New Target -- Door results

Two weekends ago, we finally took a truck door out to the range to test out. It was the same ’79 Ford truck door as described earlier. All of the shots took place at 25 yards or more. We placed the truck door with a slight forward cant, so that in theory the ricochets would be less likely to end up coming back at us.

Results:

.22 LR from a Ruger Mark I

We started off with the .22 pistol, as it seemed like that would be the least likely to penetrate, and therefore the most likely to ricochet. Given that it was an entirely metal door, and not a plastic door like you find in most cars these days, we were rather surprised at the penetration of even the little .22 LR round.

The “little round that could” entirely penetrated the front door skin, and made a hefty dent on the back skin. Recall that this is from a Ruger Mark I with 6” barrel from 25 yards. We didn’t have one at the time, but it would be interesting to see the difference once you pushed that same round out of a rifle.

Sledgehammer

I managed to talk my brother-in-law into smacking one of those “two hits for a dollar” cars when we went to an Arts & Crafts show back in Williamsburg, KS. While not a firearms-related event, most people have a passing acquaintance with the force of a sledgehammer, and it’s a lot easier to compare outcomes when you use an item that everyone actually understands. Of course you’re getting a much blunter strike, and it’s fairly easy to see in the video the shockwave that spreads out from each impact. I found it interesting that we didn’t even get a tear in the outer skin from the hammer. I’d guess that this is actually the type of trauma that car manufacturers actually plan for; this seems much closer to a side impact than any of the shooting tests we actually perform.

9mm, 38 Special, .40, .45 ACP, and .357 Magnum

All of these standard pistol rounds penetrated with no problem. As the videos show, each generally has a nice little whole in the front, and various size exit holes in the back. The most definitive seems to be the .357 Magnum, but given it’s the most powerful (in terms of pounds of force at that range), it wasn’t really a surprise.

See the various pistol videos

12 gauge shotgun with buckshot and slug

While the 12 gauge has been an undisputed champ in our tests so far, this was the first metal object we’ve really tested. The slug again performed as expected and left no question about penetration. The entry hole was actually bigger in diameter than a 12 gauge shell, and we could easily still wiggle it around.

The buckshot on the other hand was rather interesting. Generally, we got a good amount of penetration on the front skin, with a rather wide pattern. Remember, we’re still shooting from 25 yards, and from what I’ve read (see my review of The Tactical Shotgun), buckshot has an effective range out to 20 yards. So we’re getting a lot of spread (as you can see the entire door took strikes but there isn’t any area that’s easy to see as the focus). The back skin was heavily dented, but suffered only one or two penetrations. As stated in many a place, the effective use of the shotgun is heavily dependent on the round choice matching the situation.

.223 and .308

While widely different in size and power, for our purposes we’ll group the .223 Remington and .308 Winchester for this write-up. Again, both were fired from 25 yards. Neither round really slowed down on hitting the first skin. From the exit video on the .223, it’s apparent that the round started to tumble after hitting the first skin. That’s fairly interesting, in that none of the other rounds we shot that day exhibited that same behavior.

The .308 didn’t slow down on hitting the back skin and the shot is pretty much what you’d expect from that round at that range.

I’d say the tests proved worthwhile. Some things went as expected (.308) while others we’re a bit more interesting (.22 and buckshot). Of course, the complete set of videos is located over on www.stoppingpower.info.

See the world and meet new people

When you start to actually getting into testing various rounds and firearms, you start to meet some really interesting people. At this point, we’ve tested:

• Cantaloupe
  
• Popcans
  
• Interior walls
  
• Phonebooks

So the question came up of “What to shoot next?” Well, a car door seemed like a logical next step. Where do you acquire a car door? Well, after calling around town for a bit, I was given the number of an auto salvage place in town.

Lady: “Hello?”

Me: “Hello. I’m looking to get a car door.”

Lady: “Ok, what make and model?”

Me: “Oh, I don’t care, any make and model will do…”

Lady: “Um…ok…let me get back to you…”

Needless to say, I wasn’t very hopeful that I’d get a callback. Surprisingly enough she called back in about 20 minutes, and said $20 would let me cart off any door. Well, it seemed a bit steep (considering we’re just going to shoot it), but off I went out to their place to get it.

About 30 minutes later, I pulled up their office/garage and walked in the door.

Me: “I’m here about a car door.”

Lady: “What make and model?”

Me: “Oh, I don’t care, any will do.”

Lady: “Oh yeah, (turns to the side), here’s the guy I was talking about.”

A guy who looks like he actually works for a living comes out from the back office.

Guy: “So what are you going to do with the door?

Me: “Oh, I’m going to shoot it. With a gun.”

Guy: “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

Me: “Well, my friends and I shoot various things, video tape them, and then put them up on the Internet for people to see. A lot of people from all over the world stop by and see what various rounds do.”

Guy & Lady: “Oh…”

I walk out with the guy and we get into what looked like a beatup Gremlin, and we go speeding off through the junkyard (it was pretty large actually). After a minute or so, we arrive at section of just doors.

Guy: “So what type of door are you looking for?”

Me: “Oh, well, what would you want to see shot?”

Guy: “Well, we could go with something modern, like a Saturn, but they’re all plastic and not going to stop anything.”

Me: “Yeah, that’s probably true.”

Guy: “Ok, here how about this, let’s get a truck door. One of these (heads over to a pile). Ok, here you go. ’79 Ford, back when they made them in steel.”

Me: “Sounds good.”

Given it’s a ’79 Ford truck door and by no means compact, I started wondering how we’re going to get it back to the shack given we’re in a Gremlin (or something). But I see that we’re just going to go with the “through it up on the roof and hold onto it with a hand out the window” approach.

On the way back, the guy mentioned that a lot of people call about complete cars, and then blow them up for movies and whatnot. So my request for a car door wasn’t the oddest thing he had heard.

We’re scheduled to head out to the range this weekend, so hopefully we’ll get some new videos up soon.