Probably starch of some sort. Usually it's corn starch as it's the cheapest for large scale wasteful fun like that. My kid uses corn starch for 'science' stuff at school and friend's houses all the time. Mix a batch 50/50 with water in a large bowl, take it outside, and whack away until it's all over everybody. It's called a 'non-Newtonian fluid' if you're interested in hunting down Youtube videos, of which there are PLENTY!
Duct seal may or may not behave in a way similar to starchy water, not sure how one would find out. I know that modelling clay will take a pellet much, much deeper than duct seal, which is why I stopped using the clay for pellet traps. Too hard to clean.
Okay, I guess I ought not to pull the bowing out routine... I'll keep a hand in and stay civil of course. My thoughts on pellets such as Predators and hollowpoints of various varieties run in a way slightly different from the pourable soap stuff might demonstrate. Not that the soap isn't lovely for demonstrating penetration and expansion. But that soap's relevance for hunting purposes (really the only legitimate reason for these sorts of pellets, especially the more expensive polymer-tipped variety) isn't very clear. It might be, if the soap happens to have a similar effect on pellets as does a gut shot for instance. But no conscientious hunter would ever take a gut shot, right?
So, if one were to take a heart/lung shot on a small animal with a 400-500fps airgun - let's use your number of 400fps at point of impact for argument's sake - then there's a better than 50% chance of that projectile striking a rib, correct? Where's the rib in your soap?
And if one is pesting, squirrels or rats for instance, and taking the arguably 'kinder' head shot just below the ear from the side, then there is a 100% chance of striking thin fur and skin, then bone from between 1mm and 3mm thickness before striking the brain. That bony layer is going to cause considerably different pellet deformation of a hollow or polymer pointed pellet than what happens in your soap castings. If you were to add a layer of bone, or for convenience a layer of 2mm hard plastic such as acrylic sheet to emulate bone, then the resulting pellet deformation might bear more relevance for such a pellet's use in the real world, outside your secret laboratory. I'd venture a little further and suggest that in such a demonstration your soap might be too hard to provide an accurate analogue to brain matter.
Hm. I wonder what I have around the shop... Oh, my kid's got some 'slime' he made the other day, that's about like a brain. I know brain texture only too well. My father was Croatian. Breakfast still gives me the shivers sometimes, and it's been over 40 years since choking the stuff down with under-cooked eggs... say no more. Anyway, this slime is virtually identical to raw brain tissue in texture and resistance to slow and/or fast impacts. It's made of water, transparent 'craft' glue from a dollar store, and about 1/3rd teaspoon of borax powder. Really neat stuff for a kid to make by the way, kind of a miracle and really cheap compared to the usual commercial slime balls. Some green food colouring and my boy is all about that. So I took his slime and put it on top of 8 layers of stiff card in a plastic cup to prevent bottom penetration, put a layer of 2mm plexiglas on top of that for the 'bone', then a layer of 0.5mm cardboard for the skin and wee bit of fur just under the ear. Seemed about right. Then I fired a Predator point blank. I expect at a usual pesting range of 20 feet or more the deformation from an airgun with a muzzle velocity of 440fps would be about 400fps, so the deformation would be somewhat less but similar. Here's the result. The pellet bounced off the top layer of bottom card, leaving only a trace of a dent but coming right back up to the shattered plastic layer. Kind of like a description I read once of how Mafia hitmen like to use small .22" pistols up close, as the bullet tends to rattle around inside the head causing much more damage than a through-and-through shot. And as a further bonus; I just spent 3 minutes plucking tiny bits of shattered plastic 'skull' out of my kid's slime so he won't be mad at me. Had to ask for the use of the slime, and he said "Sure, as long as you take any little bits out of it after, and put back ALL the slime, don't waste any!" He's 7. Aren't 7 year olds cute? Anyway, here's the pellet beside the intact Pred and the one into duct seal:
Attachment:
predator_through_card-plastic-slime.jpg [ 28.62 KiB | Viewed 835 times ]
Ah, took too long concocting this experiment and you beat me to the non-Newtonian thing. Fun stuff, eh?
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