Avoid so much nasty paperwork if I'm just selling plastic pellets. What people do with them isn't my problem. It would be fun to develop a library of calibers & designs, find a couple that behave highly optimal for their intended purpose, then move on to manufacturing the top dozen or so and scale up as fast as I can re-invest. If other people want to reload functioning rounds and resell them, that is their business and product line.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >he wants to lathe teflon
                I hope you have a pressure positive clean room and a respirator/hazmat suit to do that with anon

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                What are you on about you moron, it machines like nylon or Delrin - long stringy chips. With sharp tools you could do it on a fricking wood lathe.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                There are no such restrictions on machining Teflon, also you don't perform fod or dust generating activity in a clean room.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                (You)

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                It's spooky imo because if you frick up once then someone else gets hurt and possibly dies

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                That's why I'd do it on the side. So I could take my time and make sure it worked properly.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Found 'em.
                >QL 3.6
                https://files.catbox.moe/ji47aw.rar
                >DB 3.9
                https://files.catbox.moe/us0toc.7z

                3.8 is floating around somewhere but I could never get it to install properly, and the DB is what matters.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                how the frick do you install from this setup?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Buggered if I can remember, it's been years. What's the problem?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I run the setup file and it throws a hissyfit. Says it's not a CD.

                Burn to disc and install or mount the iso.
                It's cheap enough, just buy it.

                Ahh, K, I'll give it a whirl.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Burn to disc and install or mount the iso.
                It's cheap enough, just buy it.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Lathegay from earlier in the thread here with an update: I now have a couple feet of recycled PTFE in the most unnecessarily large box McMaster could have sent it in. Don't have my parting blade yet because I gambled on a local place having one and didn't order it at the same time I did the PTFE. Since this is just plastic, I might just try and fabricate something. Will mess around with this project a bit more over the weekend and update if I make any progress in this thread, or a reloading thread if this one has 404'd. I have both 3/8 and 1/2 rod, was planning on making .38 special, .357 mag, and .45 ACP loads.

                Also, big thanks to . Pirates never die, although it was a b***h to install on Windblows 10. Maybe I'm just out of practice.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >That's basically my plan except for not being able to afford reloading computer apps
                Or you could download Gordon's Reloading Tool, it's free.

                To get the most out of this round, would it make more sense to load it in smaller calibers like .25acp or in larger ones like .500S&W? They supposedly had .50BMG ones in Grenada but who knows how effective they were.

                Big bore, low velocity, low pressure. You have a big piston to push a low weight projectile and turn the velocity up to 11 (or 3000). .25 ACP makes a bit of sense because it would drastically increase performance, but it would probably jam in autoloaders. .500 S&W doesn't make a lot of sense because it's already a high pressure, high velocity round and you won't gain much speed at the cost of a lot of weight. .45-70 in a BFR, now that would be interesting.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                GRT is not as good. Also Gordon died last year, so it's unlikely to get any better.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >I can't afford a reloading program
                >Here's one that's free
                >that one isn't as good as the one I can't afford
                :/

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                There is literally a catbox link with a copy of QL right in this very thread.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                A long barreled 500 mag would probably get above mach 3 even with less than optimal efficiency. Out of a lever action you'd hit 4kfps absolutely.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              And here's the powder

              >I can probably find a street sign to shoot through as long as nobody here reports me lol
              I'd avoid that myself. Since you're posting to youtube and this could be something bigger down the line it may not be a good idea

              I will go and "buy" a "new production" one

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Probably about 9gr of Bullseye I'd say. Maybe W231/HP38.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I'll look into buying and testing these. I wish I could buy them in smaller quantities but it'll be fine. I guess the next step is finally talking to the local teflon shop or latheanon from the thread.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                PTFE rod is pretty common in toolrooms. Know anyone in manufacturing? A case of beer in the right hands could probably do it.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I know a plumber who used to get teflon bearings and other things made by a local shop. Gonna see how I can abuse that connection to get it done cheap

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Yep that ought to do it.
                If you even want a lot of them they look awfully like vape drip tips (without the through hole), which are commonly made in PTFE. There's factories basically set up to pump out those parts for cheap already.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                *ever

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Not that anon (I'm the lathegay), but I was thinking of asking at work to see if they have anything sitting around. I know most of what we use is HDPE, but it can't hurt to check and see if they have any PTFE. I know the maintenance guy who actually uses that stuff wouldn't give a shit if I borrowed some. I will keep an eye out for these threads or reloading ones, and update when I have more info.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I would have thought acetal would be most common. Actually it'd be worth trying Delrin, it's not quite as heat resistant or low friction but there's only a few degrees in it.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                lel I was just looking at glass reinforced delrin. Also, check this out: https://www.mcmaster.com/product/5814T63
                It's fricking expensive, but it's higher density than the other PTFE I think, but worse friction coefficient. I don't know much about plastic though, maybe there's better stuff out there. I will have to do some research.

                I've seen a few of his videos, and reached out on his facebook page a few hours ago. Haven't heard anything back yet. But if the thread is still here when he does I'll post an update.
                [...]
                I had no clue since I don't vape, but that sounds really cool if this ever reaches mass production. I don't think it will but it'd be super cool.
                [...]
                Lathegay, I'd like to get in contact with you if possible. If you need any extra dimensions or info I'd be happy to help.

                I'm flying the rest of the night, and then recovering tomorrow, but like I said, I will keep an eye out for these threads. I think I have enough info for now. I'll be waiting on shipping because I need some new tooling for my lathe anyway. I'm a bit old school and should probably be shilling for matrix or something, but if I need more info, I will check out the telegram channel for that CAD model you mentioned.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                You probably don't need or want the glass fill, it gets abrasive and consider just how shit-soft lead is.
                https://www.mcmaster.com/5814T63/slippery-wear-resistant-easy-to-machine-delrin-acetal-af-resin-rods-and-discs/
                https://www.mcmaster.com/products/rods/recycled-ptfe-6/
                I'd grab a few feet of these and see how I go.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Just ran everything through GRT with a 4.6 inch revolver:
                >W231 is not available
                >14.3 grains of Bullseye: does not not fit
                >14.3 grains of HP-38: KABOOM (60KPSI)
                >9 grains of HP-38: about 2300FPS
                >9 grains of Bullseye: about 2250 FPS
                >10.3 grains of Bullseye: about 2500FPS @ 26KPSI
                >10.5 grains of HP-38: roughly 2500FPS @26KPSI

                Seems like most powders either don't burn fully in this setup, or they cram the case full which leads to a pressure spike. I really do wonder what kind of powder they used.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Bear in mind it's a very old meme. I'd personally disregard the measured powder weight.
                Also bear in mind that bullets this light are way out of the scope of the modelling.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                win 231 is the same fricking thing as hp-38, even being slightly inebriated I know that.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I didn't know that, powders here in Europe have much different availability.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                maybe you can contact that ultimate reloader guy. he had a video where they tried to reverse engineer some rifle loading.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >I'd like to send some to garandthumb or someone with the ballistic gel dummy sponsorship. No clue how I'd get a hold of someone that big.
            While those dummies are great for views on youtube, they're terrible at representing a real body.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              That sucks. I definitely enjoy watching them get shot but I guess standards are set for a reason.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Was thinking of pic rel

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          That's really interesting, but the pedals seem like they could be a liability issue.

          I want to see a 12 gauge slug thunderzap copy. Skies the limit. This is awesome

          If you want to work on it, then go ahead. The patent for the bullets expires on the 23rd so they can be open sourced.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            That patent is toilet paper. It's a vanity patent.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Patent expired ten years ago

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Drilled .275" deep with No.4 center drill
            I expected them to be more elaborate than that

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              That was me going off the patent drawing before reading it. Depth may be off but the centre drill bit is exactly how they did the hollow point.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I really appreciate you making that drawing, sorry the testing took so long. I'm gonna be ordering powder and trying to get bullets made in the next month or so

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I was actually going to make some myself. Run them over my chrono to see how fast I can push them.
                Changed jobs right as my lathe and computer shit the bed. Probably going to be another month before I can start. Did upscale the drawings though to design .44 Mag and .45 Colt versions. Currently stuck on the dead comp though.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                If you do anything else TZ related, I'd love it if you kept me updated. This idea has been kicking around in my brain for a while now and I'm happy to see how supportive everyone is. Good luck on fixing the dead computer

                a little drunken youtube browsing and I found jerry mickulek testing this very round

                That video is one of the reasons I think this round is cool

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Just finished rebuilding the radiator and regreasing the fans. Once I get a new connector installed in three days it should be good to go..
                Probably order the teflon rod and lathe parts on my next shift so they're waiting for me when I get back. Parcels this time were for a Skorpion.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Please make a thread or hmu on telegram when you get started on that.
                Also based Skorpion, I've built a few AKs but that's about as much as I can stand

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          What's the deal with specialty bullets all looking like junk you'd find at a hardware store?

