Thread: Rainy Day Shooting - Rubber bullets in the garage - w/ pics

Rainy Day Shooting - Rubber bullets in the garage - w/ pics

Hey guys, I had a blast this morning. See, its raining here in Ga and I was bored. I got me some of those rubber bullets from Midway. All you need is a case, a primer and a rubber bullet and you're set to shoot.

The first pic is of the inside of my garage. The target is a little mailing envelope I colored a blue dot on. I sat in another wheelchair out under the eve so I wouldn't get rained on. And fired 6 times at the blue dot.


#1 and #2 are my 06 Harley Road King w/ sidecar.

#3 is my shelf of gun powders for reloading.

#4 is my Hornady LnL Progressive press and Lyman tumblers.

#5 are my fishing poles - I really like to fish.

#6 is my PVC pipe homemade target stand and envelop target.

#7 is my son's customized (he did all the work on it hiimself) Harley 1200 Sportster dirt bike, which he discovered is far too powerful to be a dirt bike. Now, it's a street bike.

The next pic is a closer-up of the envelop target. Those rubber bullets shoot darn good! I was probably about 15 - 20 ft away, I guess I need to measure it. Behind the target is a wet blue towel. The bullets hit it and fall into a box below.


The next pic is my Ruger SBH .44 Mag.

#1 and #8 are the .44 and Millet Red Dot scope

#2 is a Lee non-caliber-specific (universal) de-priming die (I use it in my
Hornady single stage Classic LnL press to knock out the spent primer and seat a new one.

#3 and #7 are two 44 Spl cases I modified (drilled out the primer hole with a 3/16 inch drill bit) - I used a magic marker to put on a green band so I would NEVER load one of these babies w/ gun powder and a lead bullet - that could mess your whole day up.

#4 and #5 are .44 caliber rubber bullets. They are simply big, hollow rubber bullets. You put them in the case by hand. Bullet #4 is resting bottom up, #5 is right side up.

And finally, here is a pic of 38 and 44 cases, two unmodified and two modified for the rubber bullets.

Case #1 is a .357 case, not modified. I'll use it for my true reloads.

Case #2 is a 38 Spl case modified with a 1/8 inch drill bit. At first I used the 3/16 (like I did for the 44 case) and the primer fell right through. The case in this pic has been drilled with a 9/64 inch bit. I want as much of the power of the primer to pass through and hit the bullet.

Case #3 is a modified 44 Spl case - I drilled out primer hole with 3/16 inch bit. This is one of the cases I used to shoot the 6-shot group you saw in pic #2. Later, I discovered that this case would not shoot a magnum primer, because the 3/16 inch hole it too large - so, I modified some more 44 mag cases w/ a 1/8 inch bit - they worked fine.

Case #4 is a regular .44 Mag case, like those I reload.

It is imperative that you don't not get these cases mixed up.
Never, never shoot a full power loaded round in one of the rubber bullet modified cases.

Didn't mean for this thread to turn into a rubber bullet clinic. I tried to anticipate your questions as I typed this.

Hack

That's to cool.


I should've used rubber bullets when I shot my Chrony.......

That is so cool thanks for posting these pictures and the results of Rubber gun shooter....

I plan to chrony some tomorrow. They're not marshmallows.

Hack

For those interested in this fun way of wasting time:

Midway and Meister are the only two sources I could find for the Rubber Bullets.

Midway:
http://www.midwayusa.com/Search/Defa..._1-2-4_8-16-32

Meister:
Or, you can go to the source:
http://www.meisterbullets.com/asccus...45&navParent=0
this price includes shipping, Midway's does not. I'll get more from Meister, if I ever need more. They're no going to wear out, But I can see losing some. I didn't buy any 45 cal, because they won;t cycle the slide and I didn't want that hassle, but I may get some anyway.

The rubber bullets show no damage at all from firing them, so they should last forever. As I said, I put a towel behind the envelop target. The bullets passed through the envelop, struck the towel (it was wet at the time, left a nice imprint on the towel and dropped into a box I placed on the floor.

I'm going to the gun shop in a minute and buy some magnum primers for comparison to regular pistol primers. I'm going to chrony them then.

Hack

Okay, I got some data for you all.


6 of those rubber bullets weigh a total of 78.1 gr (so, one weighs 13.017 gr)


I chronied the 6 that I weighed, here are the speeds:
395.4
393.5
390.4
372.8
412.2
and
414.6

Avg = 396.48 fps


Widest span is 2.984 in.
Diameter of one bullet hole is 0.430 in.
Group size comes out to be 2.554 in.
Shooting was unsupported.
Target 20 Ft away, chrony was 10 ft away.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Magnum primer report:

None of them fired when the hammer fell, not a one! Upon examination, I saw that all mag primers had a shallow dimple on them and they had been pushed deeper into the case. I figured that's why they didn't go fire.


Here are five of the ones that had shallow dimples and didn't fire.

It would be easy to check my theory. I took 4 of my 44 mag cases, and drilled them out with a smaller drill bit - 1/8 inches (if you remember, I originally used a 3/16 in. bit - now I know that is too big.) I put primers in and all fired. None backed out, which would have caused the cylinder to bind.


On the left is one of my first ones (3/16 hole) and the one on the right is a new one (1/8 hole). I guess mag primers have a harder surface than regular primers. All the regular fired, even with the bigger hole.

So, I'm going to re-drill new cases to 1/8 inch.

Hack

I finally got around to chronying the magnum primers, I did indeed get more velocity, here are the results:

I was shooting them out of my Ruger Super Blackhawk. 7 1/2 inch barrel.

Rubber bullet mass was 13 gr, on average.

Regular Primers.........Magnum Primers
395.4 fps.................558.6 fps
393.5......................506.5
390.4......................477.3
372.8......................517.8
412.2......................519.5
414.6......................493.3

396.5 avg................512.2 avg

Magnum primers increased rubber bullet velocity by 115.7 fps on the average (22.5 % increase)

I didn't do anything with POI, but I'd bet I have a flatter trajectory with the magnum primers.

Only drawback I noticed was the mouths of my cases were dirtier, but I guess that is to be expected.

Hack

Wow I didn't think the magnum primers would make that much of a difference.

I've shot rubber bullets using nonmodified cases in 38 out of a 3 inch mod.66and have had near the same grouping

Is this like the guys that are molding hot glue for bullets????