#8 shot vs. 3/4" plywood

C

ctdonath

New member
FWIW:

I've read much about shotgun loads, overpenetration, and dissipation. Finally dragged out some plywood and evaluated it for myself. (Ok, this is hardly scientific.)

Propped up some 3/4" plywood in the back yard and fired #8 shot at it using a 14" barrel (Mossberg 590 AOW) from 1 to 10 yards. Shot size was chosen for presumably rapid energy loss, in consideration of short-range defensive use (i.e.: home defense, with a particular concern about over-penetration).

Shot spread was roughly 1" for each yard of distance.

From 1 to 4 yards, a nice big hole was blown clean through the 3/4" plywood.

At 5 yards, the wad got stuck in the plywood.

At 6 yards, the wad bounced off the plywood, and the shot penetrated 1/8"-1/4".
 
This seems to agree with the proponent of bird shot for home defense. At "room" distances, the bird shot will penetrate the perp, but not go through walls and pose a danger to others.

That's what you want, isn't it?

Buckshot seems to me to be a danger of overpenetration in home defense.
 
Would the 3/4" plywood have the same "characteristics" of a bad guy's body? Or, would those results apply to a bad guy's body?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dave R:
This seems to agree with the proponent of bird shot for home defense. At "room" distances, the bird shot will penetrate the perp, but not go through walls and pose a danger to others.[/quote]

Hold on there. Interior walls are made of wallboard, not plywood.

M1911
 
I had neither plasterboard nor perps to test it on. As I said, hardly scientific. What it did demonstrate was #8 shot provides immense up-close power (at 4 yards, blew a ~4" hole in 3/4" plywood!), and yet that power rapidly dissipated (barely penetrated beyond 5 yards, vs. total penetration from 20 yards with 00 buck and slugs). I figured that at minimum, if it makes a big hole in thick plywood, it will make a suitably big hole in a perp.

I'll dig up some plasterboard for a better wall test.

As for >6 yards, most in-home defense cases would not exceed 5 yards. If a case does, the birdshot may not penetrate much, but it will cover a wide area (>1" spread for each yard of distance) and make a heck of a painful mess.

Consider also that projectiles are stopped faster by two thin separated barriers than by one thicker barrier. Across a room, the shot may penetrate one sheet of plasterboard, but likely won't go through a second. Guess I'll have to buy a couple sheets this weekend.
 
"I had neither plasterboard nor perps to test it on...."

How about wet phonebooks (the poor man's ballistic gelatin)?
 
I hope to do little testing too. Maybe check out slightly larger shot and see what happens out to about 10yds or so.

Most people don't consider the protective effect of ribs but ribs cover a large area of the thorax (chest) and are very, very tough. Over the last 15 years or so I have seen literally dozens of cases of people hit with shotgun blasts with little chest penetration. For a variety of reasons I don't ask the details like distance, gauge, etc. but I suspect most of these are not within 10 yds.

ljlc
 
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