Range Report: Penetration Tests
I had been considering some penetration tests for some time. Basically, look at the actual real life penetration capabilities of various ammo that I keep as standard loads in my gear.
My stumbling point was in not having a good volume supply of items that would be worth shooting and would not be missed. At the end of this year, my store had a huge supply of laptop and desktop hard drives (100+) that needed to be disposed of and as a matter of course, I prefer a method that assists with making any data recovery difficult at the least (the drive were already software wiped, but more is better).
Given that hard drives are a mix of metals, plastics and more, I saw exactly the materials I needed for a good series on comparable penetration based on ammo type!
I had a plan!
Methodology
The basic methodology used was to line up a pile of drives in a container and then shoot the container and drives from a short combat distance. The container would act to hold the drives in place and also to capture all scraps of material for proper disposal. Additionally, I needed to keep the drives 3 feet above the ground to keep from damaging the turf of the range.
Laptop drives would be used with smaller calibers to begin with and as we move up into heavier calibers desktop drives would be employed. Penetration would be recorded and each ammo brand would be tested at least twice and the medium taken between them used as a point of comparison.
The firearms & ammo to be used would be:
.22lr: Cricket 22 with .22 CCI Mini-Max & .22 Remington Yellow Jackets
9mm: PF9 with 9mm Ball remanufactured & 124 Grain HP
.223: M4gery AR with 55 Grain PMC, 62 Grain Green Tip & 75 Grain Match
7.62x39: Krinkov with 122 Grain Wolf HP & Chinese Steel Core Surplus
7.62x51 NATO: Israeli Mauser with 147 Grain WWB NATO
12 Gauge Slug: Remington High Velocity 2 3/4 Slug
Concerns:
Given that drives are not a solid, consistent medium this experiment would involve a great deal of randomness and that could not be removed completely. On the other hand real life targets like cars are not a consistent medium. There is still plenty to learn here.
A Bright New Day & Cold, Cold Weather
I woke at dawn and ran to the range. It was 9 degrees when I walked out the door. I ran up to the range to find myself completely alone (which is what I had hoped for). It was cold.
I setup quickly and began the tests...
.22lr Cricket Rifle & Ammo:
My son's single shot cricket would make the perfect test bench for the 22's. It is wicked accurate and given the limited number of shots, capacity did not matter.
CCI MiniMax (40 grains FMJ @ 1200 FPS) Results:
4 hard drives penetrated with the first round. The second gave similar results. The round itself came apart in several pieces.
Yellowjacket (33gr truncated-cone hollow point bullet @ 1500 FPS) Results:
2 hard drives penetrated with the first round. The width of the damage was more impressive, but it just would not get further in. The second penetrated 3 and in both cases the round disintegrated.
9mm PF9 & Ammo
Time for my carry ammo. I was curious if there would be much difference between 9mm training FMJ ammo and Federal's 124 Grain Hydroshock HP rounds. I kinda expected the HP to fail to penetrate and instead fall apart.
9mm FMJ Results
6.5 drives penetrated with the first and second rounds. Hmmm...
Federal 124 Grain Hydroshock HP Results
The level of penetration was less (5 drives) but the round did not fall apart either:
Very interesting! Guess that bonding technology is better than I had expected.
.223 Bushmaster AR & Ammo
Now it was time to move up to a rifle. In this case a rifle that some like to say is an overblown .22, so I thought I would begin testing it just as I had the .22lr's.
55 Grain PMC (against laptop drives) Results
Holy cow! 9.5 drives penetrated and some with very big holes. Nothing like the 22's at all. And in order to keep up the tests, I needed to switch over to the desktop hard drives. I would begin with a repeat of the 55 grain PMC ammo, this time on the desktop drives.
55 Grain PMC (against desktop drives) Results
2.5 drives with the first round. Subsequent hit did about the same amount of damage. This would be the baseline for other rifle rounds.
S&B 62 Grain "Green Tip Steel" Core
I had big hopes for this round due to it's reputation for penetration. I have very little of it, but a few rounds would be worth proving it's worth. Let's see the results:
A whole 3 drives. Barely more than the 55 grain. Second round did the same. Rather unimpressive in depth, even if the holes it made while tumbling through the middle drive were huge.
Pvri 75 Grain Match
Given the exta weight and supposed extra power, I also had hopes for this round. Results?
2 drives with the first round and 2.5 on the second. Worse than the 55 grain. It is possible that it did not properly stabilize with my 1/9 barrel, but the results speak for themselves.
