range safety illustration

[Narcoleptic Warrior]

I know that I might sound longwinded but please bare with me.....

When I was in the Army, the instructors would give us a demonstration of the M-16s firepower by shooting at logs, concrete slabs, watermelons and even a kevlar helmet. The idea was not so much instruction on what could or could not stop a 5.56mm bullet but rather to impress upon us the ability of the rifle to cause horrific wounds so that we would follow gun safety rules during live fire practice. Fast forward to today and.....

The pre-university college that I teach at is setting up a shooting club. I have been selected as the supervising teacher and I intend to conduct some form of "lethality demonstration" before any of my students even starts dry fire practice. I hope to impress upon them that accidental discharges are serious. Therefore, with regard to ISSF centrefire and sandard pistol, what is the penetrative ability of the following rounds at 25 meters?

1) 98gr .32 S+WL
2) 40gr .22lr

Using phonebooks and/or wooden boards, how much thickness could these rounds penetrate? I'd like to construct appropriate demonstration targets so that the students can see the entrance and exit "wounds" and be reminded that they do not want to get hurt as a result of training negligence.

[CraigE]

At 10M, a 177 pellet from almost any AP will penetrate plywood fully to the bottom edge of the pellet skirt. Into duct seal, it will bury a little bit deeper. I realize that this does not answer your specific questions, but suffice to say, a pellet will penetrate flesh...and do damage. This, from a supposedly less powerful source. I submit that it demonstrates a low-end danger to provide a baseline for the more dramatic examples you intend. YMMV.

Craig

[jimsoars]

When I did my hunter training many years ago, the instructor was on the outdoor range talking about safety while setting up a watermelon. He set it on the ground and while still chatting with us explaining that the human body was 90% water, much like a watermelon he loaded a round and without explaining what he was doing let the muzzle drop pointing downrange at the melon and blasted it into an expolsion of red pieces without really aiming. It sure surprised us all and he explained that this is what can happen to our buddies if we are careless. It sure left an impression...
Jim

[Freepistol]

Same effect with a gallon plastic water jug.

[Narcoleptic Warrior]

Thanks for the replies guys but can anyone tell me how many sheets of tightly packed paper a .32 S&WL can RELIABLY penetrate? I'd hate to set up a shootpack only to have the round fail to go through and my students start to underestimate the danger posed.

Also, has anyone here ever chronographed a lapua .32 S&WL from a 4" barrel? Their website says that the test barrel was 5.5" so how much velocity degredation is seen?

[E.Gorey]

This is gory, but should convey your point.
http://www.trauma.org/images/image_libr ... gswone.jpg

[Steve Swartz]

Splatter a watermelon with a .32 (.22LR a water bottle with red gatorade; for pellets, try an over-ripe tomato).

*Then* show them the jpgs . . . maybe even have them tape the jpgs in their gun boxes for a while.

The red splattery bits juxtaposed with the picture should create a very lasting effect indeed!

How old are these kids?

Steve

[Dunski]

Fill a 12 ounce soda can with water and hit it with a .22 High velocity hollow point (they don't need to know it isn't target ammo). It will shred the aluminum can and splatter water in a 10 foot radius.

One comment.....why 25 meters for this demo? Most accidental discharges are the shooter shooting the guy right next to him or himself.

I coach kids in rifle and would impress upon your kids how easy it is to unwittingly swing the short barrel of a handgun right across "something they don't intend to shoot". A Laser on a dummy handgun is a good illistration of this.

Good luck with your program!!!

[solomon grundy]

I think that you'll have to test these rounds yourself if you're hoping for a specific affect.

One warning - when I was a kid and we got the watermelon demonstration, the first instinct of many of us was to ... shoot watermelons!

Of course, we were pretty young. Today I know better and make sure to place the watermelon in front of an appropriate backstop.

But the same instructor did have an effective way of demonstrating the importance of clearing and securing a weapon. He'd release the magazine and then casually say something to the affect of - 'ok so now the gun's safe, so let's .... ' - POW - he'd fire the round he'd chambered. This seemed to work. It spooked the kids and demonstrated a common type of ND.

[RobStubbs]

Whilst I can follow your reasoning, I'm not sure of the usefulness of such a demonstration. Now if you were teaching airguns then it would be more pertinent as people can think 'it's a pellet gun, not a real gun'. It can then be useful to actually show how much damage a simple pellet gun can do.

With a 22 or 32 the thing is a bullet and goes bang. I don't know anyone who needed more convincing of their danger. I would just drill in the range safety, and do so on each session and steer clear of practical demonstrations of 'lethality'.

