How many records would it take to stop a bullet?

restorer-john

Addicted Member
After recalling this silly stunt with a gun and a book:

http://www.startribune.com/minnesot...friend-in-fame-seeking-video-prank/431313063/

I wondered what the audiophile version would be:

A stack of records.

Not knowing anything about guns or bullets I wondered how many records it would take to stop a bullet. It wouldn't be that many would it? Like 30 or 40? No, I'm not going to do a Youtube stunt and I'm not encouraging anyone to try it with a stack of goodwill 101 strings records either. Just wondering 'cos you blokes have got heaps of guns over there and shoot stuff. :)

And no shooting down the spindle holes all lined up... :)
 
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I'd guess it'd depend somewhat on the type of munition and to a degree on the vinyl. A don't think a 22 short would do 15. A 5.62 fmj might go 50 or more. (180g reissues might be slightly more penetration resistant )This looks like a job for myth busters:D
 
Didn't myth busters do a segment with a series of partially filled with water, balloons? Something like a 357 made it through 3 or 4.
 
That's an interesting question. Lots of variables though. What caliber from what distance? Are we shooting 180g audiophile records or regular thickness? Even temperature would change things a bunch I would guess.
I should go to the thrift, pick up a pile of records and go to the desert to do some science. The only pain would be cleaning up record shards out of sand. I hate people that leave a mess behind as they are the reason that so many of our shooting spots have closed.
 
I've got a bb gun that might get through one or two, especially those really thin Grunt records that Jefferson Starship got pressed on.
 
It would depend on the genre. I bet Heavy Metal albums would put up some resistance.

march-of-the-saint-4fe7ce06dfe91.jpg
 
Assuming a 9mm FMJ round being fired at a velocity of 352 meters per second, against single LPs with an average thickness of 140 grams, encased in 0.25mm paper sleeves which are, in turn, encased in 4mm cardboard jackets, and assuming the firearm is in good condition, on a stable platform 20 meters from the first target, being fired by a person of steady hand who has not consumed caffeine nor been exposed to Bro Country for the past 72 hours, and assuming a nice, 22 degree Celsius day with no more than a light breeze, north by northwest, that said bullet would travel through approximately 44.013 copies of Whipped Cream & Other Delights, thereby decimating the Herb Alpert stock at the Goodwill stores of Erie, Pennsylvania.


(Okay, I originally intended to make some kind of goofy joke about the grooves of symphonic metal being of higher density than folk rock or something--I wasn't really sure where I was going with this--but then I put way too much thought into it. It's a guess, although I did look up the velocity of a fmj 9mm round, how much paper people have reported being needed to stop a round (about seven inches/177.8mm) and that Erie has not one, but three Goodwills).
 
I’ve seen bullet holes in 1/2 inch steel plates.
Gun show.
Fairly sure it was some super high power rifle.
Too crowded to ask.

A full Streisand catalog would probably stop that bullet.


A FMJ custom loaded in some of the high power hunting rifles here may get through about 6 inches. I have large friends that can jump the big rifles around the field,
 
Any math wizzes out there could do a real close estimate. The Ballistic coefficient would be a place to start picking caliber's like say a 50 caliber could go thru a couple hundred records and keep going.
Put the question to this guy on You tube and he will probably answer it for you. Watch his videos. The fastest shooter ever lived.
 
Don't know but I might try it someday. My 45/70 once fired a 520gr hard cast lead bullet through a tree stump 22" thick..

I'm guessing I may need a lot of vinyl to stop one of those..

Probably less than you think.
The layers make the LPs much tougher than a stump.

22” stump eh? I heard those 45/70 had a lot of knock down in them.
 
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