Through my time here on this forum, I've learned alot about ballistics thanks to Doc and many others who have done their own tests and have gone through the same learning curve I did. I'm by no means a ballistic expert, but I've learned enough to at least have an idea. Through that time, I noticed that one of the most common questions regarding ballistics was "What round is the best for HD in terms of effectiveness against the target, AND will limit the possibility of friendly casualties if a round misses and passes through a wall into the next room?" Well, according to those who know way more than me, such as Doc, the short answer is, "Its not possible to have both."
It's ultimately about the software and not the hardware, knowing your target, its foreground and background, shot composition, and what may be behind the next wall. Once you have that, THEN try to maximize your hardware to meet the software. As far as hardware selection, it took me a while to accept the fact that the target that needs to be eliminated may not always be out in the open for a clear, unobstructed shot. Further, I had to accept that anything that will penetrate to the acceptable depth (terminally speaking) WILL present a threat to anyone on the other side of a wall if there is a missed shot or pass-through. The threat is priority number one, with consideration for friendly casualties a very close second.
So, enter the bonded soft point debate. You either use a bonded soft point that has acceptable wounding/penetration characteristics through barriers AND unobstructed shots or you use a fragmenting round that won't do as well through barriers, but good results for unobstructed shots....OR you don't educate yourself and use a round that has sub-par penetration numbers for the chance of midigating friendly casualties. I like options, and since I don't know what kind of threat I'll be faced with, I know which round I'd choose.
This leads me to a test that I've been wanting to do for a while now. I wanted to design a test to see what certain rounds would do through a "wall" such as you would find in your home, and the penetration depth they were able to obtain in gallon jugs of water (simulating tissue). There has been similar tests done with only sheetrock, or only water jugs, but as far as I know, never with both (unless Doc has done this and I haven't seen it yet?). And, yes, gelatin would have been much better than water, but it is what is readily available and easiest to work with for me.
I built a "box" with two pieces of sheetrock spaced 4" apart (approximate distance of the space in your walls) and gallon jugs of water to catch the projectile starting 12" from the second piece of sheetrock.
I used different pieces of sheetrock (all cut the same size from the same larger sheet that I bought from the hardware store) for each test performed (except for the XM223SP1, since I ran that one twice...more on that later). All water jugs were the same temperature, stored the same way, and placed the same way inside the box when the test was run.
As you can see below, my box didn't hold up as expected since I didn't account for the energy being imparted into the water by the rifle projectiles. The first two jugs were typically pretty well shredded, especially the first one, and the water pressure tore the side walls off! Below is the only pic I got of the aftermath, but was pretty typical for all the rifle rounds fired. The sole pistol round that I fired showed pretty obviously how much lower energy it carried when compared to rifle rounds...but the penetration might surprise you...more on that later too.
Below are the results for the tests performed.
*These tests were all shot from a distance of 10yds. Rifle was a 14.5" AR and pistol was a G19.*
Rounds used were:
Federal XM556FBIT3 (62gr TBBC projectile)
Federal XM223SP1 (62gr Fusion projectile)
Hornady 75gr TAP T2
Federal 55gr XM193
Barnes 62gr RRLP (Reduced Ricochet Limited Penetration)
Speer 124gr Gold Dot (standard pressure)
**NOTE**
The first picture of each test will show the FRONT side of each section of wall, meaning entry holes, indicated by a "W1/W2". The second picture shows the BACK side of each section, meaning exit holes. In the case of the Fusion Projectile, "T1" indicates "Test 1" and "T2" indicates "Test 2".
Also, I didn't search for or pick out every tiny piece of lead that was left in the jugs...since my main goal is to show the "lethality" of various rounds after contact with a typical interior wall of a home, I didn't feel that the tiny flakes of lead that I could find in some of the jugs were significant enough to pick out. Anything that was large enough to cause potential injury was picked out and collected for the results.
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Originally Posted by vicious_cb
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