Catching a bullet

[Warpt762x39]

Not as in the "magic" trick but stopping a bullet for recovering. I've heard of using wet newspaper for the job and even phone books. About how much wet newspaper would someone need to safely stop a 115gr 9mm hollow point? Would a soggy phone book work?

[Flash]

Not as in the "magic" trick but stopping a bullet for recovering. I've heard of using wet newspaper for the job and even phone books. About how much wet newspaper would someone need to safely stop a 115gr 9mm hollow point? Would a soggy phone book work?

Not to be obtuse, but "It all depends on which phone book you use".

I would think that about six Chicago Yellow pages (Both sections A-M and N-Z, thoroughly soaked and stacked back-to-back MIGHT catch one, if you are not too close. Think about 12" depth of soaked paper as a minimum. You will find that your bullet will be deformed, most likely radically mushroomed. The base section will probably even be a bit expanded over the nominal .355", too.

But "catch"? Most likely. Not really scientific, but doable.

Flash

[riverpirate]

I nice healthy torso of flesh usually works

[Warpt762x39]

I nice healthy torso of flesh usually works

Unless you're volunteering I hope that doesn't have to happen anytime soon.

[doppelganger]

Ballistic Gel recipe

http://www.myscienceproject.org/gelatin.html

[emsjeep]

I just stopped a .40 180gr HP with 4-5 inches of dry newspaper and one layer of 1/4 inch pine (in a metal ammo can)...for what its worth. It stopped about a daily newspaper short of the metal.

[JayBell]

use the box o truth method... water box.

make a box about 6 feet long, about 1 feet high, with an open end and a lid.

line with plastic, fill with water, put the lid on.

shoot the bag of water at the open end.

cheap and easy is also milk jugs full of water.

[IronButt]

You need to approach this the R.Lee Ermy way. Just line up a bunch of watermellons in a row & see how many you can kill.

[emsjeep]

Ballistic Gel recipe

http://www.myscienceproject.org/gelatin.html

thats ghetto

[jokusfocus]

It all depends on why you want to stop it.

If you want to test your carry ammo for performance, I'd go the phone book or home-made ballistics gel route. I might give the home-made stuff a try myself one of these days.

If you just want to stop the bullet, sand works really well. I keep a 5-gal bucket of sand as a safe backstop for loading/unloading at home and for dryfire practice. Fired a few test rounds into it to test a few months ago. None of the FMJ 9mm's went more than maybe 6" into the sand. Not sure what HP's would do though.