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          I'm not sure, these are from the late 80's.
          [...]
          They come up for sale from time to time. I just bought a second box. They cost me $180 each though so not very economical.

          Did you ever buy/see or hear about Ultrashock/Omnishocks?
          theyre an old school reverse hollow base wadcutter like the thunder zap, thats scored into 4 pieces and have a screw drilled into the center of them to try and force subsonic expansion

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            I've never heard of them but I'll look into it

  26. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    this would actually be a pretty neat option for carrying a snubnose, would buy

  27. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Don't suppose you could be tempted into shooting a Paul Harrell meat target.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I tried to do a budget version with the ribs taped to the watermelon. The round hit a rib and vaporized it

      Have you heard of these?
      Similar concept I think.

      That's pretty cool. According to some old forum posts they tested a 12g slug version of the thunderzap and it was extremely effective. I'd like to test some out but they never left the prototype stage.

      yeah that's a bit steep. looking forward to what you find out though.

      I've been interested in these for about 4 years now, so I figured it was worth the hit monetarily. I bought a .357 reloading setup and ruger blackhawk for this project too.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        so what is there really to figure out here? You already have the shape and material of the bullet so it's just powder loading, right?

  28. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Have you heard of these?
    Similar concept I think.

  29. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I remember you posting about these a while back Thunderzapanon. Good work my man.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      You probably could. The originals are turned on a lathe and the ones I get made will be too since I can't afford the expensive molds. A big company could probably eat the cost though.
      A 9mm version probably could use a jacket of some kind to help with not damaging the bullet during feeding.
      [...]
      Thanks anon, positive reactions like this are why I record this stuff. My main hangup at the moment is finding a proper analog of the powder.

      I remember this stuff being mentioned in an old Punisher comic from the 1980s. It was a bit of a fad at the time, but never caught on because performance and especially accuracy massively diminished beyond short range. Penetration as you can see is also (intentionally) very poor, which made it unsuitable for police use. If cops didn't want to carry it, then it made regular people leery and they preferred to stick with more conventional JHP/JSP/FMJ/LRN.

      It's still a great concept for CCW (which was less common at the time) and HD, so I think it's prime for a comeback. The low recoil and theoretically low manufacturing cost could help too.

      I'm not sure how well it would work in self-loading firearms though, since the physics involved take a considerable departure from conventional ammunition.

      As above, I'm curious if it would cycle in an MP-5 or even a Glock for instance. This may require a special adaptation like a lightweight bolt or a spring kit to run reliably, which would probably hamstring any serious interest in it.

      If somebody 3d printed bullets and loaded their own 9mm THOR the reliability results would be rather interesting.

      The punisher comic is how I found out about it too lol.
      I agree that it's perfect for HD/CC. Garandthumb just did his drywall pen test and basically every round will go right through a house.
      They made .45acp rounds too and apparently they worked well enough. I've never seen any of it come up for sale though.
      [...]
      Thank you!
      [...]
      It's a similar idea, but I imagine the training rounds are underloaded.
      I'm hard up for camera men at the moment. I've got too many projects and not much time.

      The concept seems to have a lot of flexibility in design. Someone with a home 3D printer could make their own bullets, with different sizes, shapes, & weights depending on what they are trying to accomplish. I'm very curious what types of 3D printer plastic are available and how they perform.

      I also have a fair bit of experience with Nylon 66 (a glass-fiber reinforced hard Nylon, very durable). My first thought was if some Nylon 66 rod stock can be cut & shaped to purpose. Round nose bullets would probably feed without any issues in a semi-automatic action. Or semi-round nose/semi-wad cutters, some sort of hybrid design ... assuming the flat nose assists in the impact/energy distribution. Wonder what a small hollow point cavity in the tip would do? Seems like it can't be any more damaging, but the experiment would still be fun.

      Since I'm invested in 9mm and .357 mag, could theoretically develop a bullet that can be loaded into either cartridge with whatever powder charge I feel comfortable with. Maybe even see if a ~50 grain bullet performs as well or better. I like the idea of having an extra magazine loaded with these for my 9mm ... Having the option of switching magazines to fit the situation I find myself in would be very nice.

      For survivors, there is the nightmare of not being able to remove the bullet fragments. They would be insanely difficult to find. You'd be carrying those pieces for life.

      I'm not personally crazy about .30 super carry (in general) ... but, these might have very serious potential in that caliber. Performance for that cartridge might make it worth a solid look, certainly a very interesting experiment.

      alright so I watched OPs video (little brother a shit) and I want some of these in 380 ACP

  30. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Would these be useful for an airline marshal or nah?
    The lower penetration might be useful in a pressurized cabin, densely packet with people.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I'd say yes. From what I saw with the drywall test I imagine even thin metal would stop them.

      imagining this in 12 gauge slugs rn

      They prototyped them, never made it to production though.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        considering how much stoppin powah the drywall had on the bullet, how would this hold up against even thick clothing? And it seems obvious it'd do nothing against any armor

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          iirc they were designed to not penetrate kevlar (I guess to avoid friendly fire against officers). I imagine against denim or leather they wouldn't be impeded too much

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            might actually be worth testing out

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Actually, there's a persistent rumor that thunderzap's commercial failure was at least partly thanks to pressure from cops, because it would blast right through the vests of the day. It's not implausible -- kevlar really doesn't cope well with high velocity, in even relatively light and flimsy (by ordinary standards) bullets, for instance Liberty Civil Defense. But on the other hand, this is a whole other level of light and flimsy.

          I'd really like to see some testing of these, both against the equivalent of the old Second Chance vests the rumor concerns, and if it defeats that, against more modern soft armor.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          That's something I should have tested, my bad. I'm not sure how it'd react.

          Was there anything left of the bullets after they were fired? Did it act like a frangible round and just disintegrate entirely?

          I couldn't find any pieces bigger than a tiny splinter. It basically quit existing on impact.

          This should be tested.
          Maybe a sheet of aluminum, like what's used in constructing the exterior of trailer homes.
          Aircraft aluminum may be too costly, and you'd want to have it curved because shape affects penetration.

          I can probably find a street sign to shoot through as long as nobody here reports me lol

          might actually be worth testing out

          I'd like to, maybe in a few weeks when I get some time off.

          Actually, there's a persistent rumor that thunderzap's commercial failure was at least partly thanks to pressure from cops, because it would blast right through the vests of the day. It's not implausible -- kevlar really doesn't cope well with high velocity, in even relatively light and flimsy (by ordinary standards) bullets, for instance Liberty Civil Defense. But on the other hand, this is a whole other level of light and flimsy.

          I'd really like to see some testing of these, both against the equivalent of the old Second Chance vests the rumor concerns, and if it defeats that, against more modern soft armor.

          I'll look around for some cheap deals on kevlar vests. I've got an old pasgt that's way too small I could shoot but that's a hard kevlar so it wouldn't be the same.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >I can probably find a street sign to shoot through as long as nobody here reports me lol
            I'd avoid that myself. Since you're posting to youtube and this could be something bigger down the line it may not be a good idea

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              But in all seriousness I've already got a few signs and some random scrap metal I can shoot

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Good catch, anon. This actually could lead to serious trouble.

