9mm penetration

[Northslope Nimrod]

Went to the range yesterday. My buddy wanted to "blow" up his old computer...so I agreed to help. We fired our shots at about 20 to 22 yards. We shot Winchester and PMC target loads (FMJ). I was suprised to see that most of shots to the side of the tower did not fully penetrate the outer plate. My .22 did not either. We were shooting BHP, CZ RAMI, Kahr and H&K. I would have thought the 9mm would go clear through the tower. I should have brought some +P ammo. I had my 30-06 there but forgot the bullets. I'm confident the '06 would have "blown up" the tower nicely. We cleaned up out mess and left.

 

[bamavol]

I'm suprised

I would expect a 9 to go through sides. Did you have a lot of documents on the hard drive?
But seriously, I did a test by stacking 3 phone books to give a total of over 6" of paper. As I remember a 32 ACP penertrated about 1.5". A 44 mag did abour 3", but made a big hole. A 7.62x25 fired from a CZ-52 passed through all and went a unknown distance in the ground.

 

[Chupacabra]

In my experience, a lot of old computer cases have really thick aluminium coverings compared to the newer, lighter models. And of course you may have been hitting all the internal components too; hard drives, disk drives, copper heat sinks, the motherboard, etc... all will decelerate a bullet quickly.

 

[Tony Mig]

My old computer has a huge cast aluminum heat sink in it with three fans attached, I would assume this heat sink could stop most any handgun bullet...

 

[R.H. Lee]

Just saw a Law & Order where the vic was shot in the back of the head. No exit wound. Coroner said 9mm. I was surprised.

 

[marshall3]

That's why they call 'em...

HARD drives.

 

[RyanM]

Most of the old computer towers are steel.

I know this because every single female relative of mine insists on sticking refrigerator magnets to them!