At this point, I began to wonder how I would plow through as many drives as I had to do if the penetrations did not start improving! It was time to go to a larger caliber.
SBR Krinkov Rifle and 7.62x39
The Krinkov is a short barreled rifle and as such likely loses some punch compared to a full AK rifle. A the same time, the round fired from it is heavier and should be able to provide a greater level of penetration even with the loss of barrel length.
Additional to the 122 grain HP Wolf ammo that is my standard (lower mag in pic), I also have a handful of Chinese Steel Core ammo (upper mag) to test and see if it's reputation for penetration is better than that of the green tip AR ammo that dissappointed above.
7.62x39 122 Grain HP Wolf
3 drives on the first shot and 3.5 on the second. Both rounds tumbled through some big holes.
7.62x39 Chinese
The first was 3.5 and the second was 4. This was an improvement over the HP. Note how the core that remains very much intact.
Out of sheer curiosity, I gathered up the remaining laptop hard drives and hammered them with a single round of the chinese ammo:
Wow- 14 drives! Compare that to the 9mm handgun ammo and there is no comparison. Even with the .223 there is a 4 drive gap.
That being said, I really wanted to see a rifle cut through drives like butter, so it was time to move up from "intermediate" rounds and up in to battle rifle rounds...
Now for the big times! 7.62x51 NATO Rifle & Ammo
So, it is time to use a real man's round and slice through these guys. I wish I had some black tip AP to test with, but instead I simply had 147 grain NATO new from WWB.
Still, should do the trick (had alot of drives to finish off). Let me also say that the day was so cold my gloves kept flash freezing to ammo, rifles, anything made of metal. The camera also began to fail and the latter shots all had to be made by cellphone camera (lower quality).
My Izzy would be the test bed:
7.62x51 NATO Winchester Results
4 drives easily (perhaps 4.25, but I counted it as 4). The second round did the same. Not the butter I had expected, but solid.
What about rubbered drives? Those of you in the tech community may remember back to the short lived seagate drives that were coated in a rubber membrane mostly for marketing reasons. I wondered if these would make any difference at all (rubber being for protection and all).
3.5 drives penetrated and likely due to the less amount of spalling. Go figure!
Still no butter killer. So last thing I had to try was my slug gun.
12 Gauge Slug Gun
Last but not least was my trunkgun. Using high velocity sluggers I hoped to plow through the drives and be done with it.
12 Gauge 2 3/4 High Velocity:
Dissappointment. 2.5 drives. The slug expanded to a flat pancake and failed to penetrate. Dang.
The official testing ended here, but I had drives left to kill. As a result I switched back to the mauser and beat the drives away four at a time. I found some "uparmored" drives that had drive sled plates on the bottom and again 4 drives were the constant. I kept up until all drives were dead.
Data Results Are As Follows:
.22lr CCI MiniMax:
3 Average (Laptop)
.22lr Remington Yellow Jackets:
2.5 Average (Laptop)
9mm Ball:
6.5 Average (Laptop)
9mm HP:
5 Actual (Laptop)
.223 55 Grain PMC:
2.5 Average (Desktop)
9.5 Actual (Laptop)
.223 62 Grain Green Tip:
3 Average (Desktop)
.223 75 Grain Match:
2.25 Average (Desktop)
7.62x39 Wolf:
3.25 Average (Desktop)
7.62x39 Chinese Steel Core Surplus:
3.5 Average (Desktop)
14 Actual (Laptop)
7.62x51 NATO:
4 Average (Desktop)
12 Gauge Slug:
2.5 Actual (Desktop)
Lessons Learned:
1. Hard drives are tougher than I expected.
2. I was able to contain the mess and spall without difficulty.
3. I was able to complete the test in the allotted time with some corners cut.
4. Equipment fails and skin freezes to metal in really cold weather. (Thank God I wrapped the AK stock last night!).
5. The ammo acted in a pattern that does not surprise me overly with HP ammo under penetrating but creating larger holes.
6. Slugs do not penetrate as I expected. Biggest disappointment of the day.
7. The Green tip was the second biggest dissppointment of the day.
8. Tumbling rounds make big holes (see final picture below).
9. Shooting stuff is fun.
10. No one is getting data from these drives, so most important mission is complete.
So after a very careful cleanup, I was off to home for a warm shower, dry clothes and some snickerdoodles...
Pretty cool...and somewhat ironic
