I’ve been planning a series of tests for the Barnes VOR-TX load for a long time and finally got around to starting on them. This test turned out much better than I thought it would. Three shots through a steel car door produced three perfect examples of what can happen to an expanding bullet when it meets a barrier.
I’m very impressed with this round so far. Wait until you see its performance against IIIA body armor…
great video.
While I have followed the .300 Blackout the last couple years, I have shot similar testing with .40 S&W rounds in windshield glass and car doors from OLD 70’s cars with real steel.
The Gold Dot, Golden Sabre, Ranger, and HST’s all penetrated a car door with better consistancy than the .300 BO, I really am not overly impressed.
I will stick with my 6.8 for rifle duties
BINGO! :eek:
I’m getting the sense from a lot of the comments I’m seeing that people think one layer of sheet metal stopped that bullet. Underneath that bulge was a metal bracket consisting of two layers of steel. Three layers of steel were wrapped around that bullet, which had already penetrated the outer sheet and a wire harness. I just couldn’t get my camera in there to show it. I need to annotate the video because in a very short time of this video being up, this keeps coming up.
There is no way a 40S&W would’ve penetrated the area that the 300 BLK did not. Full power 7.62x51mm (non-AP) might not have penetrated. It was just one of the worst parts of the door for a bullet to hit, and that is real life for you.
Thanks for the vid. I saw another one of your vids before, didn’t know that was you.
The car door vid is nice illustration on the real world variables. A car is more complicated than a single piece of stamped 18-20ga sheet. Like you said, it has brackets, rods, springs, hinges - generally parts that go inside a door for the locking mechs and window actuation. Then there is the superficial layers like panels, handles, speakers, wires, switches. Any of those things cause a bullet to do strange things. Just like bones in a body. The 3rd bullet catching the edge of a panel cut out was such a chance occurrence, yet had a great effect on the bullet’s behavior and performance.
Question, what year/make/model was the door from? A consideration in a test like this is not all doors are created equal. Sheetmetal gauge ranges by make/model and year. Older vehicles tend to have thicker sheet. Late models have trended towards lightweight. Consider even the difference between pw/pl and manual models. Manual models will have added levers and bracketry inside the doors which add to the chances of bullet deflection. Yet another variable, not so much on the bullet through the door result, but of hitting a person inside, is it a car or truck? Does a person sit directly behind the door? Lower to the floorboards? Higher up?
Well, I’m rambling. But there are a lot of factors. Even some based on chance and once in a lifetime long shot. Guess in the matter of caliber, know what you’re shooting at and what bullets may or may not do to it.
How did the 300 compare to 5.56?
With the barrel length he’s using in that video, had it been 6.8 with the exact same shot placement, the results would likely have been the same.
Comparing an 8" or 9" barrel and 110gr TSX, not much is differenct except the Black Tip usually gets slightly deeper penetration.
A 16" 6.8 certainly has some velocity advantages over 300BLK, but that’s just not really the case for short rifles. There’s still an advantage, but it’s small with the short barrels.
Just to be clear, I’ve owned both calibers in these barrel lengths. I have far more experience with 6.8, but I’m seeing big advantages with a short blackout over my 8" 6.8.
If I’m buying a 16" gun in one of these calibers (which I wouldn’t do again), I’d go 6.8. Well, really I’d go with a 14.5" or 16" 308 if. Had to go long. For short rifles, both are great but I am preferring blackout for my needs. Now that there’s a dedicated lower and PMAGs, even though I don’t much care for LWRC, I might pick up the UCIW next year some time.
For work, I’ll stick to a shorter 5.56 gun for now. But, I wouldn’t hesitate to have either a short 6.8 or 300 for defensive use.
I have a 16" 6.8 now and both a 16 and 10" blackout, it would seem that the short barrel 6.8 would have a large increase in muzzle blast over the 300 with no gain in velocity.
The reason why there is a standard testing for this is because things need to be on a level playing field. Shooting through a 1970s T-bird is different than shooting through a modern commuter car, but either one of those vehicles will still skew results depending on what is hit inside the door.
Without the FBI testing protocol or similar testing in place, you end up with comment from people about how their .40 cal does just as good. The fault isn’t with those people, they simply don’t know what they don’t know.
I really appreciate the videos, especially all of the 300BLK videos. As a SBR’ed 300 owner myself, you are taking a lot of the grunt work out of testing some of this stuff. Keep up the hard work!!!
Absolutely, and I guess I assumed more people would watch the video with this perspective. I was not out to disprove laboratory testing or the effectiveness of this round- I just wanted to see how the bullet would respond to real-world variables, and I feel the results are pretty interesting.
