So- over the weekend, I got my hands on a piece of 2" bulletproof lucite that's normally used in banks. I wanted to see exactly how "bulletproof" this stuff was so....

Iwas standing maybe 15' max for each shot.
I used my ruger 40 (165 & 185 hollow gr), 357 S&W 4" rev., a .17 HMR
I wasnt able to use any of my shotguns because by the end of shooting with the pistols, there wasn't much left. I was pretty surprised. The 40 hollow point was pretty destructive- but had a hard time passing through- the second shot of the 40 hollow (185gr) shattered the glass. The 165gr 40 FMJ pretty much just bounced off the glass like it was a rock- it did nothing! The 357 also just hardly chipped the surface and created a spiderweb in the lucite. the .17 HMR ballistic was very impressive!!! a tiny 17 gr bullet moving at supersonic speeds did a good amount of damage- but didn't get through. All in all, had this been a full window- I doubt the 185gr 40 would've broken through like it did on my small piece. I don't think it'll stop any high powered firearms like a 223, 308, 30/30 or 30/6- but it will make those rounds less than lethal.

















(for some reason my computer wont let me upload these pics directly to my members album here at atvc so I had to use flicker )

 

Mostly, criminals use handguns for obvious reasons. I think, like you said, with full sheets it probably wouldn't shatter. Cool stuff.
A friend of mine has a roughly sq. ft. piece of 1/2' aluminum. We've shot it with .22, 9mm, .44 magnum, .30/30, and .223. I wouldn't want it for protection. It stopped the .22 and 9mm well. The .30/30 and .223 left holes about twice their diameter as the metal melted away when the bullet passed through. The .44 magnum left a hole about the size of a nickel. Fun stuff.

 

You proved it's not bullet proof. It's just bullet resistant.

 

considering I was basically "point blank" and none of the bullets actually made it through- I'd feel pretty safe behind this stuff.

I think the only reason why it broke was because it was only an 8" strip- had it been a full window it would not have broken.

I was most amazed at the .17 HMR - that little bugger was pretty impressive and I was amazed that the .40 fmj pretty much just bounced off.

 

one of the ships I was on, the USS Momsen DDG 92, was going through a yard period.. they cut sections of the deck out and welded pads into them, so we could bolt a tripod for .50 BMG's on it.. I grabbed some of the sections and took them home, thinking they would be perfect targets. 5/8" thick HY80 steel about 10" in diameter, and I grabbled 6 of them.

I sat one up with a chuck of wood as a back stop and using my 375 Ultra Mag hot loaded with 300 gr Nosler Partitions (3000 FPS is what my chronograph measured them), fired into it from about 50 ft away.. to my surprise, it went all the way through and made a hole big enough you could stick your finger through it.

 

That's a pretty nasty round. 300 grain at that speed should go through more than 5/8" in my mind. Would love to shoot one of the .50s and see what kind of hole those would leave.