Over penetration by pistol rounds is not a problem -except when it is.

[gh1950]

Article doesn't state caliber, but sure to be one of the common ones.

Mother accidentally kills 10-year-old son while unloading handgun

Through multiple interviews, police said Parks and her boyfriend gave different accounts of what led up to the shooting.

www.wsbradio.com

 

[GeauxLSU]

Drywall doesn't stop much.
Sad situation....

 

[roydamnmercer]

I once heard a HS/LD operator-type, in full 5.11 gear, tell a customer at a gun store that you should always use birdshot in a 12ga for self defense because it’s the only projectile capable of penetrating two layers of drywall so you can shoot the BG on the other side of a wall or door without ever having to expose yourself. I figured it was pretty sound advice since he worked in a gun store and all…and also, his first story about melting his Ruger Mini 14 barrel in a firefight in Afghanistan seemed totally plausible. I mean who am I to question credentials like that? They don’t just issue 5.11 gear to amateurs.

 

[BLIP]

The bird shots not a bad idea as long as it's your first round then it's time to go for the buckshot

 

[gh1950]

, tell a customer at a gun store that you should always use birdshot in a 12ga for self defense because it’s the only projectile capable of penetrating two layers of drywall so you can shoot the BG on the other side of a wall or door without ever having to expose yourself. I figured it was pretty sound advice since he worked in a gun store and all…

I did some development work on Sporting Clays courses, when it was a new sport in Georgia.

At the time the courses had manual traps, and it was not unusual for the trapper, usually a teenager, to sit somewhere downrange from the shooting station.

The protective "blinds" for the trappers ranged all over the place, but most commonly were a couple of pieces of 1/2" plywood. Sometimes a buffer of pallets. Very rarely would the owner invest in hay/straw bales.

(One hazard is that even if the "blinds" were built to protect the trapper while he was seated at the trap, and provided no protection if he stood up.)

We had a couple of near accidents, so performed some tests on suitable blind materials.

It didn't take long to determine that any type of plywood did not provide adequate protection at any normal range with any normal target type load (bird shot),

The distance on a skeet field from any station to the middle station is 20 yds. and that is a common distance for the trappers to set up. No reasonable amount of plywood could provide protection against a common target load, and especially could not provide protection from multiple hits, like you would expect in a tournament.

It took multiple layers of sheetrock separated by an airspace. Wooden doors were useless because the common door is mostly air space.

One interesting footnote was the way a target load would "plug" a hardwood tree at short distances. Also we became educated about the bounce back from shot hitting hardwoods trees. which were common in front of shooting stations at the time.

Anyway, this informal testing really opened my eyes about penetration and over penetration in a residential setting.

First, it impressed upon me that many people pooh pooh the issue of over penetration in a residential setting.

Secondly, any one who pooh poohs a 12 ga. shotgun, even with "birdshot" in a residential setting is grossly misinformed. At normal "across the room" range, even birdshot in a skeet choke will "plug" and act like one projectile. It may not penetrate protective clothing, but the target will absorb elephant gun loads of energy and is going to go down. No common pistol load can come close to even a light 12 ga. load in terms of energy.

 

[roydamnmercer]

I think the point was lost. I wasn’t lampooning his knowledge of whether birdshot can penetrate sheetrock as I already know it can. I was mocking the fact he said it was the “only projectile” that can penetrate drywall and the wisdom of blindly shooting through doors or walls without properly identifying and verifying one’s target.

 

[BIKER13]

prolly a fawty to shoot thru walls ya know