223 bullets test

[Elwood]

Hi guys,
My wife was getting rid of a bunch of newspapers that had accumulated, she loaded three grocery bags told our son to take them to the dumpster. I had a better idea. We put them into, I should say crammed them into a ice chest then added lots of water. In a few hours I added more water. This afternoon I took the ice chest to the informal shooting range just out of town. I brought my 10" 223 Contender a few 50 grain TNT handloads, a few 55 grain Remington psp handloads and, a few 55 grain Winchester FMJ handloads. After about twenty minutes I finally got the biggest bag of wet newspapers pried out of the ice chest. I had failed to anticipate the swell factor! Anyway, I set this 8" thick bag on top of a holy washing machine and let loose with one Rem psp and two Speer TNT. Only one TNT didn't pass through. I was amazed, wet newspaper seems to be a pretty dense medium. The bullet went about 7" opened to 13/32" and weighed 31 grains.  I doubled up the the last two bags and used the FMJ and Rem psp. The FMJ travelled 12"  and ended up looking like a banana. It weighed 47 grains, It lost lead out the open base. The suprise of the afternoon was the Remington 55 grain It opened a wound channel comparable to the TNT, it drove 9" in and ended up a perfect mushroom 1/2" in diameter and get this it weighs 54 grains! This is some bullet.
Oh and I took my trash back to our dumpster.
Elwood

[Bug]

Elwood,
 Have you chronographed these loads?
The reason I ask is, I've read before that the various .223 bullets, that are often used as varmint bullets in high velocity rifles, perform in a controlled-expansion fashion when launched at lower velocities. I.e., handgun (2400-2800fps) velocities. Obviously when these same bullets impact at 3500+, they predictably explode.
 I'd like to hear more on others' experience when using these soft point bullets at somewhat reduced velocities. I haven't done any kind of controlled experimentation yet, but my informal observations lead me to believe that these might make pretty good small-to-medium game loads when not driven to top speeds.

[Elwood]

Bug
I do not have a chronograph nor know anyone who does. The loads were 21 grains of IMR 4198 for the REM psp, the barrel length is 10" somebody here might be able to approximate the velocity. The TNTs are in front of 24 grains of H-322. I have shot coyotes with the TNTs before and haven't had explosive results only a quarter size exit hole.

Elwood