              But in all seriousness I've already got a few signs and some random scrap metal I can shoot

              Suggestion? Scrub the word "signs" from your vocabulary. Just talk about scrap sheet metal, measure the thickness and compare side-by-side with maybe a .22 and a regular .38 Spl. Might as well run those through the chrono and list their specs for a scientific comparison. When shooting scrap sheet metal, make certain there are no visible markings or decals on either side ... there's almost always ownership and other details on a city or county sticker on the back. Certain jurisdictions make it illegal to be in possession of government property for any reason, and video of destroying government property is evidence. Which is also illegal to destruct.

              I support your efforts, and Godspeed, to establish a high-value content youtube channel. But, please be careful out there, anon. Don't get yourself fricked over. You're going to have to consider the visibility of some of your activities and opinions now, take reasonable caution so that "other people" have the least toxic reasons or ability to use them against you.

              > On tonight's Headline News: PrepHole is back, this time with a mercenary assault weapons chat room called "K," where an anonymous uploader taught school children how to hack Teflon murder bullets! STAY TUNED!

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                But in all seriousness I've already got a few signs and some random scrap metal I can shoot

                >But in all seriousness I've already got a few signs and some random scrap metal I can shoot

                Just don't be doing cowboy/gangster shit to get yourself in trouble. I wanna buy your pissin hot thunderzap handloads on fuddbroker when you get them done

                PTFE rod is pretty common in toolrooms. Know anyone in manufacturing? A case of beer in the right hands could probably do it.

                I know a plumber who used to get teflon bearings and other things made by a local shop. Gonna see how I can abuse that connection to get it done cheap

                best place to ask as any I guess: what sort of plastic would you recommend for a collar that goes around an AK gas piston as in pic related?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I'm not sure if plastic's a great idea there, but you're probably looking at PEI if you want a crack at it.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I wasn't aware it was that serious. I live far enough out in the sticks that plenty of signs have bullet holes in them while still mounted lol. But you're right, better safe than sorry.

                [...]
                >But in all seriousness I've already got a few signs and some random scrap metal I can shoot

                Just don't be doing cowboy/gangster shit to get yourself in trouble. I wanna buy your pissin hot thunderzap handloads on fuddbroker when you get them done
                [...]
                [...]
                best place to ask as any I guess: what sort of plastic would you recommend for a collar that goes around an AK gas piston as in pic related?

                I will keep my cowboy gangster shit offline only. The feds are already on me for some other stuff but I really didn't think street signs were such a big deal.
                I'm not sure what kind of plastic would be best, someone else in here might know.

                Didn’t they make some .50BMG ones that were used in Panama and Grenada to explode people? Maybe not a bad option for urban fighting with lots of civilians around.

                I haven't heard of that but it sounds very cool and based.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >that serious
                The potential is there, good sir. The mileage for you in your jurisdiction may vary. Just a cautionary note about the *potential* and easy, painless things to do to reduce it. There are plenty of bullet holes in signs around my parts, but none of them are mine. And, I don't have any government-tagged scrap sheet metal (filled or unfilled with bullet holes) around the homestead either, even though I hearsay it's incredibly useful for hundreds of projects. Old signs are actual sheet metal galvanized steel. Newer ones are aluminum (often the byproduct of recycling programs). Using some of these as standards for ballistics testing could actually be a highly consistent platform for anons to reference across the world. I mean, ballistics gel is so expensive, but standardized sheet metal penetration can also be a well-measured metric. Break out the micro-calipers.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Using them as a worldwide standard is something I never though of. Seems like a pretty cool thing.

                the old weapon and gear spread at the end of war journals were actually pretty accurate lol

                Old punisher was pretty cool

                Maybe shoot them at a water barrel sometime. If it's basically disintegrating wouldn't you want just a flat head to maximize mass?

                [...]
                I wonder if you could use some weaker plastic that will crumble or something slick like teflon and then load the plastic casings in a loading gate revolver. You'd modify the ejector rod to have a head as large as the bore with a taper so you don't have to get the alignment perfect and just use the leverage to force out the casehead. Probably too heavy and might even break the ejector lever but just maybe a way to get around needing them high end polys.

                I shot it at a 2l soda. I don't really want to ruin a whole barrel since they're expensive.

                Great thread OP. Can you do multiple drywall tests?

                I can. What all should I test?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Two sheets of drywall 4 inches apart to simulate a standard interior wall, and then two 'walls' 10 feet apart to simulate a room?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Good idea

                That patent is toilet paper. It's a vanity patent.

                I think everyone involved is dead or has long forgotten about it

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Maybe shoot them at a water barrel sometime. If it's basically disintegrating wouldn't you want just a flat head to maximize mass?

            No, this particular design is only suited for a pretty specific application. The .577 snider fires from a fully supported chamber and is a low pressure black powder round. It can take a full charge, I think I used 65-70 grains of BP under a 450 grain .590 projectile. I think this is doable for other large bore single shot BP rifles, but won't be compatible with anything else really.
            [...]
            >Mated to a 3-D printed shell case.
            Please see above. You might be able to make it work. Actually, the best bet would be to make the slug work like a cut slug, with the whole top of the case separating and going downrange. That would simplify extraction quite a bit.

            I wonder if you could use some weaker plastic that will crumble or something slick like teflon and then load the plastic casings in a loading gate revolver. You'd modify the ejector rod to have a head as large as the bore with a taper so you don't have to get the alignment perfect and just use the leverage to force out the casehead. Probably too heavy and might even break the ejector lever but just maybe a way to get around needing them high end polys.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >in a loading gate revolver
              An important part of this discussion is collecting precise and accurate data in performance. We're trying to find ways to avoid a cylinder gap and use a sealed action. Once optimized rounds are developed, then anyone can put 'em in a wheelgun and yahoo around their plinking range and it's their problem to measure or care about performance loss. Right now we need reloading data so the correct powder(s) and charges(s) are applied and gun-exploding rounds aren't produced.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                If it's a revolver cartridge, shooting it out of anything else will NOT give precise or accurate velocity data. Hodgdon uses a 10" Contender barrel to get the velocity figures they print with their load data. Don't be like Hodgdon. Standard for .38 or .357 is a 4" revolver with chamber throats sized to 0.356", groove diameter of 0.357", and a .006" barrel cylinder gap, or else a specially vented test barrel to approximate it. This is the "4 inch ventilated test barrel" in most of the loading manuals and printed spec sheets.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        This should be tested.
        Maybe a sheet of aluminum, like what's used in constructing the exterior of trailer homes.
        Aircraft aluminum may be too costly, and you'd want to have it curved because shape affects penetration.

  31. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    imagining this in 12 gauge slugs rn

  32. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Was there anything left of the bullets after they were fired? Did it act like a frangible round and just disintegrate entirely?

  33. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    >I don't think there's much of a market for larger bore rimfire
    There are lots of places with "assault weapon" bans that have cutouts for rimfire guns. I'm not saying that the market is big enough to justify the R&D involved in bringing 5.56×45mmR rimfire to market, especially since the market could collapse at the stroke of a legislator's pen, but it does exist.

  34. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Do you watch Taoflerdermaus YouTube channel?

    He's played around with a few different designs of plastic shotgun slugs, maybe helpful to your research.
    He also came up with a cheaper alternative to ballistics Gel

    %3D%3D

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I've seen a few of his videos, and reached out on his facebook page a few hours ago. Haven't heard anything back yet. But if the thread is still here when he does I'll post an update.

      Yep that ought to do it.
      If you even want a lot of them they look awfully like vape drip tips (without the through hole), which are commonly made in PTFE. There's factories basically set up to pump out those parts for cheap already.

      I had no clue since I don't vape, but that sounds really cool if this ever reaches mass production. I don't think it will but it'd be super cool.

      Not that anon (I'm the lathegay), but I was thinking of asking at work to see if they have anything sitting around. I know most of what we use is HDPE, but it can't hurt to check and see if they have any PTFE. I know the maintenance guy who actually uses that stuff wouldn't give a shit if I borrowed some. I will keep an eye out for these threads or reloading ones, and update when I have more info.

      Lathegay, I'd like to get in contact with you if possible. If you need any extra dimensions or info I'd be happy to help.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >mass production
        There's going to be some dude in Shenzen who'll punt out a few hundred at a reasonable cost. Granted this is pre-coof assumptions, but I doubt they evaporated.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          True. I try not to support china too much though.

          What a cool and good thread. Great work everyone!

