Shrapnel Simulator

[Puncha]

Since early bulletproof vests used silk panels, I'd like to try a simple experiment. I'm going to create panels of silk consisting of variations of between 12 - 20 layers of quilted silk and shoot them with various 2 3/4" shotshell loads out of a factory standard smoothbore Remington 11-87 shotgun at 8 yards. Thus, I'd like your opinion. What load, brand.....etc would best simulate the following:

1)Shrapnel from hand grenade.
2)Sharpnel from claymore mine.
3)81mm HE mortar round going off 35 meters away.
4)105mm HE howitzer round going off 80 meters away.
5) IED using 122mm com-bloc artillery round going off 30 meters away.

If suitable loads can be suggested, I will post my findings here once the panels are constructed and shot.

 

[hso]

None of them.

The geometry of the projectiles are not uniform nor round. That geometry would be important to how well they penetrated the material.

 

[rcmodel]

All the velocity you can get out of a shotgun is not even anywhere close to the velocity of shrapnel propelled buy the detonation of HE explosive from a grenade, Claymore, or shell.

Think several times faster then the fastest shotgun loads.

It does slow down pretty fast due to the drag of the odd shaped particals, but so does shotgun shot.

rc

 

[Puncha]

The reason why I suggested using shotgun loads as a shrapnel simulator, apart from the fact that I don't have access to grenades and other explosives is that the folks from ESS goggles tout their stuff and being helpful against shrapnel or fragmentation type threats and advertise this capability by shooting their goggles with a #6 shot load from a shotgun.

Hence, I am looking for a SWAG estimate of real world fragmentation threats as compared to shotgun blasts.

 

[rcmodel]

Even the best goggles stop only splinters and other lightweight shrapnel at extended ranges.

They are not likely to stop bigger pieces or even slow them down at any range.

I also seriously doubt 20 layers of silk is going to stop a shotgun at 8 yards either.

rc

 

[Gordon]

I remember being in an old French billet with 6" thick cement walls and seeing a 2" piece of iron come thru the wall from a 122 mm rocket that hit 30 meters away!

 

[RyanM]

Modern explosive shrapnel travels in the neighborhood of 3,000 to 5,000 fps. The claymore mine, for instance, throws 700 1/8" diameter steel balls at 3,995 fps. That's 3-1/4 ounces of #4.5 shot.

Trying to figure out the ballistic coefficient of a very deformed 1/8" steel ball, to determine what range it'd be traveling at shotgun velocity.

Found a calculator for non-deformed round balls. It says a .125 caliber, 2.0 grain round ball will be going 1320 fps at 30 yards, 1104 fps at 35 yards, 997 fps at 40 yards.

It also says that #4 steel birdshot at a muzzle vel of 1250 will be going 1088 fps at 5 yards. Huh, the calculator says that #4 steel shot will only be moving 90 fps at 120 yards! Does that sound right? I'm not sure.

 

[hso]

Hence, I am looking for a SWAG estimate of real world fragmentation threats as compared to shotgun blasts.

Apples and Oranges due to velocity, mass and geometry of the projectiles be too different. You can't get "there" from "here".

 

[Jason_W]

Are flechette rounds legal in your locale? They might simulate shrapnel better than shot.

 

[Fred Fuller]

I don't think it's going to work out for you very well trying to use a shotgun as a simulator. Shrapnel from US antipersonnel weapons like grenades and mortar rounds is usually steel, and consists of sections of notched square steel wire that is separated and dispersed by the blast of the explosive.

Steel = hard, square = sharp. And as has been pointed out already, velocity of the frags is going to be a good bit higher too.

The USAJFKSWCS Special Warfare Museum used to have a 75mm recoilless rifle on display that had been fought over. The steel barrel had a number of gouges carved out of it by fragments from US hand grenades. I doubt you'll find a shotgun that can do that...

lpl

 

[crossrhodes]

No good test

Even a crossbow fired from 12 inches away would give better results then a shotgun would for testing.... As posted, frag it's fast, sharp and unpredictable at best.

 

[Zoogster]

Yes flechettes of various sizes should give a good penetration comparison to a piece of shrapnel of a similar weight.
With the flechette giving a relative maximum level of penetration that can be expected for a given weight and density piece of shrapnel since only the ideal piece of shrapnel will penetrate as well as the flechette at a similar velocity. A good measurement for testing body armor.

