Does ice or water stop a bullet faster?

Status
Not open for further replies.
chopinbloc

chopinbloc

Member
Joined
Apr 10, 2005
Messages
2,242
Location
sweet home arizona
Okay, yeah, ice IS water, but does liquid or solid water stop a bullet more quickly? Ice is less dense but obviously harder. We shoot .223 Rem Wolf 55 gr FMJ into jugs of ice and jugs of water to find out. Rifle is 11.5" bbl AR with a Surefire FA556AR.

Don't cheat. Post your prediction before you watch the video.

Link for phones that don't even.


 
Ice-water. Especially if it has a couple of lemon slices in it. :)

I'd say ice, simply because of the amount of energy needed to get it to break apart.

ETA:

It also depends on the containment of the ice and water. If you're shooting straight down into a frozen solid swimming pool of sufficient depth, the ice will stop the bullet, while the water won't. The bullet (or the associated fragments thereof) will sink to the bottom where the concrete will stop them. (or the mud, if you're using a redneck swimming pool.) :)

Matt
 
Last edited:
I'll remember this

the next time I have to shoot a ground hog which is hiding in a creek under the ice.
 
I guess the bullet goes through liquid water with greater ease since the solid is in crystalline form and the liquid is fluid and more easily displaced.
 
My guess would be that it would be almost irrelevant if it was ice or liquid. Now I gotta watch the video and see how wrong I am:)
 
My guess is that it really depends on what type of container the ice is in. If, as mentioned previously, one were shooting straight down, and let's say it was shooting down into a 50 gallon drum full of frozen solid ice, then yeah, that'll stop a bullet very quickly. But if it's just a frozen 1gal water jug, the ice might shatter or at least split, and the bullet could travel through the cracks relatively easily once it exerts enough energy on impact to shatter the ice.

So short version of my prediction is:
If just frozen jugs of water, then water will stop faster. if large dense block of ice, then ice will stop faster.
 
My bet is water. My reasoning is that the Shockwave ahead of the bullet will displace ice more than it will water.....unless the ice I'd contained inside of a milk jug making my reasoning irrelevant.
 
Ice is less dense than water therefore there will be greater friction on the bullet when it travels through water causing it to slow down faster.
 
That is one of the main reasons why this test is totally unscientific. The water pressure is blowing the plastic jugs apart. To be more accurate he should have used containers which stayed intact.
 
No, it is not particularly scientific because it is not a statistically relevant sample and does not examine variables such as projectile mass, velocity, and design.

What container would you have used?
 
Water. Because ice simply fractures and doesn't provide the same continuous resistance as water does. I know a .50 BMG round can only penetrate around 6 inches of water. I also know it can penetrate far more of a solid object. So my money's on water stopping it faster.
 
chopinbloc said:
Wait, how do you know that .50 BMG only penetrates 6" of water? That doesn't sound right.
Click to expand...
A lot depends on the velocity of the bullet. I think Mythbusters found that 50 cal and other high velocity rounds fragmented and lost most of their energy in less than 3 feet of water. Lower velocity rounds like pistol bullets were still lethal through up to 8 feet of water.

The 6" number sounds a little thin.

Matt
 
You have completely different energy dissipation as a function
of bullet mass/speed. Google Mythbusters/bullet/pool.

Hiding underwater can stop bullets from hitting you.
PARTLY CONFIRMED
All supersonic bullets (up to .50-caliber) disintegrated in less than 3 feet (90 cm) of water, but slower velocity bullets, like pistol rounds, need up to 8 feet (2.4 metres) of water to slow to non-lethal speeds. Shotgun slugs require even more depth (the exact depth couldn’t be determined because their one test broke the rig). However, as most water-bound shots are fired from an angle, less actual depth is needed to create the necessary separation.
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode34
 
I like those dudes on Mythbusters too, but I've watched enough of them to know they don't always seem to agree with what I've found to be the truth.

6" of water? sounds way too little to me. My wimpy .400 & .451 HSTs & gold dots at somewheres bout 1000 fps will double or even triple that, including some 180 gr .40s into a 5000 gallon pool.

Haven't watched video yet, but unless ice block is substantial enough, I'm guessing it'd fragment enough to make liquid stop a bullet better.
 
I'm going to hypothesize that the ice simply falls out of the way once the crystal structure is disrupted. Plus, most solids are actually more compressible than most liquids. If you fill a glass bottle to the rim and squeeze the sides you can actually see the water dome up over the mouth.

So I think the water is more effective. Now I'm off to watch the video.
 
Those dudes on Mythbusters are idiots who know absolutely nothing about firearms. "I grew up on a farm." is not a qualification.
Ice is less dense by much. Certainly not enough to be relying on it.
"The density of ice Ih is 0.931 gm/cubic cm. This compares with a density of 1.00 gm/cubic cm. for water." About Water and Ice. Mathmol. New York University, 1996.
A .50 BMG will penetrate a lot more than 6". The bozos on Mythbusters put a non-AP FMJ through 3 feet.
 
As before... <sigh> the energy dissipation/destruction of a Mach-3 projectile
hitting a fluid is totally different from that of a monolithic Mach-1(-) body
entering the same material.

And ice is a brittle solid for the purposes of this test, and does not act like
a fluid -- or even "fluid-like" sand -- for either class of projectile

I have no problem w/ the Mythbuster results as demonstrated by the video.

.
 
Last edited:
Totally unscientific and dependent.

Small jugs are going to explode, either way.

Shoot a solid block of ice of infinite size (say a swimming pool) and a swimming pool of water. The ice will definitely stop the bullet faster.

Mythbusters shows that bullets stop almost immediately in water. Ice - even less dense - would perform better if it's not allowed to break apart in a small jug.
 
It the world of Geology, when frozen water (ice) is encountered, it's treated, and referred to, as rock. Rock water will stop the bullet quicker than either plain water or sweet iced tea.
 
ice

I think ice is nice and will stop a bullet more quickly although it doesn't take much water to stop a .44mag ( 3 balloons worth if I remember a youtube vid I saw).

Not sure if there is a correlation with how dense the water/ ice is. Water is most dense at 39 degrees F+-.

Will be interesting to see the results.
I have fired carry ammo handgun bullets into water jugs and found that I never penetrated more than 3 jugs with 9mm or .40

101_1921_zpsfaf499e4.jpg

101_1920_zps7875addf.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

chopinbloc
  • Locked
.223 gel test: Wolf 55 gr FMJ (SBR test)
Replies
4
Views
856
chopinbloc
chopinbloc
chopinbloc
  • Locked
.223 gel test: 55 gr Hornady FMJ and bonus fruit cocktail rocket.
Replies
6
Views
879
Dr.Rob
Dr.Rob
B
  • Locked
Places to shoot informally, not ranges, near Washington, DC
Replies
12
Views
1K
Novus Collectus
N
Q
  • Locked
Preparing for War Part V: Forget the plastic sheets
Replies
4
Views
853
hso
hso
B
  • Locked
How to deal with Weapons of "Mass Destruction"
Replies
0
Views
386
Blain
B
Back
Top