          Thanks, I hate seeing the current state of the board and I'm happy to try to produce decent OC. Even if my budget and skill are low.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            I'm still working on a captive piston 357 SIG. As a single shot it's getting there.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              That sounds awesome. I think my semi-auto thunderzap tests will start with 357 sig because it's already a fast round.

              But they already hit 3k in a .38 special. I didn't know you could push .38 hotter than 9mm.

              They're on the edge of 38 and 357 mag. If I ever made new ones to sell it'd be in .357 mag for liability reasons.

              OC is always the best. Big or small, it's the reason to stick around and it's something to strive to contribute.

              Are you the guy doing printed snyder cases? Have you got them to quit separating?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >Are you the guy doing printed snyder cases? Have you got them to quit separating?
                Yup and yeah. I am actually thinking of redoing it. I am a significantly better at 3d printer now and have a much better 3d printer. I want to make the rim just a little thicker and try a less flexible filament.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            OC is always the best. Big or small, it's the reason to stick around and it's something to strive to contribute.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              now that's a neat idea. what sort of loadings are you shooting through those? I'm wondering how that sort of shell would hold up to low power small bore rounds. I don't suppose there's any material that would be suitable for rimfire is there?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                No, this particular design is only suited for a pretty specific application. The .577 snider fires from a fully supported chamber and is a low pressure black powder round. It can take a full charge, I think I used 65-70 grains of BP under a 450 grain .590 projectile. I think this is doable for other large bore single shot BP rifles, but won't be compatible with anything else really.

                [...]
                [...]
                Uh ... guys? Hear me out.

                Delrin slug. In a 12 or 20 gauge. Or, frick it, even a .410 (for the Judge fanbois out there). Mated to a 3-D printed shell case.

                There's something really going on with that thought. My opinion.

                >Mated to a 3-D printed shell case.
                Please see above. You might be able to make it work. Actually, the best bet would be to make the slug work like a cut slug, with the whole top of the case separating and going downrange. That would simplify extraction quite a bit.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              That sounds awesome. I think my semi-auto thunderzap tests will start with 357 sig because it's already a fast round.
              [...]
              They're on the edge of 38 and 357 mag. If I ever made new ones to sell it'd be in .357 mag for liability reasons.
              [...]
              Are you the guy doing printed snyder cases? Have you got them to quit separating?

              >Are you the guy doing printed snyder cases? Have you got them to quit separating?
              Yup and yeah. I am actually thinking of redoing it. I am a significantly better at 3d printer now and have a much better 3d printer. I want to make the rim just a little thicker and try a less flexible filament.

              Uh ... guys? Hear me out.

              Delrin slug. In a 12 or 20 gauge. Or, frick it, even a .410 (for the Judge fanbois out there). Mated to a 3-D printed shell case.

              There's something really going on with that thought. My opinion.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >3-D printed shell case
                But why though?
                If you want to get clever you'd be better off developing a slug that can be shoved in a cut-off Walmart clays load.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Look up the slapshot 12ga slug.

  35. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Man if you can get 50gr Civil Defense to 2kfps out of a 9mm I bet you could push these plastic rounds all the way to Mach 3.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Out of a longer barrel or something with a sealed action they most likely would be. My only .38 is a 4 5/8" ruger blackhawk and it was averaging 2900fps. I bet a 6" barrel or a single shot would pass 3,000fps.

      Is there any recorded gel test with this? I'd honestly chip in for a block if there's no data on it.

      There is not, but I'm working on it. If I can get ahold of taofledermaus then he might do it. Otherwise I'll try and source some gelatin

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      2500 maybe. You hit diminishing returns hard with light bullets and there's not much space in a 9x19, that's why copper is the thing. These aren't for maximum effectiveness, they're for minimum collateral damage.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        But they already hit 3k in a .38 special. I didn't know you could push .38 hotter than 9mm.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          .38 has twice the powder capacity. There's maybe not as much pressure (although I doubt these things are loaded to spec) but you're never going to get up to 30k+ pressure with a lightweight bullet anyway unless you load your 9x19 with flash powder (do not do this).

          That sounds awesome. I think my semi-auto thunderzap tests will start with 357 sig because it's already a fast round.
          [...]
          They're on the edge of 38 and 357 mag. If I ever made new ones to sell it'd be in .357 mag for liability reasons.
          [...]
          Are you the guy doing printed snyder cases? Have you got them to quit separating?

          I'm considering knocking out a Delrin bullet or two for it now, using Barnes for testing gets spendy.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Also I ran the numbers out of curiosity myself and a 125gr TC equivalent volume plastic bullet works out with a full case of Bullseye being optimal in 357 SIG, at least on paper it should be doing about the same as these .38s.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Sounds like I need to keep my eye out for a .357 sig gun.

              lel I was just looking at glass reinforced delrin. Also, check this out: https://www.mcmaster.com/product/5814T63
              It's fricking expensive, but it's higher density than the other PTFE I think, but worse friction coefficient. I don't know much about plastic though, maybe there's better stuff out there. I will have to do some research.

              [...]
              I'm flying the rest of the night, and then recovering tomorrow, but like I said, I will keep an eye out for these threads. I think I have enough info for now. I'll be waiting on shipping because I need some new tooling for my lathe anyway. I'm a bit old school and should probably be shilling for matrix or something, but if I need more info, I will check out the telegram channel for that CAD model you mentioned.

              It'll probably be a good while before I have any updates, I've got plenty of other projects at the moment. I bought a truck to restore about a month ago and it's eating my time and money.

              >Are you the guy doing printed snyder cases? Have you got them to quit separating?
              Yup and yeah. I am actually thinking of redoing it. I am a significantly better at 3d printer now and have a much better 3d printer. I want to make the rim just a little thicker and try a less flexible filament.

              I'd like to see it. Seems like a really good thing when brass is so expensive

  36. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Is there any recorded gel test with this? I'd honestly chip in for a block if there's no data on it.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I doubt it'd do well in FBI tests. Then again, you're not the FBI.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      2500 maybe. You hit diminishing returns hard with light bullets and there's not much space in a 9x19, that's why copper is the thing. These aren't for maximum effectiveness, they're for minimum collateral damage.

      with that amount of heat and powder there is the possibility of flame cutting as well, like the .357 maximum

  37. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    What a cool and good thread. Great work everyone!

  38. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Didn’t they make some .50BMG ones that were used in Panama and Grenada to explode people? Maybe not a bad option for urban fighting with lots of civilians around.

  39. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    nice

  40. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Very cool thread my man.

  41. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Great thread OP. Can you do multiple drywall tests?

  42. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Late to this thread, but love this idea. Any idea how this was originally marketed?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I don't know. I've never seen any original ads and haven't found anyone who mentioned it online. There are some good forum posts from people who remember the ammo when it was new but I don't want to make an account to bother anyone.

  43. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I want to see a 12 gauge slug thunderzap copy. Skies the limit. This is awesome

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Taofledermaus has shot any number of lightweight slugs.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Taofledermaus has shot any number of lightweight slugs.

      The Slap Shot seems very similar, it's plastic and moves around the same speed.

  44. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Would it be possible to load one of these projectiles into a 350 legend case?

    350 legend can already get to 3kfps with those short 60 grain copper solids, I'd love to see how fast you could push these.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      A smidge over 4k I should think, at the muzzle at least.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      If I knew anyone who had anything in .350 legend then I would atleast try, but it's a pretty rare round around here.

      A smidge over 4k I should think, at the muzzle at least.

      I'd say you're about right. I'd say we could break 3k with the standard rounds out of a 6" barrel. Maybe 3500 out of a lever gun

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      ok but what if you loaded it in 35 whelen. I heard of people using cast 9mm bullets for that.

