Thin wall Apartment Defensive Ammo

How thin and made of what material? It in a 'normal' apartment building? In any case, a door knob will penetrate 2 layers of dry wall. So will your fist/foot.
Not many apartment buildings built in the last 40 or 50 years with walls that are not reinforced concrete between units. Primarily to keep fires from spreading as mandated by building codes. Internal walls are just dry wall with nothing substantial inside.
"...simply impossible for a projectile to not penetrate a wall..." Nope. No regular bullet will penetrate those reinforced concrete walls between units. And concrete gets harder as it ages.
"...Bookshelves full of books do..." No they don't. A .22 LR will penetrate a solidly stuffed with newspapers box about 2 feet long(been a while) more than half way.
"...Sheetrock(a brand name) is a 1/2” or 5/8” of gypsum dust backed by paper..." Gypsum dust it ain't. It's a paste made of water, gypsum, starch and emulsifiers spread on manila paper.
"...the FBI minimum criteria..." Anything the FBI says is totally irrelevant. The FBI is not, never has been and never will be the arbiters of anything firearm related. They're cops. Cops use what they're issued according to their budgets.
"...V-Max rounds..." Might fragment, but said fragments will be lethal.
 
You guys talking about birdshot creating a "nasty surface wound" at in home distances are quite simply wrong. I know a man that was shot in the chest at 8-10 feet with 12 ga. load of #8 shot. I happened to run into a nurse that assisted in his surgery. They pulled the plastic wad off of his spine. Blew out a substantial chunk of his right lung. He lived, but not because the birdshot didn't do it's job. That's not a "nasty surface wound," and buckshot would have done little more, if any, damage. I also know the man who shot him. Had the shot been 4 inches to the right, it would have destroyed his heart.
 
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Bill there has been a huge number of people killed by .22lr, but I would never recommend it as a primary choice for home defense either. Birdshot might work but it is not an acceptable primary choice in my view. Your example does not make the case for birdshot, and certainly doesn't make the case that those of us who discourage its use for self defense are wrong.
 
The point about the rifle or shotgun being a better choice than a handgun could be valid, but just like we don't schedule the attack on ourselves outside the home, we also don't schedule home invasions and going to the safe, gun cabinet, closet or wherever we keep the long gun might not be possible. In a home invasion earlier this year, a man shot a woman in the mud room. She probably had no idea what was happening. The woman's husband was sitting on the bed in the master bedroom and was still getting dressed. He was shot on the bed. The same home invader shot a woman in a different house in the hallway, and another in her kitchen. If they even had a few seconds to realize what was happening, they certainly didn't have time to go to another room to retrieve a gun. Had they the time, they might have chosen to just flee. Why get in a gun fight with a home invader if you can avoid it and the possibility of being shot? But if you can't avoid it and you don't have time to get your Navy Seal M4, plate carrier and ECH, then draw the handgun you carry and engage the threat.
 
There is a series of Youtube videos addressing the general question of how well do various loads penetrate various building materials. To the OP and to anyone else who is interested in exploring this, go to Youtube and look for the "Box O' Truth" videos. I haven't looked at them for some time, so I'm not prepared to recommend them without qualification. But they are attempting to quantify the OP's question, so they're worth a look.

Some of their empirical results may surprise you.
 
I'm not necessarily advocating birdshot use.
I'm saying don't discount it's lethality- just like I tell people who think a .22 "will just piss someone off."
 
I'm saying don't discount it's lethality- just like I tell people who think a .22 "will just piss someone off."
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Some times it does, sometimes it kills DRT, sometimes something inbetween.

There's a LOT more involved than just the caliber or shot size.
 
There is little reason to doubt birdshot's potential lethality until the range opens up considerably farther than apartment interior distances. But so long as birdshot will prove lethal against a body, it will also do so against a body on the other side of a gypsum wall.
 
"...Bookshelves full of books do..." No they don't. A .22 LR will penetrate a solidly stuffed with newspapers box about 2 feet long(been a while) more than half way.
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Bookshelves full of books do a pretty good job stopping bullets compared to other household items:

link
 
Mostly echoing what many others have said...

