Today, this type of testing is made even easier with the advent of synthetic ballistic materials. The “real” organic ballistics gelatin blocks used by the FBI today are still made from dehydrated animal tissue. They provide accurate results, but they’re time consuming to make and they have to be refrigerated until almost immediately before they are used. And after all of that, the fired bullets are difficult to see through the cloudy, mud-colored organic gelatin.
Synthetic gelatin from the company Clear Ballistics is temperature stable up to 240° F, so the blocks can be shipped directly to the end user without melting or deforming. These blocks are also completely transparent, so the test results can be observed without cutting into the block. Test results using Clear Ballistics blocks come very close to results using organic gelatin, at least for comparing the penetration and expansion properties of handgun bullets. In addition, the convenience of working with the synthetic gelatin allows testing on a scale that is not practical with a substance as delicate and labor-intensive as traditional organic ordnance gelatin.