Pretty to watch at 250,000 frames per sec.

Cool. I enjoy high speed camera videos.

I’ve always been curious to see this kind of stuff captured on high speed thermal cameras someday. See the conversion of KE to heat as the bullet hits the target. And regular steel targets using rifle rounds that leaves a hole in the steel.

that's really cool.
how do i get a job doing that?

Did you all see the unburned powder leave the muzzle of the Smith Snubbie after firing?

The .50AE muzzle flash wins. It would have been better if the shooter had aimed at cleaner parts of the plate for each shot.

flashguy

Thanks for the link.

Those were some of the best images of that sort of thing I’ve seen. It was especially enlightening to see the sparks or at least flashes of light that occurred when the bullets hit the steel, and that included the unjacketed 38 Special bullet. For a very long time I would have bet the rent that reports that bullets striking hard targets could start wildfires were fantasy. Then I saw flashes when officers shot at steel targets in the dark and changed my mind. I had never seen high speed videos of the phenomenon before, though, and even then would not have suspected that unjacketed bullets would show it. In our fire bans here, they usually prohibit shooting anything other than such bullets.

And another thing that that miniscule sample seemed to demonstrate was that the idea that shooting hollow point bullets at steel was more dangerous, i.e., they performed differently than FMJ bullets. Although the Action Target company has long actually recommended HP bullets over FMJ styles, some trainers have prohibited use of HP on steel in their classes. Based on the couple in the video, there was no noticeable difference in how they broke up.

One of my minor peeves about videos like that, though, is someone has a large investment in whatever setup they require (although usually less than the supposed $250K that the one camera costs), and then other things will be half- (or less) assed.

Like so many other YouTube testers of something, they can’t even shoot from a rest to ensure that the shots are spread out. In this case they weren’t testing for penetration, but they still seemed to be concerned where some of the bullets hit.

But even worse, it was obvious they were really not familiar with various cartridges, their power, etc. “What about this? What about that?” I suspect most of the shooters on this forum could have explained a few things to them. Or just a search about “blue tipped” 5.7 ammunition would have made it clear that there’s nothing special about it in a test like that. I can only imagine what someone told them.

In any event, the videos were interesting, and I hope to see what they do with rifle cartridges. Hopefully they will choose some that are in common use.

Why do they seem surprised that the 5.7 doesn't make much impact? It's 250 J of energy vs. 2,000 for the AE.
The mounting: masking tape?? And: the wood shelf on which the armor plate rests clearly takes the brunt of the spalling, not the gel.
Interesting, but I share SigFreund's frustration.

These guys are obviously camera guys not gun guys. I didn't pay much attention to anything except the zen like video. I'd buy a couple of the stills, frame them, and hang them on my walls.

Great video, thanks for posting.