Drywall Penetration Tests: Looking for an HD round?

[sharxbyte]

Sorry if this is a dupe, but I did a couple searches of the forum and didn't pull anything up. I think the article should be stickied.

So, some background on WHY I was searching for this. I am slightly paranoid because of the neighborhood I live in, and the activities that always seem to happen a few blocks over, the occasional discharge of a firearm in the vicinity, etc, and started wondering how many walls a bullet will go through. We've all heard about SWAT raids where innocent's get killed by stray fire penetrating walls, negligent discharge, etc.

So I did a quick Google search, and this guy's test seems well done, well photographed and documented. He took a reasonable sample of ammunition, and while I didn't get every type of ammo, it is enough to give us a general idea of what will go through how much.

Here's the article

Enjoy

[artoaster]

C'mon already, why don't they just make drywall bulletproof and end all this nonsense.

I mean, If your bullet's able to penetrate your bad guy it's gonna be able to go through drywall, right?

[G60]

I mean, If your bullet's able to penetrate your bad guy it's gonna be able to go through drywall, right?

Exactly. Why this is so difficult for so many people to understand boggles me.

[ervaztec]

I don't see any reason to be critical of the OPs question. Even the test he posted showed different levels of lethality from the limited rounds they tested.

I wonder how a 5.45 x 39 would fair in this test. Also there are loads out there specifically designed to stop a person but fragment enough to be less lethal after they they penetrate walls.

firing a gun in your home is by definition not safe. But, there are caliber/loads that will increase your odds of not hurting an innocent person. I'd like to know what those are.

[ArcherDog]

If we find that magic round, we will just get a generation of criminals who tape a piece of drywall to their chest before a home invasion.

[CalLongGunner]

The Box of Truth

Ammo testing into drywall

http://www.theboxotruth.com/

[Shrubmaster]

Personal Defence TV had an episode on "cover and concealment". Extremely interesting. They tested all common pistol shotgun and rifle rounds against furniture, drywall, and a frig. The frig shopped birdshot..... that's it!! Everything else went through like butter. Even little .380s.

I'll be buying some different ammo for my HD guns.

[IntoForever]

One observation I've made in the past is that every 7.62X39 round I've recovered was bent. I wonder if that's why the oblong holes were present in the drywall giving the appearance of destabilizing.

[MrPlink]

Personal Defence TV had an episode on "cover and concealment". Extremely interesting. They tested all common pistol shotgun and rifle rounds against furniture, drywall, and a frig. The frig shopped birdshot..... that's it!! Everything else went through like butter. Even little .380s.

I'll be buying some different ammo for my HD guns.

whats a frig?

[Scratch705]

whats a frig?

i think he meant fridge.

[TRod1222]

Drywall is paper and gypsum why do people wonder what bullet won't go through it. Spit balls wont go through it. But they also won't go through a perp.

[artoaster]

I do appreciate the OP's interest in the subject and yet here we come to a problem where we unrealistically expect to find a solution through technology.

The only solution is to put the rounds inside the bad guy, hope the bullet expands and stops deeply into tissue, organs and bone and doesn't just go through the body or be deflected by it and hit something or someone unintended.

I want brand X ammo to show me what it does on the human I intend to stop more than I care about whatever media it does or doesn't penetrate.

This is somewhat like those who talk about birdshot loads as home defense rounds because of these same concerns. Or, even the american myth about shells loaded with rock salt, these things just don't work!

The things that will work are supposed to be lethal to anything that they potentially will strike and will go through walls, glass, wood, metal and other things to a certain degree. Any rounds not hitting the intended target are serious liabilities and that's the way it's going to go down.

[Grumpyoldretiredcop]

That test mirrors one another deputy and I did years ago for our department, looking for a round that penetrated the least for use inside a courthouse. We tested the varieties of frangible handgun ammo available at the time, and were surprised to see that every one of them penetrated at least one full wall, both side. Needless to say, none of the frangibles were adopted.

There's nothing like empirical proof, and the test referred to in the OP should convince anyone that artoaster's last line above is the absolute truth.

[LBDamned]

don't shoot unless your life is in danger... at that point it's you or the bad guy (and possibly whomever is behind him/wall)... ideally you are positioned where the bad guy is between you and a non-endangered background - but if your life is on the line does it really matter?

And yes, all rounds can penetrate drywall... but again, if you have a high probability of death, are you going to care? Don't overlook the fact that it's not guaranteed that a human is in the path of a bullet that misses (or goes through) a bad guy... but even with that remote chance - again, do you care, if your life is in danger?

In a better metaphor... could you "live" if the fact that you prevented your death resulted in the death of an innocent? Or would you error on the side of not taking a chance, and lose your life?... It's a crappy thought - but something you better be content with.

[PEZHEAD265]

In the begining of the article he talks about the best ammo is 223 55 grain fully jacketed ammo.Funny thing he testing HP and SP in 223 not FMJ like he states and then he compares that to other FMJ and one 9mm hp on 115 grain.How many walls would 55 gr 223 FMJ penetrate?How well would of the old 762x39 124gr HP Wolf MC have done??In the pistols would HP did better?I think that this test is very one side and favors the 223 with the better ammo used for it where there were better choices in ammo for the other guns tested.