Penetration in sand?

[Questor]

What's the deepest penetration into sand you've been able to achieve with any bullet that is commonly used for sporting purposes?

[Duffy]

Once tried a experimental 405g lead in a 45LC @ 900fps, at 40 yards it still shot through 4 milk jugs full of sand and landed 200 yards out in the field. (freight train effect) I guess it depends on the type of sand, eg wet, dry, packed ect. Don't really think it's that good of a medium for testing, the wet news print seems to give about the most reliable tests as long as it's all done the same way. It's amazing how gravel will stop even a high power rifle bullet. Even a 3" thick dry phone book will stop most handguns cold. (9mm, 40's 45 ect.)

[John Traveler]

Duffy's right.... sand is not all that a reliable or predictable medium for testing bullet penetration.

A whole lot of variables are involved; type of sand, moisture content, size of granules, type of bullet, caliber, etc, etc.

To answer your question, At one time I was curious enough to build a frame of 2"x2" lumber and partitioned it with 1/8" masonite partitions set at 12" intervals.

Using this setup, and common dirt with lots of "sandbox" sand from the open desert, we got the following results:

Softpoint magnum pistol bullets: much less than one foot.

Full-jacketed .30 caliber M1 Carbine, 9mm and .45 ACP stops in about one foot, maximum.

FMJ 5.56 M193 stopped in less than one foot.

FMJ 5.56 NATO stopped between one and two feet.

FMJ medium rifle calibers (220 g .30-40, .30-06, 7.62 NATO) gave several feet of penetration.

The 220 g .30 calibers gave the most penetration; upwards of 5 or 6 feet. (Shades of Karamojo Bell!)

Now, you know why the military universally considers two thicknesses of sandbags to be adequate protection against bullets and shell fragjments!

Oh, by the way, the US Military has conducted water penetration tests.  ALL small arms bullets fired into water becomes harmless after only a few feet.  Even the mighty .50 BMG bullets fall harmlessly after 10 feet of water.

[Questor]

I don't want to use sand for penetration testing. I want to know how good it is at stopping bullets. Specifically, if I had to mine a range for lead, how deep would I have to mine to get most of the bullets?

[Duffy]

If its packed or even just firm sand/dirt and most of the shooting was done at 50 yards I'd wager about 6" max. When we shoot at the gravel pit most of the bullets be them either rifle of pistol are laying on top. You will also find that if the mound is sloped upward that's where most of the bullets will be. If they don't penetrate they usually are found about a foot or two up the hill.

Ryan

[John Traveler]

Questor, several years ago, I was priveleged to "mine" some military range backstops for salvaged bullet lead.

The calibers, as you can expect, were 7.62 NATO, 5.56 M193, .45 ACP, .38 Special, 9mm NATO, all in full metal jacket form.  Plus the odd revolver lead bullets and .22 LR.

We seldom had to dig deeper than ONE shovel length into the berm backstop to toss onto the hardware cloth grille to shake and separate bullets from sand.  The sand was usually moist if not wet (range located facing a protected cove on the ocean).  As I recall, it was mostly beach sand with some landfill dirt and crushed granite dumped there from bulldozers.  On a lark, I dug much deeper to see if more bullets could be found, and usually was unable to find anything more than about 1 foot deep.

[Graycg]

My experience is similar to John Travellers,
   All bullets mined out of a backstop were in the first foot or so of sand and dirt.  

regards,
 Graycg