No caliber capable of stopping an attacker will be stopped by standard building materials.*


People seem to misunderstand what is meant by "overpenetration". Going through building materials is normal penetration not OVER penetration. Overpenetration is when you hit your target and the round goes through them to be a threat to innocent people who may be behind the target (even behind walls). So, in an apartment, your first priority should be to concentrate on your marksmanship to minimize the chances of a miss. Second, look for loadings in your chosen caliber that meet FBI penetration standards (i.e. no more than 18" in ballistic gel) so it is less likely to overpenetrate your target.

*Even projectiles that won't stop an attacker will go through dry wall. When I was 18 years old a friend and I set up a pellet gun range in his basement for weak Crosman airgun pistols. We had to set up with wood board backstops when little CO2 .17cal pellets put nice little holes in the walls with no difficulty. I also had my one AD/ND with my pellet gun when I put a hole in my ceiling.
 
I understand concerns about over-penetration. The question is how do you weigh that risk against the potential risk to yourself. Depending on how you weigh those risks, you might consider an alternative --- a taser (if legal where you live). There are some obvious drawbacks to using one, like essentially being limited to one "shot."

I personally will stick with a real firearm and hope I don't miss, or if I do, that it doesn't hit someone else (I do live in a house). If I'm shooting at someone, it's truly a desperate situation and I'll take my chances.
 
"...Bookshelves full of books do a..." No, they don't. Don't believe what you see on YouTube either.
"...how do you weigh that risk..." If you hit anything or anybody with a bullet that goes through a wall, you are guilty of a felony. Kill somebody and that felony is manslaughter or 2nd degree murder depending on where you are. Kill somebody's dog and you'll be sued(and lose) into next year. You are 100% responsible for where every bullet you fire ends up.
 
possibly some alternatives

I see the police on Live PD using a bean bag shotgun and a pepper ball ,paint ball gun. These might work providing they are backed up by a pistol, shotgun or rifle. Tasers seem to fail often especially with thick clothing. A crossbow will blow right through sheet rock.
 
T. O'Heir said:
"...Bookshelves full of books do..." No they don't. A .22 LR will penetrate a solidly stuffed with newspapers box about 2 feet long(been a while) more than half way.
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T. O'Heir said:
"...Bookshelves full of books do a..." No, they don't. Don't believe what you see on YouTube
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Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever seen you revisit a thread where you’ve already posted. Usually you post bad information, you get corrected, and then you never revisit the thread to see the correction. Then later I see you’ve again posted the same bad information in another thread on a similar subject.

This time you posted the same bad information twice in response to the same comment. And you’re wrong yet again — stacked books do an excellent job of stopping bullets. Newspapers aren’t the same as books. Usually you need less than a foot of books depending on the density of the books and the type and velocity of bullet. Try it. I have many times.
 
Wow I honestly wasn’t expecting to get such a diverse response. I’ll definitely take all of your responses into consideration and play with a couple options at the range. Probably ask my manager if they know if there’s concrete between the walls as well.
 
This time you posted the same bad information twice in response to the same comment. And you’re wrong yet again — stacked books do an excellent job of stopping bullets. Newspapers aren’t the same as books. Usually you need less than a foot of books depending on the density of the books and the type and velocity of bullet. Try it. I have many times.
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You owe him an apology. Books aren't stacked in a bookcase, they are lined up, and a bunch of six inch books is not a good thing for stopping a heavy bullet. Hell fire and perdition, why don't you point out something sensible, like the fact that a book case has a whole lot of empty space? That a person rarely has enough books to cover a significant section of wall?

Fenris, let me ask you a question. Does your apartment have a concrete firewall between the apartments? find out and if you do have a firewall, your problems are over. Oh, and if you don't have a concrete firewall get your lazy butt out of there and find an apartment that has concrete firewalls in between both the apartments and the individual rooms and all front walls. don't forget concrete floors on each level.

Just for common information, when I tested, a .38 special wadcutter penetrated a wall. Through the stud. two sheets of drywall and a four foot wide stud. Yes, that thing still had the energy left to plop through half inch plywood. Barely. A skull is softer than plywood.

A general rule that you can think of is that high velocity and low weight rounds tend to penetrate less compared to heavier bullets of similar or lower velocities. High velocity is expended in destruction. It will tear the wood fibers up worse, and not slip through them. This is supported at least for me in the fact that I tested them. I used a load of .38 rounds and a lot of wood with drywall shooting through them for the sole purpose of learning what you are asking. But, don't take me as an absolute authority. My experience may not mirror what others have experienced, and I don't want to get into a urinating match with anyone.
 
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