June 2000

JELLO 101:

A KITCHEN TABLE GUIDE TO PREPARING 10% ORDNANCE GELATINE

By

David M. Fortier

Photography By

Emily K. Nickerson

Bunk. Weve all read it, weve all heard it, and at one time or another in our lives many of us have even offered some up. Bunk. It comes in many forms. Sometimes its intended to promote someones pet idea, sometimes its championed by a poorly informed individual, and all too often its exclaimed to sell a product. Bunk. You read it in the gun press, you hear it at the local gunshop, and you see it on the Internet. Sometimes its obvious, other times its camouflaged behind a name followed by various letters of supposed importance. For the person who gets suckered into buying a widget that turns out to be less than hoped for, it can be expensive and aggravating. For the person engaged in a life or death struggle who suddenly finds out that hes been duped, it can be deadly.

Some statements are easier to debunk than others are. As a teenager I was into muscle cars and drag racing. It was an easy enough matter in the days of my youth to run a quarter mile with some loud mouth who thought his car was quicker than my Plymouth Roadrunner. At the end of the run we had our answer, sometimes they were right, often they were wrong. But whether I showed them the taillights of my Bird or not, we had our answer. Unfortunately, finding the truth is not always so simple, nor so black and white. Finding out who manufactures a pistol or rifle load with the penetration and expansion to suit your individual needs can be quite a bit more difficult and time consuming.

Ammunition has progressed by leaps and bounds in the last 30 years. Service pistol ammunition for police officers has improved substantially from the .38 Special 200-grain RNL Super Police duty load issued to my stepfather. Match grade rifle ammunition has also dramatically improved. Now there are some truly excellent loads for all the full size pistol calibers as well as for rifles. It is far easier today to choose a suitable handgun defensive load now than at anytime in the past. And the Precision Marksman has a variety of trustworthy loads from which to choose.

But what if you want to VERIFY that your ammunition selection is correct for your individual needs? What if you want to check the performance of your issue rifle load after it has pounded through autoglass, or to see what the performance of a 168-grain HPBT MatchKing is at 25, 200, or 600 yards? What if, as the team sniper you want to know exactly what to expect for terminal performance if you must pull the trigger? Or if you want to see how much performance has been lost in your 5.56 by dropping from a 20 inch barrel down to a 16, 14.5, or an 11.5 inch shorty? What if you just want to check something you heard or read to see if its bunk? Or perhaps you would like to be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of a load to the people you train. Well as a civilian or a member of a small department youll probably dream about it, and thats about all.

But you dont have to. In this article we will take you step by step through how to prepare 10% Ordnance Gelatine and use it for testing. Not only is the procedure simple and straightforward, but no elaborate tools are required. If you can punch holes at 600 yards then you have more than enough intelligence to accurately prepare 10% Ordnance Gelatine for testing. No Ph.D. is required, just carefully follow the instructions as if you were loading Match ammunition. Everything that you will need can be purchased locally and inexpensively. The only thing that you will need to order is the Gelatine itself, and this merely takes a phone call. It is actually very simple to mix, and after youve done it once youll wonder why you didnt try it sooner.

We have learned much since Julian S. Hatcher wrote in his Textbook of Firearms Investigation, Identification and Evidence, "To get away from these uncertainties, and obtain a real comparison of stopping power that is based on scientific tests and will stand analysis is very difficult. In the first place, no satisfactory substance is available as an object to shoot at which we can be sure will act the same as living flesh does under the bullet impact." Today we know that 10% Ordnance Gelatine is a very accurate tissue simulant. It is capable of showing how reliably a given projectile will expand, and if it is prone to fragmenting. It will also not only show the depth of penetration, but also the volume of the permanent crush cavity, and the diameter and shape of the temporary stretch cavity. Information that is valuable to the precision rifleman. Is it perfect? No, of course not. People are not made up solely of muscle; we also contain bones and organs that react differently to gunfire. That being said, 10% Ordnance Gelatine can be an extremely useful TOOL. Used as such you can learn much about the ammunition that you carry, or are thinking about carrying.

