You are being shot at and you don't want to get any holes in you. You need something to duck behind. Several brick and steel building between you and the shooter are good. So is being on the other side of a hill. A big ol tree trunk is acceptable?
What about a car? Sure the engine block can stop most everything a bad guy would be slinging your way but what about the rest?
Well, I, and other tested that proposition at a Northcoast blogshoot many moons ago. Pretty much everything went through the door. But few things went through both doors. A rifle round will sail clear through. A .44 magnum did too. But 9mm and .45 and such stayed in the car. Ducking behind the other side of the car, even without the engine block, and you have a modicum of safety. It's not just concealment, it's cover. As long as someone smart bad guy doesn't shoot under the car at your shins.
So why did this thought percolate up in my head, now? I don't remember if we test shotgun loads. I imagine hot loads of 12 gauge 00 buck or slug wouldn't go through both doors. Some sort of rifle sabot might. But I have no real world evidence to know.
Or the bad guys might be aliens with really fancy sabot rounds that even go through engine blocks. :50 seconds into this trailer.
POF-USA Launches Light Modular Rifle (LMR) BASE Rifle
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Want an AR-style rifle with the hitting power of a .308 but you don’t want
an AR-10? POF-USA has its new Light Modular Rifle (LMR) BASE Rifle for you,
with...
1 hour ago
5 comments:
.308 will penetrate Car Wheels from a Hundred Yards and ignite Brake Fluid, or have you forgotten my Long-Distance Firestarter Trick?
Ball pistol ammo will penetrate both doors, if it hits square and doesn't hit a strut or something similar.
Anything short of the engine block and wheels (and, as Les points out, not all wheels will stop all bullets; but at least they may deflect them or slow them) is not realistically cover -- at best it is "hard concealment".
Note -- it is unlikely that a pistol round finds a clear path with only fiberglass or sheet metal in both doors, and it is just as unlikely to hit nearly perfectly square in a firefight. But it can penetrate in service calibers. BTDT. And almost any FMJ rifle round WILL go through both doors most of the time.
Car construction is also very important. I'd feel a lot safer using the doors of an early GTO for cover than I would a Saturn or my Hyundai.
Old Painless at The Box of Truth tested shotgun slugs on car doors and found slugs sometimes penetrated both doors.
It's a fun read: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/buickot5.htm
Yep, Box of Truth... :-)
And the best options are behind the engine or flat on the deck behind the front wheels.
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