Some heavy duty rethinking.
Been talking and corresponding with a number of knowledgeable friends and acquaintences. Intriguing subject, it turns out, for that group. Real eye-opener! Have a few conclusions. Have a few tentative, sort of semi-conclusions. Got a lot of surprises!
My frangible stuff still isn?t in. If it doesn?t get here, pretty soon, going to buy some of another caliber and do a couple of experiments. I have some experimental results and will mention some of them at the end of this post. (Nothing scientific.) You don?t need to read that far, unless you have burning idle curiosity.
Preliminary Conclusion: Old fashioned standard safety rules apply. There are no magic bullets.
Rule # 1. Identify your target with certainty. You can?t shoot until you do.
Rule # 2. Hit your target. Just don?t miss.
Rule # 3. Know your backstop and what is down range. If it isn?t known to be safe, you can?t shoot.
End of serious stuff. Beginning of idle curiosity.
Just about everybody in my group has been curious, at one time or another, and either took advantage of an opportunity to check something out, or went so far as to build a mock-up, stick house, wall or walls and conduct some experiments. It?s a test drive. Put the rubber on the road, and see how it handles.
In the course of conversation, I recalled that I had also done that sort of thing in the past. Had forgotten about it! Two of my experiments follow.
I had heard about the legendary penetrating power of the 9mm full metal jacket. Got a chance to observe it. A fire had ruined a small building on a farm that belonged to a friend, and had a hill behind it. Perfect! I had a 9 with me and some FMJ practice ammo. We set it up, and I fired into the building with the hill as a backstop. (We knew we didn?t, really, need that hill.) It was just one of those ?rule? sort of things.
As expected, the bullet penetrated the exterior wall with neat round holes, inside and out. At the second wall, it penetrated the sheet rock with an elongated but neat hole, indicating that the bullet was tumbling. It deflected, somewhat upward, in that wall. It crossed that room and made a neat, 9mm sized profile through the window! Went through sideways, still moving fast with plenty of energy! It ended up somewhere, in that hill that ?we didn?t need!?
For a time, exasperated with finding ammo that I would be comfortable shooting for personal defense, inside a house, I decided to go with a compound hunting bow and arrow. I just knew it would be safer. It would also be quieter. Later, decided to remodel, a little. Included moving one wall. Decided to check out the archery defense. Knew it was safer, but just wanted to check it out.
A broadhead made astonishingly short work of the doomed wall. It crossed the room, and penetrated the second wall, to the feathers! That wasn?t anticipated, and necessitated a bit of unexpected repair work, both sides! OK, I hadn?t exhausted my resources. Decided I would switch to a ?flu-flu.? That?s a bird arrow with a large blunt plastic head and feathers that fluff out, a ways into flight, and act as a parachute to recover the arrow. The arrow punched a sizeable chunk out of the wall, penetrating completely, but stopped in the next room, short of the other wall. Gave it all up and went back to handguns and standard safety rules.
Other experiments and anecdotal results.
Wadcutters, fired at mockup or otherwise condemned wall. (Several reports.) Penetrated one layer of sheetrock, every time. Occasionally penetrated second layer but with little to no energy left. (One report of a handloader who loads the wadcutter bullet backwards. The ?inside? surface is cupped. It?s a hollow point wadcutter!)
Mockup wall, one layer siding, one layer ? ? plywood sheeting, insulated cavity, one layer 5/8 ? sheetrock. Shelves inside with water filled plastic gallon jugs sitting on them. Location of jugs marked, outside, for aiming purposes. (Compliments of a firearms dealer on a firearms forum.)
Fired every caliber of handgun, .45 to .22, including birdshot and frangible. (Did not include wadcutters.) Also fired 12 ga and 20 ga short barrel shotguns with a selection of loads from buckshot to birdshot. Range, 15 feet.
Every shot penetrated the wall and destroyed or exploded the jug! Birdshot? At 15 feet it is still a solid mass, a slug! Sobering!
At 15 yards, the results would certainly have been different. But, you don?t have 15 yards inside a house, nor an RV. 15 feet is a reasonable distance for that experiment. Specialty rounds need some minimal distance to begin to develop their designed performance. That distance is well beyond 15 feet!
Not tested:
410 loaded into a .45 Long Colt handgun. Might be different.
Don?t have any reports, anecdotal or otherwise, to see what various rounds will do if shot through some wall toward another wall, some greater distance away. This would simulate damage to another residence, nearby. In that circumstance specialty bullets would likely perform better. They should, but I don?t know.
Starting to like wadcutters. Cheap and easy on the shoot?n arm, effective at short ranges.
Ray D.