The first step I recommend is taking the time to do some reading and research into the matter before you. In this article we will give you all the information you need to prepare and test 10% Ordnance Gelatine. How you wish to interpret your results will depend entirely on YOUR load requirements, and are beyond the scope of a magazine article. As you delve into this subject you will quickly notice that theres disagreement on the subject of stopping power (this, of course, is an understatement). Like most questions in life that range from "bolt gun versus semi-auto sniper rifles" to "the deity of Jesus Christ" youll have to decide for yourself what you believe. I recommend Evan Marshall and Edwin Sanows two books Handgun Stopping Power: The Definitive Study and Street 

Stoppers as a starting point. There is some useful information contained therein on Ordnance Gelatine, whether or not you agree with their point of view. And thats what we are after, useful information. Let other people argue until theyre red in the face, I did my share of that in Theology School. What were after is hard data that you can put to good use, not defending someones hypothesis.

After youve defined what youre looking for in a load its time to order some gelatine and have some scientific fun. Gelatine may be purchased from Kind & Knox of Sioux City, Iowa. Its technical name is "250 A Ordnance Type" and it is available in 25, 50, 100, and 250+ pound containers. It is priced per pound, with larger quantities costing less per pound. Current prices may be found in the accompanying chart. I ordered 50 pounds and it arrived in a heavy plastic bag packed inside a sturdy cardboard keg. Included was a Certificate of Analysis. This contained the results of a Quality Control Lab analysis of the particular Lot of gelatine that I had been shipped. Opening up the keg and having a peek inside revealed an off white grainy powder. With the gelatine in hand, its time to get to work.

Preparing Ordnance Gelatine for testing purposes is a relatively simple and straightforward matter; however for consistent results you must follow the directions TO THE LETTER. You will need the following items:

A large kettle

Measuring containers

Electric drill with a paint mixer attachment

Food Thermostat

1/4" Plexiglas to fabricate a mold from

Mylar tape

Accurate scale

Plastic Cling wrap

Utility knife

Refrigerator

Thermostat for Refrigerator

I would heartily recommend against trying to thieve your wifes favorite stew kettle. The Gelatine leaves a sticky residue that is difficult to clean up, so purchase an inexpensive kettle and save yourself some grief.

The first step is to build a suitably sized mold from 1/4" Plexiglas. The mold size will depend on what caliber you will be testing. A 6"x6"x15" mold works well for service pistols and a 8"x8"x20" mold for non-magnum rifle calibers. We bought a 34"x20" piece of Plexiglas for a little over $30 dollars and made an 8"x8"x20" mold for this article. We used a simple tablesaw to cut out the individual pieces but a skilsaw would work equally as well. Remember to take into account your saw blade width when calculating how much material youll be needing. If your saw blade is 1/4" thick youll be losing that much material with each cut. Once we had our pieces cut out we carefully removed the burs on the edges. Checking to verify that our dimensions were correct we then slowly assembled our mold using Mylar tape. One word of warning: make sure that you use enough tape. 45 pounds of liquid gelatine can make an awful nasty mess. If youre scratching your head wondering why we use Mylar tape for assembly theres a simple answer. You will need to cut the tape and remove each separate piece of Plexiglas in order to remove the finished block. Dont worry though, the Mylar tape is plenty strong, we verified that. While carrying a newly poured batch of liquid gelatine out to the refrigerator with my friend Donny, he tripped over a tractor battery (he was walking backwards). We both landed in a heap, but the tape held.

The proper ratio of gelatine to water is 1 pound of gelatine to 9 pounds of water. Keep in mind that 1 gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds. Make sure that you use an accurate scale when weighing, and take the weight of the container into consideration. We used simple plastic jugs and tared the scale accordingly. For an 8"x8"x20" mold we used 4.5 pounds of gelatine and 40.5 pounds of water. The water temperature that the gelatine dissolves at is approximately 104 degrees F. DO NOT use boiling water, as this yields inconsistent results. The easiest method is to simply use hot tap water; this will not exceed our maximum temperature of 140 degrees F. We simply pre-measured the gelatine and had it ready to go. Then we allowed the tap water to get as hot as possible and carefully measured it out. We were then ready to mix.

