9mm + Ppenetration

[45R]

I was recently out at the range today with 45Boo and wanted to know how much penetration a Speer 124gr +P JHP would get through a local phone book.

Well we set the phone book up at 7 yards and fired one shot. The phone book was proped up by water bottless and one of them exploded.

To conclude this test. The 9mm round penetrated over 1400 pages in the phone book and came out the other end.

I didnt think that the bullet would make it all the way in and come out. I was never able to recover the bullet.

We also fired a few .22s at the book never made it more tha 300 pages.

 

[Mikul]

I fired a series of 9mm hollowpoints through a series of wet telephone books. Most of them penetrated FIVE telephone books.

 

[Dan Forrester]

This was some testing I did in 9mm and .45 about a month ago. I originally posted it on www.ammolab.com but figured a cut and paste here wouldn’t hurt.


Hey guys. I did a little test on some Winchester 9mm 115 grain hollow points to day (the stuff you pick up at Wallmart that says “Personal Protection†on the label, and sells for $11 for 50 rounds lot # 30UC30 ). The test gun was my brand new Glock 26, and the range was about 3 feet. I figured you might interested in the results.

Ok, so to start with I took 3 huge West Palm Bch phone books Id been saving for the past couple months and split each into 4 or 5 separate sections. I soaked the sections in two 5 gallon buckets until no more bubbles came out. It took about 3 hours and they were soaked thoroughly, like a big sponge. I then stacked all the sections on top of each other into a nice pile (they weren’t out of the water for more than 3 or 4 minutes) and then quickly folded in half, and threw on top an old 65% polyester 35% cotton shirt which was dry to make the test as real as possible. I fired two shots spread about 4 or 5 inches from each other, and no closer than 3 inches from the phone book edges. They expanded beautifully I don’t know exactly how wide, all I can say is significantly wider than 9mm. The expansion was also quite quick, based on the channel size I’d say they were fully expanded in the first inch. Penetration was the only worry, only about 6 inches deep. 6 petals pealed back at least to the base of the slug, and on the second shot the little copper tips broke off of three of them. I don’t think the three little tips could weigh more than 2 or 3 grains though. I think the tips broke off on the second shot because the velocity was a little higher, I had just cleaned the gun so the light coating of oil in the barrel might have slowed down the first shot just slightly. If I had to pick what it looks like I would say the .45 ACP # 5 located here: www.ammolab.com/45acp_1.htm would be pretty close. I don’t have a camera but could send the slugs to some one who is interested in posting some pictures.

What do you guys think? I did the little test because I’m thinking about stashing away 1 or 2 Ks. Penetration seems a little shallow for my tastes though. Maybey the 147 grain would be better.

Dan




I did this test again today, only this time used one layer of 50/50 cotton polyester then the same 35/65 cotton polyester as yesterday (only this time one layer) and underneath that one layer of 100% cotton to simulate an under shirt; all were dry.

Here’s the results: 115 grain 7 to 7.5 inches penetration nice expansion although a little lopsided, didn’t look like a big deal though. Didn’t expand quite as fast, and the recovered slug still had a hollow cavity (like the Hornady shown here www.ammolab.com/hornady_tap_cq.htm # 21-25); although was mushroomed. The rounds form yesterday expanded to the point that the front of the bullet was flat, yet rounded and pealed back. It looked like the extra clothing had some effect on the penetration.

I picked up a box of 147 grain too: 8-8.5 inches of penetration. Perfect mushroom looked like the ones fired yester day (probably even better, very symmetrical and even mushroom) only these penetrated a couple more inches and went through more clothing material.

Is this phone book test giving me an accurate representation of expansion reliability? The results seem impressive with the 147 grain and the prices are good.

Dan




And here’s my test of their .45 ammo:

Clay: I tested the .45 Winchester white box today using the set up described in the Winchester 9mm thread. Here’s what I got when fired thought the three different materials: Penetration is about 9 to 9.5 inches, expansion is perfect very uniform, nothing broke off or fragmented. Looks kinda like the Hornady #21-25 mentioned in the 9mm thread. It seemed to take them about 1.5 to 2 inches before the channel in the news paper really opened up. BTW my test gun was an H&K USP Compact.

It seems you encountered much more penetration in your tests, can you describe how you preformed them, and how they compare to mine? Do you think Winchester changed the bullet design? The box lot number is 31TF30.

Dan

 

[45R]

Next time I try this I'll try part wet and part dry

 

[stans]

Interesting to know if I am ever attacked by a renegade telephone book.

 

[Al Thompson]

One way to correlate your tests is to have a load on hand that's a known performer. You can get this information from places like Shawn Dodson's website or any place you trust. www.firearmstactical.com

Take that load and calibrate your media. If you know that X load gives Y amount of penetration/expansion in ballistic gelation, then you can add or subtract as appropriate for your media.

FWIW, paper tends to be tough. The last time I did this, I used newsprint that was soaked for a couple of days. That worked very well.

 

[Oracle]

I dislike using newsprint as a medium to test expansion, penetration, etc. The reason is that it is difficult if not impossible to reproduce, i.e. you cannot get two phone books to soak up the exact same amount of water, the phone books may or may not have the same amount of pages or have the same density, etc. Also, wet newsprint is much denser and much less elastic than human or animal tissue.

This is why gelatin testing is done, because tests done with calibrated ballistic gelatin can be reproduced, it is much closer to the density and elasticity of human and animal tissue, and, over the years, people have noted trends that seem to hold true - expanding handgun bullets within a certain caliber range that penetrate at least 12 inches in calibrated ballistic gelatin tend to have good "stopping power", assuming the shots are placed somewhat accurately.