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Daughter's science project

6K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  srbeck 
#1 ·
After having enjoyed taking my wife and two of my kids last summer to go shoot 2-liter bottles full of water, my daughter decided that she wanted to demonstrate hydrostatic shock for her science project. When she described this idea to her science teacher, he thought it was a great idea. He said that nobody in any of his classes has ever done a project like that.

Well, we finally did the actually shooting part of her project today. We went to the West side of Utah Lake, taking a whole slew of bottles, and a video camera. We set pairs of bottles out, one empty and one full of water. My daughter then fired different types of ammo to demonstrate the difference between the impact of the round in an empty bottle vs. one full of water. We video taped each shot and will set up a TV to play the footage as part of the display. We'll also set up some panels with the bottles on display so that we can show how much damage each bottle sustained.

We had a blast. Once I figure out how to capture the video tape images, I'll post some pictures.
 
Discussion starter · #2 ·
Here's an update on the science project.

The point of the project was to prove that the presence of water in a bottle allows a shock wave to propagate the energy of the bullet, resulting in significant damage to the container. We used four calibers:
  • Federal .22 long rifle 36gr
    (Fired from Walther P22 with 5"bbl)[/*]
  • UMC .38 Special +P 125gr (hollow point)
    (Fired from S&W 686P 6"bbl)[/*]
  • Federal .357 Magnum 158gr Hydra-Shok (hollow point)
    (Fired from S&W 686P 6"bbl)[/*]
  • PMC 30-30 WIN 150gr (Flat Nose Soft Point)
    (Fired from Winchester Model 94 lever gun)[/*]
The observed damage to the bottles that had contained water was significant, especially with the relatively high-powered 30-30 round.

Here's the science fair project display:



We also videotaped each shot, and will have the tape playing for the presentation of the project.
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
If you're interested, here's a much closer view of the project display.

Warning. This file is about 245KB in size.

As you can see, each bottle has yellow arrows labeling the entrance and exit holes. Between each pair of bottles for a caliber is an information sheet on that caliber and the gun used to fire it. The empty bottle of each pair is on the left and the bottle that had contained water is on the right of the sheet. Each information sheet has a scanned image of an unfired cartridge next to a spent casing and a captured bullet which are glued down.

Yeah, this was a fun science project. :D
 
Discussion starter · #8 ·
One interesting note. If you look at the pair of bottles on the lower right of the display, on either side of the sheet describing the 30-30 ammo, you'll notice the tremendous damage to the bottle that had contained water. You'll also notice that the empty bottle on the left has two labels called "Entrance".

Why two entrance labels? (And yes, there are two exit labels on the other side.)

The .30 caliber high-velocity round hardly even moved the empty bottle. We weren't sure that my daughter had hit it on the first shot, so I had her shoot the empty bottle again. Hence two entrance holes and two exit holes on that bottle. The slower-moving calibers sure knocked empty bottles over, but the 30-30 round just sliced through the empty bottle so fast, that it hardly noticed. The bottle full of water, of course, was an entirely different story.
 
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