  45. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    a little drunken youtube browsing and I found jerry mickulek testing this very round

  46. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I do want to start by thanking you for producing content for us, and the chrono data may be useful. Everything else is meaningless noise. Repeat after me: if it isn't calibrated 10% ballistic gelatin, and I want to see the calibration BB, it tells us absolutely nothing. There are two tests that matter: bare gelatin, to tell us whether the bullet has the potential to fragment too much and fail to get to penetrate adequately, and gelatin with four layers of heavy cotton canvas denim, to tell us whether it's prone to clogging with clothing. Nothing else, not pine boards, not that clear gel stuff they sell, not frozen chickens, not watermelons, not gallon jugs of Kool-Aid, not expired pork chops in front of a bag of oranges, not two-liter bottles of store brand diet soda, not bales of old newspapers soaked in soapy water, not duct sealing putty, not bars of soap lined up in a row, not expired canned goods, not modeling clay, not drywall, not auto glass, not sheet metal. None of that tells us anything useful whatsoever. None of it gives us useful information of any kind. None of it. Show me a wound track in gelatin--real gelatin, calibrated to match living tissue. Anything else is entertainment, not science.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      why do you talk like such a condescending schoolmarm

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Because the Internet is full of memes and bullshit and "MUH REAL DEAL TACTICAL AMMO TEST TO GIVE YA DEPENDABLE INFO FOR HOME DEFENSE" where some redneck shoots a frozen chicken, or a two-liter of store brand diet cola, and shows you a blurry slow-mo sequence filmed with a potato. That's fricking bullshit, and I'm sick of it. No gelatin, no care, and I want to see that calibration BB.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Because he's a moronic homosexual who doesn't know that FBI testing is just that, a standardised test.
        A redditor, essentially. A midwit. A The Science enjoyer. A troony enabler. A Black person lover. The best goy. Etc.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Reading is fun-duh-mental. Standardized tests give us information. Blowing up frozen chickens doesn't. lrn2read

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Just get back to watching Rick and Morty/your gf (male) get pumped by Tyrone.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Ballistics gel was always a compromise. By your standards nothing but shooting a living human body would suffice. I'm not interested in any test that does not include bone.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I appreciate the input, but to be perfectly honest I can't afford the proper ballistic gel. I talked to one of the guys from taofledermaus and they're interested if they can source a gun to shoot it from. They seem pretty scientific with their stuff.
      Plus I'd say thing like soda bottle and meat are things the average person have shot before, so they're easier for most people to compare to and comprehend the results. They're also fun

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        I wouldn't worry about gel. Anyone "muh gel"ing either doesn't understand what the gel is for, what this round is for, or they just want to look at the "wound channel" and imagine it's what their arsehole looks like after a standard frick party.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          This, mainly. I don't need gel to tell me the lethality of a number of rounds. I do want to see how those rounds may go through a fridge, drywall, or wood etc. that various test mediums bring to the table.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >not robbing graves for human cadaver targets
      it's like you don't care about real data at all

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Here's a forum post from someone who claims to know the inventor.

        "We or he received reports, unconfirmed, of how well the .38 Special and .45 ACP worked. According to one report a pistol owner was attacked by a mugger in NYC and he/she shot the attacker in the shoulder, removing much of the flesh and muscle tissue. The would was peppered with white granular polymer pieces. The hospital staff was able to save the mugger’s life but he had to mug one armed after he recovered since the shot arm was “shot”.

        The second report came out of South Africa. In this case the round was a .45. As the story goes an armed robber entered one of the 6X8 bars that are around SA and announced the holdup. The bartender/owner proceded to fire one shot center mass which caused the robber to drop dead. The story we received was that the flesh was separated from the ribs all around to the spine and the heart was puree. We could never get any police reports or conformation on any use of the rounds on people."

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          assuming these stories aren't total BS, are there any laws against rounds like this? I'm sure they'd be a no-go in shitholes like NJ but I mean the real world. If you shoot a mugger with exploding teflon bullets vs JHP or FMJ is a jury gonna try to frick you any more than usual?

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Afaik there aren't any laws against it in my home state of Tennessee or else I wouldn't post them online

            OP has actually been in communication with them, which is pretty neat.

            Yeah they said there's trouble getting a .357 revolver and if they find one then they'll get back to me.

            assuming someone doesn't have a proper lathe, you could probably chuck some round stock of the appropriate material and "mill" out some rounds with a screwdriver. then just do handloads starting like 10 gr of powder and up until you start getting chrono readings that match the original round's performance. these projectiles are like 36 gr right? The lightest normal .38 sp loads I'm seeing are like 75 gr. So maybe start low at 10-15 gr of powder and increment on up?
            >t. never actually reloaded but have family who does that I've watched over their shoulder
            >I also wouldn't be opposed to a Paul Harrel style test

            I'm gonna try and get some bullets made in the next few weeks and order some powder soon and I'll start testing

            Pretty much. Accuracy is likely in the shitter anyway.

            >maybe start low at 10-15 gr of powder
            That's not exactly starting low considering the speed of powder you're going to need for this.
            If the thought of loading 10gr Titegroup doesn't cause immediate pucker you should probably stick to the book.

            Luckily my test gun is a blackhawk so I'm not too worried about blowing it up. Anything that I make for distribution will be in 357 mag shells instead of .38 special like the originals

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Funny, I would've thought OG would have a .357 tucked away.

              [...]
              interesting, I pulled a random number out of my ass and it was within that range
              [...]
              >If the thought of loading 10gr Titegroup doesn't cause immediate pucker you should probably stick to the book
              oh I freely admit I've never personally reloaded before, but OP found that the average load was 14.33 gr in his pic it seems. just need to identify the powder right?
              [...]
              OP I'm not trying to tell you what to do again like with the signposts but you might wanna cover your serial numbers. I like those grips btw, Houge is the best imho

              No you can't just "ID the powder", especially with an oddball like this. You've got to work up with a chrono, and in a case like this you want to start way low with something that will tolerate low fill. Once you've got some data you can start plugging numbers into Quickload and see how far off the model you are, and then you either keep working up very slowly or make some educated guess/calculations.
              I'd put a tenner on it being Bullseye, but I wouldn't bet a gun on it.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >No you can't just "ID the powder", especially with an oddball like this. You've got to work up with a chrono, and in a case like this you want to start way low with something that will tolerate low fill. Once you've got some data you can start plugging numbers into Quickload and see how far off the model you are, and then you either keep working up very slowly or make some educated guess/calculations.
                >I'd put a tenner on it being Bullseye, but I wouldn't bet a gun on it.
                that's pretty much what I suggested lol

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                You also suggested 10gr of fast powder was low. It's usually a pipe bomb.

                I'm not worried about serial numbers. All my guns are cash at a gunshow type deal.
                [...]
                Yeah I did too. Are they in a ban state or something?
                [...]
                Already talking to him. Maybe Forgotten weapons or Oxide would be down. No clue how to get ahold of either though.
                [...]
                That's basically my plan except for not being able to afford reloading computer apps

                Can't think of anywhere you won't get a revolver, and cops get to have all the fun toys in CA anyway.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Very cool
              Hope they get one.
              I hope you start making these.
              I think they would be awesome in a 45-70

  47. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    assuming someone doesn't have a proper lathe, you could probably chuck some round stock of the appropriate material and "mill" out some rounds with a screwdriver. then just do handloads starting like 10 gr of powder and up until you start getting chrono readings that match the original round's performance. these projectiles are like 36 gr right? The lightest normal .38 sp loads I'm seeing are like 75 gr. So maybe start low at 10-15 gr of powder and increment on up?
    >t. never actually reloaded but have family who does that I've watched over their shoulder
    >I also wouldn't be opposed to a Paul Harrel style test

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I've got bullet and powder weights here

      I actually pulled 5 a few months ago and weighed the bullet and powder

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Pretty much. Accuracy is likely in the shitter anyway.

      >maybe start low at 10-15 gr of powder
      That's not exactly starting low considering the speed of powder you're going to need for this.
      If the thought of loading 10gr Titegroup doesn't cause immediate pucker you should probably stick to the book.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >you could probably chuck some round stock of the appropriate material and "mill" out some rounds with a screwdriver.
      No not really, you'd end up with different diameters and weights and thus vastly different pressure curves. Powder load could be safe for one 29 grain, .355 bullet, but unsafe for the next 33 grain, .360 bullet.
      >Start at 10 grain
      That's a double load for a lot of .38 Special loads. Even with a quarter of the bullet weight, that's a recipe for kaboom.
      >Trusting chrono readings
      First of all, you should not trust a chrono with your life. Second, that only works when you're within normal reload parameters, and you'd be far away from those.
      >I've never reloaded
      No, don't. Start with some normal .38/.357 loads, work your way up from there. Learn what pressure signs look like.

