Does ice or water stop a bullet faster?

[RetiredUSNChief]

Hmmm...

Maybe I should try this experiment out myself! If I can talk my wife into it, since she's the one with the AR-15!

I'm betting I could, if I told her she would be the one doing the shooting!

 

[76shuvlinoff]

pfffft
350 grain lazercast 45/70 vs 17 milk jugs

https://youtu.be/ZBLdtFes8eE

 

[gamestalker]

I vote water. Water is much denser than ice. Both will obviously produce a lot of resistance to a high velocity projectile, but I think due the greater density of water verses that if ice, the bullet will stop sooner in water.

Ok, now lets see what the video has to offer.

GS

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

pfffft
350 grain lazercast 45/70 vs 17 milk jugs

https://youtu.be/ZBLdtFes8eE

Well, if we're going to get silly, then here's a picture of what a 45 caliber Naval gun can do.



Just so you know, that's 26 inches of armor plate steel from a Yamato class battleship gun turrent, pierced by a 2,700 pound projectile at a simulated range of 30,000 feet.

The gun it was fired from was a 16"/45 caliber Mark 6 gun.

And just for comparison, the Iowa class had 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 guns.


Oh, and just for clarification: "caliber", when used in conjunction with the description of such guns as these, does not mean the same thing as it does for small arms. In this case, the caliber of the gun describes the relationship between barrel length (from breech face to muzzle) to the diameter of the bore. So the 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 guns had a barrel length of 50 times the bore diameter, or 66.6 feet.

 

[Malamute]

I havent watched the video yet. I believe ice will stop bullets much faster than water.

Many comments didnt make sense.

I dont know if it matters that I've shot a fair amount into water and ice in natural environments. Guess I'll watch and see what happened in the jugs.

 

[chicharrones]

I want cherry in my snow cone please. Lead free of course.

 

[Drail]

I have fired .44 and .45 cal. bullets into ice (a frozen lake) and none of them penetrated more than 4 inches and none of them expanded at all.

 

[Malamute]

Thats about what I recall when shooting into a frozen river, the bullets didnt get very far.

 

[gspn]

I'm guessing water. Now I'm off to see if I'm right or wrong...

 

[76shuvlinoff]

RetiredUSNChief
Quote:
Originally Posted by 76shuvlinoff View Post
pfffft
350 grain lazercast 45/70 vs 17 milk jugs

https://youtu.be/ZBLdtFes8eE
Well, if we're going to get silly, then here's a picture of what a 45 caliber Naval gun can do.

Hey now! at least I stayed with shoulder fired

 

[gspn]

Well, if we're going to get silly, then here's a picture of what a 45 caliber Naval gun can do.

Well...you should see what the 10mm naval gun would do!

Couldn't resist trying to stir up the old 45 vs 10mm debate.

 

[Sheepdog1968]

Liquid water is more dense than ice but as a liquid it lacks the crystalline structure of ice. I'm going to say ice does a better job of stopping a bullet.

 

[Ash]

45 caliber in naval guns revers to the length of the barrel. The South Dakotas (and Colorado's) used 16" 45 caliber naval guns, for instance, whereas the Iowa's had 16" 50 caliber guns. The higher the caliber, the longer the gun (and as a result, the longer the range but the greater the weight on the carriage and thus the heavier carriage, all increase overall tonnage on a ship). And caliber is bore-specific. Thus, a 14" 45 caliber is actually shorter than a 16" 45 caliber.

Some folks assume that a 16" 45 caliber is akin to 16.45", which isn't actually bad thinking (it's perfectly logical based on small arms use of caliber).

Of course, without the bore, a 45 caliber naval gun is kind of like saying a 38 caliber revolver. Could be .357, could be .38 Long Colt, could be .38 S&W, could be .38 Special, could be .380 British, could be 38/200, could be....

 

[Sav .250]

The answer to that question will certainly enrich my life....................

 

[sauer1911]

get a better camera operator

be safe

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I'm gonna say water stops it faster.

 

[chopinbloc]

get a better camera operator

Not in the budget. ;-)

 

[dakota1911]

Depends on the projectile. A good start is this link:

http://mythbustersresults.com/episode34

With a 556 fired from an AR then might be about equal.

 

[morcey2]

get a better camera operator

Does a camera operator have to use a tactical camera with a shoulder thing that goes up?

 

[chopinbloc]

They should tactically operate the camera operationally.

 

[buck460XVR]

As a kid growing up in rural Wisconsin, one of the favorite pastimes of the kids in the neighborhood was shooting chubs in the local creeks that passed thru the local farm pastures with our .22s.(yeah, I know now it wasn't a smart thing to do, but it was the early 60s) We would wait for them to swim thru the shallows and then shoot them in 6-8 inches of water. You didn't have to hit them, just get close. But many times we did hit them, evident because of the bullet holes thru them. this, even thru 6-8 inches of water. Come the first days of winter and the ice was starting to from, while we could shoot thru less than an inch, anything more than that would stop the bullet. Yep, you could still see the chubs thru an inch or so of fresh new ice. Cool thing was, even tho the ice was rock hard, when you dug the bullet outta the ice, it was perfect except for the rifling marks. Using this as a reference, I gotta say ICE.