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

I'm sorry if this is not quite as technical as some of the experiments but it might cause more questions than answers.
Again this is a photo of a rabbit clay I picked up this morning - so not hot weather. Shot at around 20yards. The pellet measures 2.5mm but of coarse it could have been distorted by the impact.



Now this first photo shows the pellet from the side of the impact - surprising to me it is flat.



This second photo shows what would have been the exit side. I can confirm this by the direction the trap was throwing and the rib. As you can see the pellet is still rounded if just a little flattened. Now I am no scientist but this does not look like normal ballistics to me. The chances of a second pellet impacting squarly on the reverse if this pellet seems very remote as it was the only strike on the target. I would not have thought there was enough energy to 'upset' the pellet through the hole to form a dome on the reverse and flatten the tail but perhaps I am wrong. Having seen what air gun pellets, .22 bullets and larger rifles do when they hit fairly solid objects this does not look the same in any way.
If the pellet is trying to �ooze� or 'upset' its way through the clay target then there will be considerable lateral forces as the clay will be acting like a die stretching wire for example. I'm afraid I have no answers - just an unusual observation as you don't get stuck pellets very often - and more questions.John

Something that has not been mentioned is the effect of the different types of traps throwing the targets. The old White Flyer machines imparted a good bit of spin to the target, while most if not all of the more modern machines give less spin. This will give a lot of difference in the effects of centrifugal force on the one pellet hits. I knew that the spin differences were manifested in the flight of targets in the wind, but had not considered the difference in marginal hit breaks.
Another big factor is the make and in some cases the style of the target. For about 20 years I did the set up and maintenance on the skeet machines at the club I belonged to. All our machines were Westerns. The best targets for shooters were Remingtons, and the next best were the White Flyers. For a while, Federal made a target that was as good as the White Flyer, but later discontinued it. The easily broken targets were the best for the shooters, but bad for the club because of the percentage broken in the machines. The White Flyers were the best compromise, providing the machines were properly maintained and adjusted. Federal made some targets that were so hard that a 200 lb man could stand on one without breaking it.The top shooters still shoot the highest scores and still win, regardless of the targets used, but their scores are lower than with the more easily broken targets.

At Sea Level, Temp=59F - Bar-29.54" - 12ga 2 3/4" - Full Choke - 1 3/4 - unbuffered #8 shot (0.090")
1250 fps 3 feet from the muzzle

10yds 1057fps 2.66ft/lbs
20yds _863fps 1.77ft/lbs
30yds _724fps 1.25ft/lbs
40yds _618fps 0.91ft/lbs
50yds _533fps 0.68ft/lbs
60yds _461fps 0.51ft/lbs
62yds _448fps 0.48ft/lbs
70yds _400fps 0.38ft/lbs
80yds _347fps 0.29ft/lbs

With a Skeet choke it will be doing 454fps, 0.49ft/lbs at 59 yards

Pete

Stan, duplication of the event of interest with measurement equipment that doesn't influence outcome is, of course, the most desirable test. However, an appropriate model that accounts for the influencing factors is oftenvery useful. We have "pointer" work from Dr.jones and I'm moving to some live testing. We shall see if Dr. J's model is reasonable. If it is, we will be able to gather data much faster.

Tom, do you know why the difference in spin speed of the traps? As I see it, the circumferential speed of the clay has to equal the forward velocity of the clay, unless the clay slips relative to the rail. Considering that there are a lot of g's acceleration, the force of the rail against the target must be high. It would, therefore, take a very low coefficient of friction between the target and the rail to allow slippage. Has the rail material changed dramatically over time? I expected it would be some form of rubber and have a relatively high coefficient of friction with the clay.

Emperical, experience, and hoss sense all have a valuable place. Unfortunately, some parts of life don't work according to the above. Considering that we have had little advancement since the 1870's, '80's, I suspect there are some choke technology that doesn't fit to the above. Patience and stay tuned. We shall see.

Makes me want to add 25% to my scores from now on.

the range i belong to up in poolville, when the grass is taller or it's been raining and the ground is soft lots of missed targets don't break when hitting the ground. i can usually pick up a couple dozen out in front of the individual traps and use them again. lots of these show one or more pellet strikes. i picked up one that had 3 solid hits and not only didn't break in the air or when hitting the ground, it didn't even come apart when thrown.

was shooting with my stepson once and he busted a target twice as he thought he'd missed but his first shot actually hit it. i saw a geyser of black dust erupt and spray about a foot in the air above the target. it kept on going without so much as a change in direction i could detect. i assume that's why at any sort of clays competition they have spotters to do nothing but keep their eyes on the target and watch for any indication of strikes.

i will say it's been my observation that 7.5's are more reliable at breaking targets than 8's and i really prefer 6's but we're not allowed to use them up there as there is concern that they'd travel further and fall on the cattle in the pasture beyond the range.. i had handloaded some 1-3/8oz of #6's once, after reading burrard (heavier payload/larger shot/lower velocity) and they didn't leave any doubt at all when a target was hit.

Rocketman / Don,
You know that I have expressed my opinions.
But I would never stand in the way of progress.
As you rightly said CoF is very important and to this end we need to consider that early traps both manual and automatic used rubber buffers on the throwing arm.
Modern machines now use polyfluoro or polyvinyl material as blade buffers so I would think the CoF is considerably reduced.
Also in the single pellet airgun tests are we using 0.177", 0.22" or 0.09" pellets?

Finally is it so important to concentrate on single pellet breaks?
Should we not be spending research time on improving effective patterns.
Granted I will always accept 100 chips against 99 balls of dust but where is this one pellet break theory leading?