      [...]
      interesting, I pulled a random number out of my ass and it was within that range
      [...]
      >If the thought of loading 10gr Titegroup doesn't cause immediate pucker you should probably stick to the book
      oh I freely admit I've never personally reloaded before, but OP found that the average load was 14.33 gr in his pic it seems. just need to identify the powder right?
      [...]
      OP I'm not trying to tell you what to do again like with the signposts but you might wanna cover your serial numbers. I like those grips btw, Houge is the best imho

      >just need to identify the powder right?
      Even if you correctly ID the powder, the formulation may have changed just a bit in the past few decades. You might not even be able to ID the powder because it could be a special order oddball or a large factory powder batch that a small reloader doesn't have access to.

  48. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    To get the most out of this round, would it make more sense to load it in smaller calibers like .25acp or in larger ones like .500S&W? They supposedly had .50BMG ones in Grenada but who knows how effective they were.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >.25acp
      Those can be finicky as normal in autoloaders, and this stuff would be tricky too I bet. Though I would love to see that tested as I have my eye on little Berettas.

      I'm not worried about serial numbers. All my guns are cash at a gunshow type deal.
      [...]
      Yeah I did too. Are they in a ban state or something?
      [...]
      Already talking to him. Maybe Forgotten weapons or Oxide would be down. No clue how to get ahold of either though.
      [...]
      That's basically my plan except for not being able to afford reloading computer apps

      Afaik there aren't any laws against it in my home state of Tennessee or else I wouldn't post them online
      [...]
      Yeah they said there's trouble getting a .357 revolver and if they find one then they'll get back to me.
      [...]
      I'm gonna try and get some bullets made in the next few weeks and order some powder soon and I'll start testing
      [...]
      Luckily my test gun is a blackhawk so I'm not too worried about blowing it up. Anything that I make for distribution will be in 357 mag shells instead of .38 special like the originals

      If OPs reloading experiments work and he starts selling these on fuddbroker I will buy his pissin hot thunderzaps, I'll buy Neon Forest memerunner grips from that other anon when he gets them done and then I'll carry pic related with a Clipdraw

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Deckards blaster was a giant full size service revolver though, not a saturday night special
        the real bladerunner choice is a super GP100

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          It was a charter arms bulldog with a rifle action slapped on top and a sci-fi grip.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I suspect the most important thing is getting enough speed out of them. As long as you're getting near or past 3000fps you're probably golden. If smaller rounds were penetrating insufficiently I bet moving to a solid design would alleviate the problem somewhat.

      At any size larger than the .38 specials, provided you still have the same super speed, I suspect you're going to see very impressive performance.

  49. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Anon if you ever make enough for this to be a (niche, admittedly) legal side business for ammo, I'd frick with some 9mm and .300 if you can get around the feeding issues

  50. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Somewhat off topic but I wonder if you could crack a steel plate with a plastic round moving at Mach 4+.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      can you get a plastic bullet moving at mach 4 without it melting due to heat & friction or disintegrating?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Almost certainly no.

      can you get a plastic bullet moving at mach 4 without it melting due to heat & friction or disintegrating?

      Assume it just pops into existence doing 4500ft/s.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >Almost certainly no.
        It might not be as absurd as it sounds, small lead bullets will punch 1/4 inch steel at Mach 3, and if I recall Teflon and Lead have similar hardness. Obviously mass plays a role, though velocity does as well.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          All it would take is to put a small penetrator in the middle of the round. Then you've got some serious AP rounds.

          >no ballistics gel
          >can afford snowflake 1980s ammo
          >can afford a boomer taxed single action revolver thats blued
          >can afford a chrono
          >can afford
          >can afford a shit cellphone
          >can afford adobe after effects to put a shitty flag over your face
          >can afford to waste perfectly good watermelons that dindu nuffin
          >cant afford some jello
          2/10
          waste of 1980s ammo

          I got the revolver for $400 at a gunshow, my chrono was the cheapest one I could find, my cellphone is a cracked S9 that I got when it was a year or so old, I'm using pirated editing software on my phone, and the food was expired. I'm working on a pretty tight budget.

          >a rifle would be insane
          naw
          typically 357 reaches 85% of its velocity potential with a 7.5 barrel (depending on the powder)
          with a normal 125 @ 1400 gets up to 1700 with 7.5 and from a revolver to a closed chamber (which i dont know if you can do with a thor thunderzap) you get about 2000 with most powders while some powders just give you lower velocities across the board past 4 inches and only give you 1700fps from a lever action

          I'd like to get a Thompson contender or something with a sealed chamber, but the best I can do is borrow my dad's 6" .357 revolver.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >I got the revolver for $400 at a gunshow, my chrono was the cheapest one I could find, my cellphone is a cracked S9 that I got when it was a year or so old, I'm using pirated editing software on my phone, and the food was expired. I'm working on a pretty tight budget.
            I hear that anon. Keep up the good work.

            If I had a lathe, I'd just turn custom bullets. Orders of one hundred or so at a time. Avoid so much nasty paperwork if I'm just selling plastic pellets. What people do with them isn't my problem. It would be fun to develop a library of calibers & designs, find a couple that behave highly optimal for their intended purpose, then move on to manufacturing the top dozen or so and scale up as fast as I can re-invest. If other people want to reload functioning rounds and resell them, that is their business and product line.

            With a lot of R&D I'm sure it's possible. But personally I'd say something like .357sig or .30super carry is more reasonable.
            I hope to be posting updates the whole way.
            [...]
            I really don't want to get an FFL just because of the heat it brings. Maybe I'll stick to local gunshows and let it spread out from there.
            [...]
            Thanks anon

            I suspect the most important thing is getting enough speed out of them. As long as you're getting near or past 3000fps you're probably golden. If smaller rounds were penetrating insufficiently I bet moving to a solid design would alleviate the problem somewhat.

            At any size larger than the .38 specials, provided you still have the same super speed, I suspect you're going to see very impressive performance.

            To get the most out of this round, would it make more sense to load it in smaller calibers like .25acp or in larger ones like .500S&W? They supposedly had .50BMG ones in Grenada but who knows how effective they were.

            I wonder how 7.62x39 would perform for shits and giggles.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >I wonder how 7.62x39 would perform for shits and giggles.
              I bet you'd get to 4000FPS, and that the hollow-point design would be somewhat superfluous, as I suspect the round would shatter to a million pieces whether it was hollow, wadcutter, or spitzerized.

              Probably something like this, I imagine. A ragged would almost as wide as it is deep, maybe five inches.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                gottdamn.

                Thanks anon, I love how supportive /k/ still is.
                If you want to design a 7.62mm thunderzap I'd be willing to get some made and test them
                [...]
                How fast do the czech trainer rounds go? Those are a similar concept

                I've been reading up on polymers for a project of my own so I have a few starting points. If I hash something out I'll post it here. What sort of tools do you have access to to make them on your end?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I don't have any machine tools. There might be a wood lathe in my dad's garage but that's not a very good tool for this.
                I'll be paying a machine shop to make them lol

                >and the food was expired. I'm working on a pretty tight budget.
                Knox gelatin is very very cheap. The biggest struggle would be finding a container to put it in. Also spray the mold before pouring gelatin or you will never get it out. If you have a chronograph, you can get FPS and if you have a bb gun, you can get the FPS from that and also shoot it into the gelatin to get a penetration depth for IIRC better/more useful data for comparison to other gelatin tests. Otherwise you can just do it with a cheap ass BB gun and say the model as they're bretty close anyways. But damn are chronographs cheap these days.

                I'll look into it

                Reading about 3200 fps for 46 grain Czech training rounds.

                I might have to work on designing .30 cal bullets then.

                Very cool
                Hope they get one.
                I hope you start making these.
                I think they would be awesome in a 45-70

                .45cal bullets would be cool. They originally made .45acp ones but I haven't managed to get one in hand yet. I'd appreciate it if someone could help me find one

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >gottdamn.
                The funny thing is gelgays will say it's less lethal than an fmj pistol round and not enough for a deer.

