I picked up a handful of my mulch and measured the pieces. Almost all pieces are within 1/2"-1" in length, with the maximum thickness being 1/2". This is whatever brand home depot was carrying. And, yes, it is most definitely intended for gardening.
You are right, your experience is far from the norm. If your mulch sounds similar to what I described, here are a couple ideas that may be tied to performance.
Do you have the mulch packed tight in your bucket? Most people comment about packing the mulch tight. You don't have to stand on it or anything, but use your hand and compress it a reasonable amount. In addition to providing a denser medium, packing the mulch also ensures you container is full when you tilt it over. What may be happening is that your bucket seems full when upright, but a gap develops at the top when tilted over on the side. If you are now shooting closer to this gap and unrestrained top edge of the mulch, that could result in over penetration, especially after a lot of shots have settled the mulch.
Are you shooting all 3 or 4 mags into the exact same spot? Tunneling seems to be less of a problem with the mulch, but it's not out of the question. My typical shooting is at a sheet of paper with 9 small targets on it. I'll shoot a max of 10 shots at one target spot and then move to the next. I am guessing this 'reshuffles' the mulch each time I move to a new target. Maybe more than 10 shots in one spot is too much.
When I've poked around in my trap, I almost always find pellets from my 22 fpe .22 in the first 2 inches, when shooting 30 yds - 50 yds. I also tried 2 shots of 170fpe rimfire in the exact same spot at 25 yds and found the bullets around 7" deep.
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