I am going to do some Redneck terminal ballistic testing tomorrow. I'll be pointing my AR at some phone books just to see what will happen. I will be sure to post the results with pics here. But I need a starting point...has anyone done this? About how many inches of phone book will I need to stop the bullet and be able to examine it?

Also a local FBI guy will be in attendance with a genuine Vietnam era M16A1. We will be doing some mag dumps! HAHA!!! I have not fired a full auto gun yet!

Hopefully, we will be detonating some Tannerite too.

Funny you mention this as I just finished watching the Mythbusters show on "armoring" a car with phone books. They didn't use an AR15 but maxed out at a 12 ga. slug and M1. They went into around 4-5 phone books. I'm guessing the .223 won't go through two depending on how thick they are.

If I recall, they did a test on The Best Defense tv show using a book case with hard and soft bound books as a sort of "cover". It was surprising how few books the various rounds would go through.

I had to try it I only had two phone books a total of 4" taped them to each other tight, .223 passed through with ease, no expansion in 1st book opened up half way through 2nd exit hole 1.5" with large tears all around exit hole out to 4" no copper or lead fragments at all left in books, hornady 55gr. sp.

Many variables here. Construction of the bullet. Velocity of the load. Distance from the target.
Number of pages in phone book. Quality of paper used to print the phone book.
Valid testing requires only one variable. All other parameters must be held constant.
Numbers collected from experiments allowing multiple variables are just numbers. And any conclusions are just anecdotal stories.

muck

quote:

Originally posted by muck:
Many variables here. Construction of the bullet. Velocity of the load. Distance from the target.
Number of pages in phone book. Quality of paper used to print the phone book.
Valid testing requires only one variable. All other parameters must be held constant.
Numbers collected from experiments allowing multiple variables are just numbers. And any conclusions are just anecdotal stories.

muck

Fortunately, None of these apply, You forgot to read the FORUM TITLE: "FUN SHOOTING!"

I've done this for years to test bullets. I keep phone books from my office. I Take a 72qt cooler and fill it w/ water. When I get to the range I put the phone books in the cooler and let them soak up the water. Then bind 5 w/ duct tape. Then place the bundles end to end at 50 or 100 yds. This has given me similar results to bullets that I have tested on animals. If you want a tougher medium, place one of the books that has NOT been soaked in your bundle--to simulate bone. Fun and informative.

not a 223 but--

Most recent phonebook test for me--17HMR

Vmax 17gr passed through one soaked Dallas phonebook then one pine 2x4 into a second and retained---12 grains !!!

20gr HP went through phonebook two 2x4's and into the third and retained---16grains !!!

I've lived in towns so small where the .223 would pass through ALL of the phone books.

True story. Back in 1971 I had a buddy that worked for the phone company in Dallas Texas.

They had a pretty "fat" phone book even back then.

I wanted to do some "testing", and asked him if he could get me a few phone books.

So he did. He brought me 500 [yes, five hundred ] of them.

They were packed in plastic shrink wrap, 10 phone books to a "bundle"...