                I once had someone tell me that a ten inch wide three inch deep wound to the chest was not reliably immediately incapacitating and was only a psychological stop.
                My exact words were "strip three inches off their entire chest with a cannon full of birdshot".

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                The reports I've heard is that it just mangles the first 6 inches of gel. I think this type of round is outside of what the FBI was thinking with their penetration tests.

                7.62x39 Thunderzap would be great for militiamen and conscripts. Most of whom can't hit anything past 100m anyways.

                I think a non hollowpoint version would make good training ammo in almost any caliber.

                Very based and collaborator pilled.
                Never forget: a cool OC project is the highest possible attainment on /k/.

                Thanks anon. Hopefully I've encouraged other anons to work on their projects.

                At above mach 3 just about anything you think of for a core will punch a 1/4 steel plate. Copper, nickel, aluminum. Lead punches steel plates at those speeds.

                I'm probably not gonna make an AP version but it would be easy.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >I think this type of round is outside of what the FBI was thinking with their penetration tests
                Had someone tell me that five shells of birdshot into a man's chest at ten feet would "only hold him back till you ran out of ammo, then you're fricked".
                So I posted a bunch of medical examination photos of cadavers killed by birdshot and be reported me.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Thanks anon, I love how supportive /k/ still is.
              If you want to design a 7.62mm thunderzap I'd be willing to get some made and test them

              >I wonder how 7.62x39 would perform for shits and giggles.
              I bet you'd get to 4000FPS, and that the hollow-point design would be somewhat superfluous, as I suspect the round would shatter to a million pieces whether it was hollow, wadcutter, or spitzerized.

              Probably something like this, I imagine. A ragged would almost as wide as it is deep, maybe five inches.

              How fast do the czech trainer rounds go? Those are a similar concept

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Reading about 3200 fps for 46 grain Czech training rounds.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Bear in mind they're training rounds, nobody's loading them for effect on target.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >and the food was expired. I'm working on a pretty tight budget.
            Knox gelatin is very very cheap. The biggest struggle would be finding a container to put it in. Also spray the mold before pouring gelatin or you will never get it out. If you have a chronograph, you can get FPS and if you have a bb gun, you can get the FPS from that and also shoot it into the gelatin to get a penetration depth for IIRC better/more useful data for comparison to other gelatin tests. Otherwise you can just do it with a cheap ass BB gun and say the model as they're bretty close anyways. But damn are chronographs cheap these days.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >penetrator
            Some central american dude thought that up in the 80s. Being that ptfe is fairly dense, you'd need a fairly heavy core material that isnt a restricted metal, and have to keep the sabot under 25% of the total weight to keep from running afoul of AP manufacturing laws at least on the federal level.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              I'm not super familiar with AP laws. What metals aren't restricted and is depleted Uranium one of them?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                You can ignore any metal or alloy that has ever been used for a penetrator. You're looking at alloys that are newer than the law.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous
              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Even lead will get through Kevlar at Mach 2.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Yes but that's not a separate penetrator, it's a homogenous bullet. IIRC there's also restriction on the permitted proportion of jacket material so you can't juke it like that either.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                See picrel, DU is on the b& list. Metallurgy has progressed since the 70s, but the novel new alloys that might work well are also stupid expensive. Manganese copper alloys are available that contain no beryllium, but will heat treat the same, and have almost identical mechanical properties. But just like beryllium, manganese is toxic to work with, so finding shops willing to source the material and work with it might be difficult. And then heat treating afterward. Just because it can be shown to be legal doesn't mean any ole shop will be ok with tying their name to it. Hardness is just one part of the equation, tungsten is already harder than steel, but its so much denser, so small diameter and short cores made of it can still have very high sectional density, and enough mass to have energy enough to defeat materials at range. I don't think tungsten carbide would be necessary to defeat soft armor, or hmdpe backed armor at near ranges. Note that ceramics are left completely out, as are zamak alloys, aluminum, etc. A swedish m39/b type/style of spire point fmj out of aluminum with just enough of a core to up the mass into the 45ishgrain range could be done. Lead may be too soft, but a hard ceramic core cpuld be suitable.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                what about osmium?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                May as well just pay your target to kill himself.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                $1,500 an ounce. Bruh. It might be cheaper to try to get some machine tool manufacturer to make polycrystalline diamond to size/shape for projectile tips.

                Zamak bullets are old news. Bullet points:

                Shits up your lead pot. You will have to blast that fricker down to bare metal.
                Will probably have to drill open your feed channels.
                Can't size them.
                Fine at pistol speeds, will probably wear the hell out of your rifling if you're going for a speed record.

                I'm not trying to cast them, I'd like to lathe turn some zamak27 alloy, but I can't find small quantities anywhere. 5 tons of casting ingots? Sure, have it delivered tomorrow, but I want like 50lbs.

                Pointed copper starts to penetrate Kevlar around... 1500fps as I recall, lead starts to punch through around 2000fps...
                Pointed lead core FMJ will punch 1/4th steel at or around 3200FPS.

                Tungsten Carbide will punch through 1/4th inch steel at lower than Mach two, supposedly, though it has to be pointed and fairly long.

                A lot of soft armor is incorporating uhmwpe sheets (#/thickness vary) because of this. Needs something harder. I'm want to try to make a pseudo ss90 round with a conical ceramic tip backed by lead and see how that performs. The tip retaining shape should help with penetration against special threat rated soft armor, perhaps even something like windsheild glass. I think a ceramic tip in a typical sopper jscket with a light weight but solid filler core, like an aluminum slug, pushed to high velocity could do well.
                I beth those tiny tungsten "bullet" style fishing weights could defeat some serious armor push to 2500+fps with a teflon sabot. They have a hole kn the middle, and are not tungsten carbide, but tungsten is still harder than most steel alloys. Not being sintered with carbide, it would also be smaller, and it's easy to source.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Point is it's been done for decades.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Pointed copper starts to penetrate Kevlar around... 1500fps as I recall, lead starts to punch through around 2000fps...
                Pointed lead core FMJ will punch 1/4th steel at or around 3200FPS.

                Tungsten Carbide will punch through 1/4th inch steel at lower than Mach two, supposedly, though it has to be pointed and fairly long.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              At above mach 3 just about anything you think of for a core will punch a 1/4 steel plate. Copper, nickel, aluminum. Lead punches steel plates at those speeds.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Pic makes me think of a roofing nail. And they do make aluminum (non-restricted material) roofing nails for vinyl siding, which raises some interesting DIY prospects for 10mm and up. (3/8" head, so no .357/9mm)
              Aluminum is too light to punch plates, of course, but it might do the trick for even premium IIIA. And it's a non-restricted material, so you could even sell sabots made to accept an aluminum roofing nail, and print a stern warning on the box about not using ordinary galvanized steel roofing nails.

  51. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I never heard of this ammo before, great video anon! Does it act similarly to the german plastic 7.62 NATO rounds? Like how they have crazy high fps but not much recoil

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I'll be honest, I didn't notice the recoil at all. I was worried about hitting the target and hoping the gun doesn't explode.

      can you get a plastic bullet moving at mach 4 without it melting due to heat & friction or disintegrating?

      A levergun would probably get it into the high 3000's.

      You've beeen.... thunderzapped.

      That should have been the catchphrase

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Supposedly much better performance since the rounds are more than three times heavier and designed to dump that energy fast. The blue DAG rounds aren't killing anyone like zaps have allegedly done.

  52. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    You've beeen.... thunderzapped.

  53. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >no ballistics gel
    >can afford snowflake 1980s ammo
    >can afford a boomer taxed single action revolver thats blued
    >can afford a chrono
    >can afford
    >can afford a shit cellphone
    >can afford adobe after effects to put a shitty flag over your face
    >can afford to waste perfectly good watermelons that dindu nuffin
    >cant afford some jello
    2/10
    waste of 1980s ammo

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Git, /k/ is a ribs supremacy board.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      nigs leave.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      anon adobe is literally free if you have half a brain

  54. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Oxide's up for it. Hopefully this will appease gelanon and end up with a cool video

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Very based and collaborator pilled.
      Never forget: a cool OC project is the highest possible attainment on /k/.

