Wall Penetration Testing: 9mm, 223/556, 300 Blk, and a little 12 Gauge.

Firemoth (Rob) and I did some wall penetration tests about a week ago and filmed it. The videos give the basic results. I have the 9mm, 300 Blk, and 12 Gauge results packaged and published on YouTube. The 223/556 is going to take a little longer. The wind was awful and as the day got later, the wind got worse. The 223/556 footage is all the later testing and the sound in the video is almost impossible to hear. I'm going to have to figure out how to do voice over and then I'll publish it. I'll probably spreadsheet the number I have on the results.

In a nutshell, you can just assume anything you shoot is going though three inner walls and very likely leaving the house. Vmax rifle bullets in 223/556 and even 300 Blk seemed to deplete their momentum faster as they shed pieces fairly fast. I'm fairly convinced that high velocity and bullet design that allows fragmentation is the best way to minimize potential collateral damage. It's a trade off though. Go too far with the fragmentation and the round loses the ability to penetrate flesh.

Anyway, it's been a long time since I did any testing or write-ups etc, so here are the links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaabg9tCF48

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADtVzOPr0a8

I'll post part three in this thread when it's done.

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Originally Posted by SA Friday

In a nutshell, you can just assume anything you shoot is going though three inner walls and very likely leaving the house.

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+1

I witnessed a similar test a few years ago and the notion that .223/5.56 magically stops or tumbles when it hits the first panel of sheetrock is parroted all too often.

I probably still have a few pictures of a .45 ball going out of one house, into the next house, through one interior wall, then finally stopping inside a bathroom cabinet. The round went through an upstairs bedroom, right over the dog's bed.

Here is the 223/556 video. This is where bullet design combined with high enough velocity starts to show interesting results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpYTkq1o6I8

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wyome

What about using frangible ammo? Is that even still a thing...

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Yes and no... I think it's feasible with a rifle round. Pretty sure it's a losing proposition with a pistol bullet. I am interested in a few other types of bullets that I will probably test in the future. The Hornady critical defense 223 round looks a lot like a fancy Vmax with the polymer tip blunted. I might try some 75gr TAP in the future too. It's just difficult to find and pay for the various ammo. I raided mine, Mike's, Rob's, and one of our regular customer's ammo stashes and still ended up ordering about $100 worth of ammo for the testing.

Oops, Sorry wyome. I tried to delete your double post and it took both out. My Mod skills are awful...

Some retired guys did a video called box of truth a few years back shooting at drywall and brick panels. The round that did the best was a 357 hollowpoint, which follows your finding of a high velocity round that fragments easily (or in this case of the 357 mushrooms/deforms easily).

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Originally Posted by SSChameleon

Some retired guys did a video called box of truth a few years back shooting at drywall and brick panels. The round that did the best was a 357 hollowpoint, which follows your finding of a high velocity round that fragments easily (or in this case of the 357 mushrooms/deforms easily).

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There are a few decent videos on Youtube on this topic. Box-of-Truth if I remember correctly was his own web site. What really spawned testing was I wanted to see two things; I wanted to do a basic comparison of pistol vs rifle vs shotgun and which hand any advantage mitigating penetration on a missed shot. Second was I wanted to see 300 Blackout results. There weren't any out there to point to and it the basic number for momentum were pointing toward it penetrating more than the rest. It pretty much did.

To the first point, the AR with 223 rounds that fragmented resulted in mitigating the potential danger of shooting through walls. One can tell people this, but having video to point to and prove it is golden.

https://youtu.be/PbdmQ5IN2j0


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Honest question and not criticism - would all the space between walls in a real house have changed the results of the test? I can certainly appreciate why you did the test the way you did.