Yes, it's real 9mm bullet shot from a real gun. I took it many years ago and had misplaced the negative, which I just recently found. I used a film camera and developed the B&W film in my darkroom. Nothing special about the equipment--an ordinary 35mm SLR and an off-camera electronic flash unit.
If you're not familiar with more traditional photo equipment, this might not mean much, but here goes.
The key is using the off-camera electronic flash to make the "fast" exposure needed to stop the motion of the bullet. The flash unit had an electric cable connection that allowed it to be fired remotely. To trigger the flash, I laminated two sheets of aluminum foil, separated by a sheet of paper to the back of the target. Using small alligator clamps, I connected the foil to the flash cable leads. The idea was that the bullet passing through the target would make a momentary electrical path between the foils and trigger the flash.
The target was set up in my basement with the camera and flash positioned beyond and to the side. I had a table set up to shoot from support. I set the camera's self timer and an exposure time of about two seconds. The lights were turned off so that there was only enough ambient light to allow me to see the target. I positioned myself at the table, started the timer with a remote shutter release, and took aim. When I heard the shutter open, I fired. I was delighted when I saw the flash go off, since the foil trigger idea was untested. The camera shutter closed and I developed the film.
The film exposure was mostly a matter of guesswork and luck. It turned out not to be ideal, but I got a workable negative out of it. Good thing, that was the one and only time I tried this photo shoot. I had NO idea ahead of time if this would work as well as it did. The unknown quantity was the lag time between the bullet triggering the flash and the development of the actual flash in the strobe tube. Too long, and the bullet would be out of the picture. Also, if the flash duration was too long, the image of the bullet could be blurred too much.
The gun was a S&W 5903. The round was a handloaded FMJ that, as I remembered, I loaded on the light side. The backstop was a box of scrap lumber and rags with a concrete, below grade wall beyond.
The only manipulation I did on the photo to post it here was to crop it and adjust brightness and contrast to make the bullet stand out a little better from the black background.
K