If you stick around all the way to the end of this little lesson, you might even get a little extra somethin' somethin' for your time.
This is a copy of a Georgetown Law Journal volume from 2005:
As you can see, it is rather lengthy tome, coming in at 1783 pages. The purpose of today's shoot is to compare the penetration capacity of a .357 pistol bullet and a 12 gauge, 2&3/4 inch, shotgun slug.
Here, we see the hole that is made by the entry of the pistol bullet, which is travelling at 1325 feet per second:
and here,
we see the Law Journal opened somewhere toward the middle. You can clearly see that the bullet has penetrated that deeply.
This is where the bullet exited the journal:
The bullet exited intact, and is now sitting on my desk. Please note that when the bullet exited the Journal it had slowed to the point of being nearly completely spent.
Got it? OK, let's move on. Shown below is the Journal with three holes in it:
The hole that is to the upper left was made by the pistol bullet. The next hole to the right was made by the entry of the shotgun slug. The third hole was made by the "wad", upon which the slug rests inside the cartridge. The wad is discharged along with the slug, with enough force to penetrate the journal to a depth of nearly 100 pages.
This is what the Journal looked like after being shot with the slug:
Considering the penetration power of a rifled shotgun slug, it should be apparent to all that you should never bring a pistol to a shotgun fight.
Learn it, know it, live it.
Amen.
Still here?
OK, keep scrolling.
Our office has had the VHS camera that you see here
for a looong time. We replaced it with a mini-dv camera a long time ago, but we are just getting around to throwing it away. Rather than miss a training opportunity... and the chance for a bit of fun, I decided to see what the same shotgun slug would do to a piece of equipment like this.
Here is the answer... this is the slug/wad entry:
...and here is the exit:
... and a close-up:
I hope you all learned something today... but, if you didn't... I hope that you, at least, had a good time looking at the pictures.
Have a nice day, and remember to do something nice for someone.
GF
11 comments:
I am now really annoyed with myself that I threw out my dead ice cream maker when I got a new one. I should have sent it to you for experiments.
:o) heehee! Thanks for last week's blog-visit and comment by the way. I have some old college text books I'd love to see with holes in them...
Remind me never to get shot with a shotgun.
I think the moral of the story is two-fold.
First: Never go to a gunfight with a pistol, as you said.
Second: Never go to a gunfight where your opponent has a shotgun.
I think I'd rather be shot by a pistol. Smaller exit wound and no wad to double your pleasure...
Oh, good choice, Bill. I love seeing what a shotgun can do. (as long as it's somebody else shooting it)
Nice job. I love the shoot em up posts. I'll be sure to stay out of a shotgun's line of fire.
Any time any of you would like to rid yourself of potential "shoot 'em up friday" materials, let me know, and you may be able to see your own items blown to smithereens!
(all in the name of training, don'tcha know!)
I love those shoot 'em up posts.
Oh my! When I was in law school, I always wondered what the kaw journals were good for!
The really important lesson I found was to never try to read the Georgetown Law Review--apparently, it's not good for much.
Never bring a pistol to a shotgun fight. So that's where I went wrong last time? Good to know. ;)
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