How Many Walls Will a 5.56 and 9mm Penetrate?

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In this video we tackle one of the most common myths of the firearms world. When deciding on a home defense caliber, many firearm enthusiasts will tell you that certain calibers are too dangerous for the tasks. They argue that rifle rounds will penetrate through walls and injure innocent people. Today we put that idea to the test.

We set up ten standard dry wall sheets in order to compare the penetrating power of both the Speer Gold Dot 64 grain 5.56x45mm Hollow Point, and the Hornady XTP 115 grain Hollow Point ammunition.

We fired the rounds from a close distance of roughly 25 feet to simulate a home defense shooting. Both rounds were fired through full size weapons. The 5.56x45mm through a 16 inch AR-15, and the 9mm through a S&W 5906.

To everyone's surprise, both rounds penetrated all five simulated walls. The 5.56 penetrated six inches into the gelatin. The 9mm penetrated nine inches into the gelatin.

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