  55. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    7.62x39 Thunderzap would be great for militiamen and conscripts. Most of whom can't hit anything past 100m anyways.

  56. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Having followed this thread, I'd like to mention that the general concept here is "ultra" hi-speed ultralite bullets. Teflon & plastic have been interesting because of the Thunderzap ammo.

    Any consideration to something like pure zinc bullets? Or possibly even alloyed/doped with something else. I have to imagine that has been explored in the past and there's data on zinc as a material. I'll also imagine it was rejected due to penetration and density issues.

    However, what we're exploring here is a very different type of penetration and wound combination. Also considering the reduced potential for collateral damage to the surroundings.

    Would zinc bullets be worth exploration? Is there anything known about its properties that make it incompatible with use as a bullet? Seems some pretty ultralite rounds with high velocity are possible. Can zinc withstand being fired out of a gun? Would it behave similar to teflon under these sorts of velocities? Might be a cost-effective alternate, if casting and/or lathing zinc isn't all that more difficult than teflon.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Zamak bullets are old news. Bullet points:

      Shits up your lead pot. You will have to blast that fricker down to bare metal.
      Will probably have to drill open your feed channels.
      Can't size them.
      Fine at pistol speeds, will probably wear the hell out of your rifling if you're going for a speed record.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      $1,500 an ounce. Bruh. It might be cheaper to try to get some machine tool manufacturer to make polycrystalline diamond to size/shape for projectile tips.
      [...]
      I'm not trying to cast them, I'd like to lathe turn some zamak27 alloy, but I can't find small quantities anywhere. 5 tons of casting ingots? Sure, have it delivered tomorrow, but I want like 50lbs. [...]
      A lot of soft armor is incorporating uhmwpe sheets (#/thickness vary) because of this. Needs something harder. I'm want to try to make a pseudo ss90 round with a conical ceramic tip backed by lead and see how that performs. The tip retaining shape should help with penetration against special threat rated soft armor, perhaps even something like windsheild glass. I think a ceramic tip in a typical sopper jscket with a light weight but solid filler core, like an aluminum slug, pushed to high velocity could do well.
      I beth those tiny tungsten "bullet" style fishing weights could defeat some serious armor push to 2500+fps with a teflon sabot. They have a hole kn the middle, and are not tungsten carbide, but tungsten is still harder than most steel alloys. Not being sintered with carbide, it would also be smaller, and it's easy to source.

      Interesting thought to source zinc:

      https://www.livescience.com/32401-whats-a-penny-made-of.html
      > history, according to the U.S. Mint:

      • From 1837 to 1857, the cent was made of bronze (95 percent copper, and five percent tin and zinc).

      • From 1857, the cent was 88 percent copper and 12 percent nickel, giving the coin a whitish appearance.

      • The cent was again bronze (95 percent copper, and five percent tin and zinc) from 1864 to 1962, except: In 1943, the coin's composition was changed to zinc-coated steel. This change was only for the year 1943 and was due to the critical use of copper for the war effort. However, a limited number of copper pennies were minted that year.

      • In 1962, the cent's tin content, which was quite small, was removed. That made the metal composition of the cent 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc.

      • The alloy remained 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc until 1982, when the composition was changed to 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper (copper-plated zinc). Cents of both compositions appeared in that year.

      I'm curious if one were to melt a piece of zinc plated with copper into an alloy that's 2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc, then cast it into a long rod that is very close to the exact bullet diameter required. What would the properties of that alloy be? Especially for ballistics?

      Such home-made rod stock could then be cut to whatever length you want to experiment with for different bullet designs, then each bullet could be finished on a lathe to final specifications. That alloy would be nearly the density of zinc, but might(?) gain a bit of hardness. Catch your waste & recycle into the next batch.

      Especially with zinc, for one example, a metal develops a crystalline structure the longer it cools. So, when casting (non-lead) bullets, there may be performance differences between bullets cooled slowly for half a day, or quenched so their matrix is mostly amorphous with minimal & fine crystallization.

  57. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Just gonna leave this here . . .

    https://inceptorammo.com/inceptor-product/preferred-defense/

  58. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    qrd? never heard of these, google says they're some kind of resin hollowpoint, what makes them so special

  59. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    would nickel work as a penetrator?

  60. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    A printing process for this bullet shape might be
    >FPE core Print
    >Mill core to spec
    >additional post process (?)
    >Shell print
    >Assemble and Anneal Bullet
    >Mill Shell to spec

    The one guy can try to rain on the parade all he wants, but the obstacles he presents don't sound insurmountable in the slightest in terms of just MAKING the bullet lol.
    Please, continue to criticize.
    Its part of the process and its fun to think of how we can work around the issues you present.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Open a manufacturing engineering book and redo the entire process, please.
      >FPE core Print
      Why printing when you can do any other plastic manufacturing tech, that doesn't result in weak and inconsistent products?
      >Mill core to spec
      Turn to spec - and why not use a primary process that eliminates this need?
      >additional post process (?)
      Why not use a material that can actually beat the heat? It would only require you to drop the idea for 3D-printing...
      >Shell print
      See above: many other different processes would be better. This would mainly be forming processes, wouldn't even have to be typical processes for plastic but sheet forming could also be used
      >Assemble and Anneal Bullet
      Annealing would not be needed if you used better materials, and annealing still loses accuracy.
      >Mill Shell to spec
      Either your annealling is weak and you can turn it on a lathe (and your bullet will probably fail), or you have to annealing it even harder and spend a lot of time on grinding. Good luck grinding plastics into a tolerance fit.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        editing fail
        last half is for

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >six steps, two pieces
      Or, since that requires you to have the equipment to "mill" (turn) the bullet in the first place... you could just get PTFE rod stock and make the one-piece bullet in one step, exactly like they did in the '80s?

      I know you like your 3D printer, and there's lots of good projects for them, but this is not one. All you're doing by shoehorning printing in is running up the cost and complexity.

      >0.2mm is bad, mkay? Even if you can achieve that on an FDM-printed .30 cal bullet (and you can't), it would be four times worse than 20 thou (0.05) which is already garbage for handgun rounds. For reference, a .30 cal bullet is actually .308 and runs through a .300 bore. Imagine the pressure signs if you used a .328 bullet due to manufacturing inaccuracy.
      Check your math, anon. 0.05mm is 2 thou, not 20.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >Check your math, anon. 0.05mm is 2 thou, not 20.
        Wierd, I did it right the first time:

        >If FPE is too flexible
        Then you use HDPE instead. Also a polyethylene, just with better rigidity and available as round stock.
        >the accuracy of an industrial FDM printer, which is what you would want to use for FPE, is about 0.2 mm.
        Match grade bullets are accurate to roughly in the neighborhood of 2 ten-thousandths in diameter, 2 thousandths of an inch would be considered hot garbage. That's about 0.05. Also, no, the accuracy of an industrial FDM printer is about 0.2mm for a 100x100x100 cube, which is what we mostly test with to calibrate dimensional accuracy. For smaller prints the absolute error can increase, and with it the relative error - that's not even getting into the fact you are approaching the nozzle diameter, which is your resolution limit. On a .75 cal that was already a problem and I was forced to use .25mm nozzles to get anywhere near decent resolution, you'd have to go down to .1mm for a .30 cal projctile and that brings a host of other issues.

        >So long as 3D printing is on the table why not have fun with the ideas here?
        You can have fun, sure, but don't get insulted when somebody gives you a reality check on your ideas. That's generally how ideas get turned into reality: by accepting the latter and adapting the idea accordingly.

        Your cored idea already works in conventional bullets, but won't work with 3D-printing due to the accuracy required. Maybe just injection mold the core and then double mold or coat the shell around it?
        >You could 3D print layers that get assembled for the bullet and rely on the innate flexibility of FPE to make up for tolerances on the internals.
        Internal tolerances might be fine (probably not), but any void gaps would cause imbalance and therefore inaccuracy.

        [...]
        Most chemical and heat options would distort the shape and dimensional accuracy, so those are right out.

        [...]
        Nice.

        >2 thousandths of an inch would be considered hot garbage. That's about 0.05.
        My bad, I'm used to metric.

  61. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    OP here, I found this vintage picture of a thunderzap test. It looks about the same as when I shot the ribs.

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