K's Butterfly Dress

K got a cute butterfly dress from her Great Aunt for her birthday. We finally had a warm Sunday when she could wear it. Doesn't she look all grown up sitting in her chair?

3 Months Old Already

Sunday the 4th was L's three month birthday. I can hardly believe it has been that long since I had this little one. Although she isn't so little any more when compared with the new babies popping out all over our ward.

The Spatula Incident

I left L playing in her floor gym for only a couple of minutes when I heard her start screaming. I went to see what was wrong and saw K standing over her with her toy spatula. When I asked her what happened she said "I didn't hit her!" I said, "What happened, why is L crying?" K then showed me using actions that she had scraped her spatula across L's face but then informed that "She'll be okay." This is something we tell K quite often as she is a drama queen when she gets the slightest owie. L, however, was quick to recover.

Shooting Steel - The results are in

As you may recall, sometimes I wonder things and I have something I want to shoot.

Well, the 3/4" mild steel plate successfully stopped all rounds fired at it.
Both the .308 and 300wm penetrated about 1/2" to 5/8". But the 300wm made a considerably larger dent in the back side. I think that if the range was much less the 300wm would have made it all the way through.


The sides of the holes are very straight, like they were drilled.



I turned it around and shot it twice with the .308 at 200 yards. The divot it made was much smaller than when shot at 100 yards. It is only a little over 1/4" deep.



I also had a 3/4" thick piece of stainless steel courtesy of Tony and Brian. As expected it held up much better than the mild steel. Penetration was about 1/4". All shots were with the .308 win at 100 yards.



It barely dented the back.




One hole looks deeper than the rest because two shots hit in almost the same location.
To establish scale, the red dot is a little less than an inch in diameter (I traced the rim of a 12ga shell).So, I guess this answers the question that started me wondering about this...
I wanted to know how sturdy a steel plate target intended for a minimum range of 100 yards would have to be. It looks like at least 3/4" thick mild steel is required but the stainless is much more desirable.

Floor Gym Play

Bubbles make me Happy

Little Piggy

N's New Hair Cut

What do you think?

Baby Faces

3/4" Thick Steel Vs. .308 Win

I now have a 3/4" thick piece of steel ready for testing:




Do you think this will be able to stand up to a .308?



Those of you who are up to date on your physics and calculus can just do a little math and figure out what will happen.

Here is the data required for the calculation:

The steel plate in question is actually 3 pieces of 1/4" thick ASTM A36 welded together.
The mechanical properties of which are:
Yield Strength: 248 MPa
Tensile Strength: 400 MPa
Young's Modulus 200 GPa
Shear Modulus 70 GPa
Poisson's Ratio 0.26
Density 7861 kg/(m^3)

The bullet specs are:
Composition: Copper jacketed lead
Weight: 150 grains
Velocity @ 100 yards: 2533 fps
Energy @ 100 yards: 2137 ft-lbs

I posted all these numbers because I'm sure that Ben will be able to determine precisely what the outcome will be.

I could do the math too...if I wanted to...but I don't want to spoil the surprise.

What do you think will happen when I shoot it?
Will it:
-Bounce off leaving the plate unscathed.
-Make a dent but fail to penetrate.
-Punch right through.
-or something else?


...shooting stuff is fun.