As with most things it is best to have two people for the following operations. First pour the hot water into the large kettle. Then simply pour the gelatine slowly into the water while mixing with an electric drill equipped with a paint mixer. This will allow you to thoroughly mix the gelatine, however care must be taken to not overfroth the mixture. I recommend putting newspaper or a drop cloth on the floor as the liquid gelatine can make a nasty mess. After mixing, carefully pour the gelatine into the mold and let stand until the foam has cleared. This takes approximately 30 minutes or so. The gelatine mix will be yellow in color, but transparent. Then cover the mixture with plastic cling-wrap to retard moisture loss. Carefully place in your refrigerator. We found it best to place the mold on a wooden board for transporting to the refrigerator BEFORE filling. The block should be cooled at 39 degrees F for a minimum of 24 hours. Luckily most refrigerators are easily set between 38 and 40 degrees F. That is it as far as preparing the gelatine. In 24 hours you will have a 45 pound block of 10% Ordnance Gelatine.

When making large blocks you may find it easier, due to the amount of material involved, to cut the amount in half. Make one batch containing 50% of the needed amount, pour it in the mold and immediately make the other half. This makes life much easier when dealing with trying to pour 45 pounds of hot liquid. For those of you with access to freshly slaughtered animals, ribs may be inserted an inch from one end. This will show you the difference a rib hit can make. Here in Maine during deer season a rack of ribs is easy to procure for testing purposes. Ribs are particularly tough on bullets and this can yield some useful information.

After 24 hours your blocks are ready for use requiring one last step. To remove the block from the mold, take your utility knife and carefully slice through the Mylar tape at the molds joint edges. Then slowly pry each piece of Plexiglas free. Theyll stick for a moment and then suddenly pop free. Carefully remove each piece (they will have to be washed and have the tape removed before being reused). If you remove the block from the mold but intend on keeping it in the refrigerator for a few days before use, to allow you to make additional blocks for instance, I recommend wrapping it completely in Clingwrap.

When you are ready to shoot them just keep in mind that the blocks must be shot at a temperature of 39 degrees F. Ideally they should be shot immediately upon removal from the refrigerator. During our testing, blocks are allowed to set up in a refrigerator located in a friends barn. Then the blocks are removed and immediately shot on his farm. This will be impossible for many of you. If they must be transported to a shooting range, do it in an ice-packed insulated cooler. As the blocks temperature rises the readings change drastically. Shooting them at a consistent temperature is critical for consistent results. In order to capture any projectiles that exited the block, we put a 33-gallon container filled with water behind it. Nothing fancy, just a simple Rubbermaid storage container like you would buy at Wal-Mart. When a projectile did pierce the water container, a piece of duct tape was used to patch the hole and then it was refilled. Simple yet effective.

When you are ready to shoot your block make sure that you have an adequate backstop. Dont rely on the block stopping the projectile! If you wish, you can put an aiming point in the center of the block. It is important that you place your rounds as close to the center as possible. An off center shot may allow the projectile to exit the side of the block. Deep penetrating projectiles, like FMJs, often yaw and in doing so may change direction and exit the blocks top, sides, or bottom. There is nothing more frustrating than having a projectile prematurely exit a block.

Barriers may be added in front of the gelatine if you so desire. Most people dont run around naked so you may wish to place different types of cloth on the front of the block to simulate clothing. If you do, make sure that what you use realistically illustrates how people actually dress. Seasons and temperatures change dramatically here in Maine; what someone wears in the summer is drastically different from their winter dress. Its nice to know what effect, if any, heavy clothing might have. This may or may not be relevant where you operate. Autoglass and body parts, regular glass, home building materials, etc. can all be used, depending on the information youre looking for.