Official ballistic testing is certainly a must and is very important when comparing calibers for a specific use. It gives us a great idea how one bullet compares to another.
Real world testing is something I truly appreciate as it gives me an idea of what is possible with a particular caliber and ammo choice. The downside is we can’t compare other calibers. It’s pretty obvious though once we know how they perform side by side in a laboratory that a similar bullet from a similar barrel length in 6.8 or 5.56 would likely not have made much difference.
We can shoot gelatin all day to see how bullets compare, but only researching shootings will we see how they perform on humans, and that typically is not the same as gelatin, though 4 layer denim gelatin is a better indicator than bare.
So, I appreciate both and understand their place. The problem is, many look at this test and think this means something other than that particular car door can stop a bullet if it hits the right spot. Nothing more. Any assumption that a similar caliber would have done better is just ignorance (which is not meant as an insult).
I thought it was a great video, thanks for doing the leg work for the rest of us.
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I was not suggesting the video wasn’t excellent-it was filmed very well.
I was trying to bring up a valid point that that door does not look older than the 80’s and it stopped one round and one round failed to expand-that in my book is poor performance.
And just because I don’t take pictures for Magpul or run a ballistics lab doesn’t mean I haven’t been shooting bullets from rifles and pistols into real car doors and windshield glass since the 80’s. I had a very unique pasture full of 70’s and early 80’s cars and trucks junked out as I grew up and up till recently I was testing 9mm,.40, 10mm, .45 and 12 ga. I have done testing of 5.56 and 6.8 into front ends of cars and shot into cylinder heads and blocks too besides the doors and glass. I have shot into water, wet newspack, and other mediums for fun too, it is something I enjoy.
I understand what your are saying. But, the 110gr TSX is a superior bullet when it comes to vehicle door and glass. It’s proven. There are not too many bullets that would expand when they catch the very edge of metal and gets spun. This would have happened with 50gr TSX, Gold Dot, 308, etc.
Stopping one round. If we know that 9mm will typically penetrate doors yet a Black Tip 300 failed, which is obviously superior to a 9mm, it’s pretty obvious that something happened inside the door.
Somehow figuring 6.8 is better because of this isa bit extreme. A 110gr TSX from an 8" 6.8 is traveling at a very similar velocity yet is a smaller bullet. How anyone could come to that conclusion is lost on me.
Dr. Roberts has posted numerous tests of 300 and 6.8. The 110gr Black Tip is known for deeper penetration even after encountering barriers than similar 6.8 bullets. It’s been tested and has been proven. It will penetrate more than a similar 6.8. It’s actually the reason Dr Roberts was saying we need better LE rounds like the 90gr Gold Dot 6.8 so we are much closer to the 12" in the 12"-18" of ideal penetration. Yet for military and hunting, the Black Tip is a perfect choice.
Per this thread - https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=126288
I really enjoyed my 6.8 PSD upper. But, the extra blast and flash for 100fps more from the same length short barrels is not a trade off I’m looking for over 300 Blackout.
This is what I was getting at. The 6.8 doesn’t seem to be bringing anything extra to the table in the short barrels except more blast. I don’t understand how it would be any better.
Yeah, not much. The only advantage right now would be something like the Gold Dot 90gr, which is a great barrier blind bullet with limited penetration. A great choice for law enforcement. Right now, according to Doc, there are great blackout barrier blind choices, but they’re better served for military and hunting applications where over penetration wouldn’t be as much of a concern.
Other than that, when you compare the two from 8" or 9" barrels, you get a little more velocity from 6.8 with maybe a little less drop (especially the 90gr Gold Dot) at distance, and with blackout you get a larger bullet with considerably less blast and recoil.
For use within 200 yards, I really don’t think you’d notice a difference between 300 and 6.8 when using 9" barrels and something like 110gr TSX.
Now, go to 16" barrels and distances in excess of 250 yards, 6.8 will have less drop and considerably more velocity. If I had to choose between the two with a 16" barrel, I might lean towards 6.8. But, I don’t plan on owning one over 10.5" and likely no more than 9" like I have now, so 300 just works for me. I don’t think it’s better in terms of terminal ballistics, but I think it’s very close. I do think its better right now in terms of recoil, blast and training ammo price. If subs and suppression are important, then it’s obvious.
Not a fan of the 300 I find it overrated and it can’t do anymore than the much cheaper and more available 7.62x39. Barnes is a good bullet though I loaded some 130gr TTSX for the 16" 308.