Steel flechettes compared to steel shrapnel. Tungsten flechettes compared to tungsten shrapnel. Etc
You may wish to sharpen the flechettes to compare with jagged sharp metal shrapnel. The edges of shrapnel can be quite sharp.

Shooting flechettes from a shotgun requires a heavily reinforced shotcup or wadding or the sharp flechettes will pierce through on firing and much of the gas will blow through them, giving them much lower velocity than expected.
Many commercial flechettes have this problem and are loaded very weak, and as a result perform horribly.


For smaller shrapnel at range the comparison should be easy, but for larger shrapnel finding suitably large flechettes and velocity loss comparisons at range will be difficult.


At close range with the shotgun and flechettes you may be able to simulate small shrapnel penetration at medium and long range if you calculate the proper velocity loss from the shrapnel and stand the proper distance away with the shotgun (probably very close). However you will be unable to get the shotgun to fire with anywhere near high enough velocity to compare closer range shrapnel effects.

You may also wish to hand load each flechette round so you only have flechettes pointing in one direction, can insure it has an abnormally puncture resistant wad or reinforced shotcup to trap gas, and an exact velocity.
Most commercial flechette loads are a joke, and the flechettes are tiny and without much mass.

(Larger flechettes perform significantly better, and flechettes weighing anywhere near typical buckshot penetrate far beyond any buckshot. For a given mass per projectile it is hard to beat a flechette in penetration.)
Because you cannot fit many proper weight flechettes in a load due to fins creating an irregular shape they make a relatively poor load when compared to other options for anti-personnel loads.
But for pure testing purposes how much payload is less important than how each projectile penetrates. I think they will accomplish exactly what you are trying to do.

 

[45crittergitter]

As far as I can tell, none of the named loads utilize shrapnel.

Shrapnel is the name of an English officer who devised a particular form of an artillery shell, which was not high explosive but rather a flying canister which was timed to disrupt toward the end of its trajectory and pelt the landscape with a large number of round steel balls (submunitions) after the manner of a giant shotgun. It worked pretty well against troops in the open, but was largely expended by the commencement of World War II. Shell fragments are something else entirely, and they are blasted outward in all directions from the burst of a high explosive shell. The rupture of the shrapnel shell is visible as white smoke, whereas the burst of a high explosive shell is black.

 

[C-grunt]

I dont think it will work very well as a shrapnel stand in.

One of our soldiers in my unit in 2005 was killed by a 155mm artillery shell IED that went off in fairly close proximity to the truck he was traveling in. A piece of shrapnel believed to be about 4 inches long and about an inch wide completely penetrated several walls of the truck and then the poor corporal and then out the roof of the vehicle.

No round out of a shotgun will reporoduce anything close to that power level.

 

[RyanM]

As far as I can tell, none of the named loads utilize shrapnel.

Just the claymore mine. As mentioned, those use 1/8" diameter steel ball bearings, about 700 of them.

 

[paintballdude902]

like ryan said it wouldnt be that bad of a test for a claymore but and grenades and others that produce true shrapnel

 

[GRIZ22]

Hence, I am looking for a SWAG estimate of real world fragmentation threats as compared to shotgun blasts.
__________________


I don't think you'd have many buyers if they knew your testing was done using the SWAG system.

 

[bkjeffrey]

would best simulate the following

6" long/ 2" diameter piece of black iron pipe with threaded ends from any home improvement store with two threaded end caps. Filled about halfway with triple seven powder.

That should get you pretty close to to:

1)Shrapnel from hand grenade.
2)Sharpnel from claymore mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3_8psyaVeY for live demo.

Watch it a few times and pay attention to the water around the demo site.

 

[RyanM]

Other than pipe bombs being incredibly illegal and dangerous, studies on common IEDs have actually determined that BP and subs only project fragments at around 2,000 FPS, while fast pistol powders manage around 3,000 FPS. High explosives give a "muzzle velocity" of closer to 5,000 FPS.

BP (and the subs) also produces fewer and larger fragments than fast smokeless, which itself produces fewer and larger frags than high explosives.

 

[leadcounsel]

FYI - the 'ballistic' glasses aren't meant to stop bullets, shot, large fragments - things that would otherwise cause a massive head wound. But they are designed to help with smaller shavings, fragments and particles, bits of dirt at higher velocity that often blind people, and for everyday protection from pokes from walking into equipment, dust storms, etc.

Any shot from a shotgun will destroy ballistic goggles/glasses.