Conservatives Defending Liberty

A lot of people out there have AR-15 or Mini-14  rifles. A lot of people out there ask what can they do to stop rifle fire. Even more people are confused about 223/5.56mm ammo and how well it can penetrate barriers. Many people just want to know what their rifle will and will not do or can and can’t shoot through.  The ability of any ammunition regardless of caliber to penetrate anything is related to a couple factors, velocity, weight and bullet design. What most people don’t know is that with light weight bullets being closer to your target may not mean you can penetrate it better than being much farther away. Since the AR-15 is so popular as is this caliber, this is a good choice to demonstrate what people can use for cover and what they should not. What should become apparent after reading this is that stopping rifle fire on the street means finding a building or a car to get behind, stopping it at home may be even more difficult.

Survivalists, gun owners, law enforcement officials, and many others don’t understand how to protect themselves from rifle fire. Its not really has hard or as easy as you may think if you know what your ammunition can and can’t do. People want to know what kind of barrier they need to be safe in their shelters or retreats. So in order to do that we can look at some common kinds of barriers most people see everyday. To begin with most modern homes and apartments will provide little to no protection from 5.56mm rifle fire. Wood paneling, sheet rock and plaster board will not protect you from these rounds. Furniture in homes and offices also will not stop these rounds but books stacked up to a point of being 18 to 20 inches thick can. Car doors will not stop rounds from penetrating, most times the rounds can not penetrate both sides of a vehicle so keep that in mind. Maximum penetration for the 5.56mm round occurs at approximately 200 yards, a ranges under 50 yards your ability to penetrate barriers is greatly reduced. Under 20 or 25 yards they are very poor penetrating rounds as the velocity is so great that it places large amounts of stress on the lite weight rounds and they fragment when hitting solid objects.

Barriers can be in many forms, a small military ammo can filled with dirt or sand will stop a 5.56mm round when fired at less than 50 yards. A 55 gallon drum filled with water, oil or sand will also stop them. Mail boxes work well on the street, a thin 2 inch concrete wall will do the same. Filled cinder blocks and brick veneer will work just fine as well. One other thing to consider, the metal doors most people use in their homes or businesses will not stop 5.56mm fire, also as far as wood goes look for at least 20 inches plus, this means that telephone poles do not provide reliable cover you can use. You must keep in mind what type of fire you are facing, while the 5.56mm is not that hard to stop when fired a single round at a time, when used in automatic fire modes multiple rounds can cut through even an 8 inch reinforced concrete wall, it may take 250 rounds or so but it can be done.

Using the M855 or NATO SS109 rounds will increase your penetration by a small measure but not as much as you would hope. On materials like wood yes, on concrete not so much. As you may imagine steel can be a great bullet stopper, the problem is that 3/8 inch plate steel is a little heavy to move around and weld to your walls. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what your weapon may be capable of and what it is not. Television makes it look like the M-16 can stop a tank, in reality it can’t even reliably stop a car. Keep in mind also that most urban situations will be well under 100 yards if not 50. This adds or should I say subtracts from the rounds ability to penetrate objects. If you keep these things in mind you should have a good idea of what you and your rifle are capable of and what you need to protect yourself from this type of weapons fire.