After you have squeezed the trigger, watched the gelatine jump, and said, "Cool", its time to get to work. Be as methodical about keeping track of ammunition performance as you are of your rifles logbook. Date, temperature, caliber, load, distance, barriers should all be carefully recorded. If possible photographs of the block should be taken for future reference, its amazing how quickly we forget things. Measurements should be taken carefully and recorded. I also like to make a sketch of the block to keep with the data. You are now able to evaluate the loads performance against your criteria.

Once you have recorded your measurements, taken your photos, and dug your projectile out, what next? Well dont throw that gelatine away. It can be carefully melted down and reused again. I would recommend the double boiler method where you take a large kettle, add water to it, then insert a smaller kettle inside it with the gelatine and slowly bring the heat up. You dont want to cook it, so use only as much heat as is necessary. I would recommend reusing the gelatine only once.

Being able to test on your own can allow you to answer many questions yourself without having to wait for some gunwriter to do it for you. Sometimes the results are quite surprising. As an example, one of our local Game Wardens carries an AR-15 in 7.62x39mm. Here in rural Maine, Game Wardens are often called in to assist local police and sheriffs and sometimes have to shoot animals, including moose. We tested a number of 7.62x39mm Hollow and Soft Point loads to find one that performed the best for his needs. The 7.62x39 in its military FMJ loading has quite a reputation as a deep penetrator so we were surprised when the first load we tested only penetrated 10 inches. While it slapped the gelatine hard and left an extremely impressive temporary stretch cavity, the bullet completely fragmented. This was not the performance we had in mind for his particular needs, and so another load was chosen.

Testing ammunition in 10% Ordnance Gelatine doesnt require Voodoo or a Ph.D., just following the instructions. Get a friend to help, take your time and you will surprise yourself on how easy it is. Properly used, it is an excellent tool for evaluating ammunition. So do some research, define what you desire from a load, and mix some gelatine up. Its not as hard as you think.

REFERENCES

Hatcher, J. S. Textbook of Firearms Investigation, Identification and Evidence. Small-Arms Technical Publishing Co., Plantersville, SC. 1935.

Marshall, E. and E. Sanow. Handgun Stopping Power: The Definitive Study. Paladin Press, Boulder, CO. 1992.

SOURCES

KIND & KNOX GELATINE, INC.

PO Box 927

Sioux City, IA 51102

(712) 943-5516

(Ordnance Gelatine)

PALADIN PRESS

PO Box 1307

Boulder, CO 80306

(800) 392-2400

(Marshall and Sanow Books)

PHOTOGRAPH CAPTIONS

2. Step 1 is to fabricate a mold. A 6"x6"x15" mold works well for service pistol ammunition and an 8"x8"x20" (as shown here) works well with non-magnum rifle calibers. Made from 1/4" Plexiglas it is simply assembled with Mylar tape.

5. Step 4. Add the hot water to the mixing kettle and then slowly pour in the gelatine. Mix the gelatine thoroughly with a paint mixer attached to an electric drill as you pour it in. Take care not to over froth the mixture.

6. Step 5. Carefully pour the mixed gelatine into the mold. Let it sit until the foam has settled and then cover with plastic Clingwrap.

8. Step 7. After 24 hours the block my be used for testing. Use a utility knife to cut the Mylar tape at the joint seams and carefully remove the Plexiglas.

9. Here we have the result of our hard work. A perfect 8"x8"x20" 45-pound block of 10% Ordnance Gelatine ready for testing. The block should be shot at a temperature of 39 degrees F. The container behind the block is filled with water and is used to catch any projectiles that exit the block.

11. Our 45-pound block of Gelatine jumps upon the impact of a 123 grain 7.62x39mm HPBT. This looks like it would really hurt!

12. The effects of a Russian 7.62x39mm HPBT in 10% Ordnance Gelatine. This particular load consistently exhibits an extremely rapid energy dump with the projectile fragmenting. A seemingly identical load from a different Russian manufacturer produced absolutely no expansion and performed exactly like ball. The only way to tell which load expanded and which didnt was to shoot them into gelatine.