Drywall & Pistol Rounds - non-HD

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Stressfire

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The building I work at is undergoing major renovations. As such there is a plethora of unclaimed drywall cutoffs in the dumpster.

Just for giggles, I thought I might stick a few together with some liquid nails and see just how much my rounds penetrate and HPs expand.

I do not plan on being very scientific, but do plan on being safe, but am curious just how many sheets (1/2" thickness) would be needed to be able to salvage fired bullets.

Calibers would be 9mm, 45, .38 Spec, & .357 mag fired from 25 yards
 
Sounds like fun. Just an idea but you could also space them apart slightly to see how many sheets the rounds will penetrate since i assume the results will be slightly different if the sheets are glued together directly.
 
The major concern about penetration of dry wall seems to be whether a shot fired in one room could penetrate a wall and kill or wound an innocent person on the other side. So I suggest, if possible, that the range be smaller, say 30 feet (10 yards) which would be across a rather large room. Not many houses would have a place where a wall was 25 yards away.

Then you might test closer ranges, to simulate a person firing closer to the wall, maybe a 3-7 foot range.

Don't forget to tell us what thickness of drywall is used. There is a lot of difference among 3/8, 1/2, 3/4, 1 and 1 1/2 inch drywall. The first, as you know, is the most common in homes today, but 1/2" was common in the past, and a few special buildings use as thick as 1 1/2".

Jim
 
+1 on checking out the Box O'Truth video.

That said, it would still be loads of fun to try it out yourself with the guns YOU shoot.

(PLEASE take along a 12 gauge too!)

Good Luck.
 
The way you set up the drywall will make a difference, as noted above.

Several sheets glued together will give you a different penetration depth than several sheets separated by three inches of air.

Same if that air space is filled with insulation.

Your glued-together test might be fun, but it won't tell you anything useful in applying it to house construction and penetration.

How many sheetrock sheets would it take to stop a recoverable bullet?

I built a dummy section of "wall" using leftover drywall from construction in my house a while back.
Frame of 2x4, drywall on both sides.
I was testing RUBBER buckshot.

ALL pellets from one less-lethal 12-gauge shell penetrated BOTH drywall panels from about 15 feet away.
I didn't include insulation because I didn't have any to spare laying around. :)

That may help give you an idea.
Denis
 
I can tell you that a Col Officer's ACP will put a 230 grain ball round through about 7" of, for lack of a better word, human media, a layer of sheetrock, a fiberglass shower stall, the other side of the fiberglass shower stall, the sheetrock behind that, bounce off the ceiling, bounce off a closet door, and stop.

Sheetrock doesn't do much to stop bullets.
 
I can tell you just how many dry wall boards a 9mm Golden Sabers +p can penetrate.....

Let's see.. I and out of a door frame, this includes the two by fours used in framing the door.
Slight ricochet off the bathroom ceiling.
In one side of the bathroom wall and out the other.
Ricochet off the ceiling in the laundry room.
Into that wall and out of the wall in my wife's office.
Ricochet of of the ceiling fan ( marking the blade hit ) off of the ceiling and came to rest in the drapes of my wife's office.

So let's see: through two by fours, through four dry wall boards, multiple ricochets. So, consider that load tested!

And yes... I violated one (or more ) rules of gun safety.
In my 25+ years around firearms, that was my second ND.
I let my concentration wander and thank god the only outcome was some holes in the wall!
Things could have gone very bad and I just got lucky that it didn't.
 
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Sounds like 9mm Golden Sabers are an extremely good ricochet round and would be great if you are a practictioner of "skipping'em in there". I have done many years of drywall work and done repairs to walls where shots were fired (murders and suicides)and I can tell you that almost any kind of round bigger than a BB will go right on through drywall. Don't bother doing tests, go to the Box 'O Truth website. They've tried just about everything.
 
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Your glued-together test might be fun, but it won't tell you anything useful in applying it to house construction and penetration.
Click to expand...

That's actually exactly what I was going for. I'm not actually trying to test anything - I think we all know that house walls won't do too much to stop bullets.

I was actually more interested in capitalizing on a more or less free way of catching fired rounds to see how they did that was more efficient than digging them out of the ground
 
Then just get a 55 gal. drum and fill it with water. That's much more similar to human tissue than drywall.
 
Stressfire said:
That's actually exactly what I was going for. I'm not actually trying to test anything - I think we all know that house walls won't do too much to stop bullets.

I was actually more interested in capitalizing on a more or less free way of catching fired rounds to see how they did that was more efficient than digging them out of the ground
Click to expand...

The Golden Saber 124+p DID NOT expand. No a single micro meter! The hollow point plugged up as it passed through the two by fours in the door jam.
It "key holed" into and out of the last wall it entered.
I was amazed that it didn't shatter the window in my wife's office!

Below is the recovered bullet. As you can see, it did not expand, in fact, it was full of wood!!

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As you can see, it did not expand, in fact, it was full of wood!!
Click to expand...

:eek: That's not very encouraging....I thought Sabers wer supposed to be pretty effective

Granted, there are, of course, better mediums for bullet testing - but those are not really free;)

Moot point though, it rained before I got out of work so most of the drywall scraps are now gypsum sludge:(
 
Don't ask me how I know but I know a .357 LSWC will go through 2 walls and skim a third before falling harmlessly to the floor. Out of a snubby model 19.
 
It takes hydraulic pressure to make a hollowpoint expand. Seen plenty of rounds through sand, tires, wood, etc. None of them that made it through such a barrier expanded. Might crush the point or completely flatten/splatter if they hit something hard, but they never expand.
 
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