Rob.

[Fred Mannis]

With a 22 or 32 the thing is a bullet and goes bang. I don't know anyone who needed more convincing of their danger. I would just drill in the range safety, and do so on each session and steer clear of practical demonstrations of 'lethality'.

I'm not so sure of that. What with movies, TV, video games, etc kids are used to (or think they are used to) the sounds and effects of firing a pistol. A properly designed demo can go a long way toward making young shooters realize the damage that a bullet can cause.

[Narcoleptic Warrior]

To Steve Swartz,

The "kids" I supervise together with their instructor are 17-18yrs old.

To everyone,

I conducted the illustration today in front of my first class of 5 youth shooters today and it bombed. After explaining the 5 main rules, I loaded a CBC 98gr .32 S+WL wadcutter (box says 740ft/s out of the muzzle) into a pistol with a 6" barrel, stood 10 yards in front of a 200 sheet thick paper "shootpack" and fired. I was hoping that the bullet would penetrate with a respectable exit hole but when I lead the boys and girls forward to inspect the "gruesome damage", I discovered that the round FAILED to penetrate!

The slug had gone through about 45 sheets of paper before flattening to about 0.5" diameter. My students were suitably UNIMPRESSED. One of them remarked that I was exaggerating the danger while another commented about the possibility of using medium thickness textbooks as ballistic panels!

:-( for the rest of the lesson, I enforced range safety discipline by pure intimidative edict alone.

So guys, what went wrong? Is the .32 S+WL really so weak as to be non-lethal? I thought that the .32 wadcutter was actually loaded hotter than the .32 LRN and that early 20th century US POLICE actually used revolvers chambered for .32 S+WL.

[Houngan]

It's a wadcutter, it's made to cut holes in paper, not people. I would recommend going to theboxotruth.com to get some ideas. Paper is a pretty bad thing for a flatnose round to try and penetrate, since it doesn't flow away from the bullet. I'd recommend something brittle in front of something liquid. That should give them a skull/brain analog and get the point across. Maybe 1/4" plywood in front of a 2 liter bottle of water?

Multiple sheets of drywall are also a good teacher, since everyone thinks the walls of their house are much tougher than they actually are.

H.

edit: Also, why not bring a "normal" gun in to make the point? I don't think that they'll assume a .32 is a pipsqueak after they see a 9mm Hydra-shok work on some fruits and bottles.

[Fred.Mannis]

So guys, what went wrong? Is the .32 S+WL really so weak as to be non-lethal? I thought that the .32 wadcutter was actually loaded hotter than the .32 LRN and that early 20th century US POLICE actually used revolvers chambered for .32 S+WL.

What went wrong is that you decided not to take the advice some of us, with some experience in this area, offered. You can make 22 or 32 rounds appear to be quite impressive by choosing appropriate targets. As Steve points out, watery vegetables respond like the bad guy's head in a movie/video game.

Non-lethal? I, for one, would not want to be shot at close range with a .32 target round. That little 'pip squeek' 22LR round almost killed President Reagan a few years back.

[Richard H]

To Steve Swartz,

The "kids" I supervise together with their instructor are 17-18yrs old.

To everyone,

I conducted the illustration today in front of my first class of 5 youth shooters today and it bombed. After explaining the 5 main rules, I loaded a CBC 98gr .32 S+WL wadcutter (box says 740ft/s out of the muzzle) into a pistol with a 6" barrel, stood 10 yards in front of a 200 sheet thick paper "shootpack" and fired. I was hoping that the bullet would penetrate with a respectable exit hole but when I lead the boys and girls forward to inspect the "gruesome damage", I discovered that the round FAILED to penetrate!

The slug had gone through about 45 sheets of paper before flattening to about 0.5" diameter. My students were suitably UNIMPRESSED. One of them remarked that I was exaggerating the danger while another commented about the possibility of using medium thickness textbooks as ballistic panels!

:-( for the rest of the lesson, I enforced range safety discipline by pure intimidative edict alone.

So guys, what went wrong? Is the .32 S+WL really so weak as to be non-lethal? I thought that the .32 wadcutter was actually loaded hotter than the .32 LRN and that early 20th century US POLICE actually used revolvers chambered for .32 S+WL.

Yea its nonlethal if your skin is 50 sheets of paper thick.

Yes they used .32 S&W long, but not wad cutters and not in target loads either.

Your best bet would have been a jug of water, watermellon or a cube of ballistic geletin. All are more fragile and would demonstrate the fragility of the human structure better than 200 packed sheets of paper.