"PDW" Terminal performance help.

Hello All, Longtime lurker (15+ years) first time poster. I've been playing and tweaking with a wildcat I designed for the last few years and finally at a point where I would like for it to be more than just a range toy.

It's a 22 caliber pipsqueak that does some impressive #'s from short barrels (which is what I designed it for) I'm getting 2550 ft/sec with 40gr bullets and 2225 with 53gr v-max's from a 5" barrel.

I have made a second barrel @ 5.5" and plan to continue shortening this one (it started at 6" and 2700 ft/sec with 40's)

I have a sbr'd lower and made myself something to scratch a childhood dream (owning a mp5k type gun only better)

I would like your advice and input as to what bullet weight/type of bullet could actually be a viable defense load.

QL has predicted over 2600 ft/sec with 32gr fbph which I have and will likely send a few over the chrono just to see what #'s I get

I don't have gel to test loads. I was thinking the 53gr varmint bullets may expand nicely at said velocities but thats purely theoretical at the moment. not sure if water jug testing would really show much.

An alternative thought was maybe a 55 or 62gr gold dot/fusion QL predicts right around 2000 ft/sec and I've read they expand down to 1600 ft/sec so that would give me more than the 50yds I'd hope for.

Here's a few pictures of what i'm playing with.
https://i.imgur.com/sTz5rHhl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xe6HEoBl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/HHAewTHl.jpg

And another wildcat in the works.....I'll get to the details of this one later:cool:
http://i.imgur.com/ZGLO8ful.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pi83brWl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9rP2MA8l.jpg

wow really cool project.

I would check out the 50gr TSX or the 55gr gold dot for real performance on human like targets.

Water will tell you if a projectile fragments and to what degree, if you rig something up that captures everything. I don't think you're going to be able to determine penetration with any certainty without using ballistics gel. Avoid the clear gel, it has properties that seem to cause projectiles to fail to fragment.

Looks like you recreated a version of the Colt 5.56 MARS

https://accurateshooter.net/Blog/556mars.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...ARS1911002.jpg

Was not aware of the clear Gel causing frag issues. Good to know.

Vicious Similar design philosophy as the mars but a touch smaller.

I chose the shorter length for it to teeter into Lil gun burn territory as it seems to yield performance above it's burn rate. My initial plan as actually to go as small as the 22 tcm case and "improve" it but story's of brass being weak even at it's 37.5k psi operating pressure and the fact that another gentleman had a cartridge similar called the .223 short that used 5.56 brass (Brian Lewis) (1.125" case vs 1.025 of the tcm and mars was around 1.18 I believe) I reached out to him and he was kind enough to allow me to borrow his reamer.

I learned alot with the .223 short but it had a few flaws for my application (has a ton of case taper like 7.62x39 status) So we got to discussing my idea of the improved case with 30' shoulder and also a shorter neck to yield more case capacity. He liked the idea and another reamer was made by PTG and here we are.

I'm using modified MEAN endomags. they work great with the rear stop removed for up to 1.39" loads (requires short bullets similar to the 22tcm) I made a modified version with a cut down 5.56 follower using the front portion of the endomag. It does fine with 6 or so cartridges but then the carrier tilts. So I have another idea to cut a 5.56 follower to straddle the front rib which will keep some of the anti tilt portion of the follower intact. Hoping that will work which allows 1.68" COAL greatly increasing bullet selection.

As with anything thats out of the norm there are alot of bugs to work out. But i'm getting there :D

PS. the little guy was more an exercise of "what if" made a dummy...was like cool...hmm wonder if it would work like this using my reamer chambered shallow....goes out and cuts a chamber into a piece of scrap material drops in dummy..Sweet! hmm remembers reading about a guy who "stubbed" a glock barrel to another caliber. So happen to have a no name g34 barrel in the parts bin....dials in chamber side...bores it out to thread it 1/2x28....threads it 1/2x28 parts off the breach block of said barrel....chucks up a scrap piece of .224 barrel, chambers, threads 1/2x28, installs glock breach block with sleeve retainer, profiles .224 barrel to proper OD....cuts off excess chamber...blends into feed ramp... faces off muzzle to length....crowns....drops into glock 34 slide...hmm fits and cycles....makes die....forms brass.....fires up QL......loads ammo.....takes out a squeezes trigger hoping it doesn't blow up Attachment 62798
Goes boom and still have all my fingers....Sweet!!!

Still a work in progress but so far getting 2300 ft/sec from a 32gr bullet 5.2" barrel

I seem to remember a similar project out of the UK, that used a Glock 10mm or 45acp for the pistol part of the project. But I don't remember what shoulder fired weapon they used.

Does anyone know if home made "ballistic gelatin" is accurate? As in knox gelatin made at a 10% ratio? Seeing alot of that used on youtube and it sounds to easy lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yoni

I seem to remember a similar project out of the UK, that used a Glock 10mm or 45acp for the pistol part of the project. But I don't remember what shoulder fired weapon they used.

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224 BOZ