Hiding behind tree - can it stop bullets?
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- Опубликовано: 7 июн 2024
- In our test we take some decent sized pine tree trunks and shoot them with handguns, shotguns and rifles. As expected, 9mm handgun and all shotgun rounds weren't able to penetrate the tree.
When we step it up to rifle rounds both 5.56x45mm and 7.62x39mm were able to make it through without much hassle.
What surprised us all is that .308 has failed to penetrate this tree despite having much more energy compared to 5.56 or 7.62 from an AK...
We think that because the .308 gets deformed when it enter the tree and that makes, rotate, deviate from the path and loose more energy.
What do you guys think, why did the .308 struggle with this test?
Also if you have any strange/interesting ideas for us to test, let us know in the comments bellow!
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In our test we take some decent sized pine tree trunks and shoot them with handguns, shotguns and rifles. As expected, 9mm handgun and all shotgun rounds weren't able to penetrate the tree.
When we step it up to rifle rounds both 5.56x45mm and 7.62x39mm were able to make it through without much hassle.
What surprised us all is that .308 has failed to penetrate this tree despite having much more energy compared to 5.56 or 7.62 from an AK...
We think that because the .308 gets deformed when it enter the tree and that makes, rotate, deviate from the path and loose more energy.
What do you guys think, why did the .308 struggle with this test?
Also if you have any strange/interesting ideas for us to test, let us know in the comments bellow!
Hard to believe the 5.56 transfixed the thicker trunk. 5.56 is NO MATCH for 7,62 in a jungle fight
Projectile type matters ,especially as velocity goes up. Try a fmj in the .308
What about hardwoods like oak? Pine is rather soft.
Use FMJ (Steel projectiles) and not chopper
Looks more like spruce than pine. Not that it matters much, though. Nice video. Thanks!
Australian army rule of thumb, if you can hug a tree and touch your hands together, it's not cover
Thats a good rule - simple, easy to understand and functional
Exactly how I describe it when teaching
But, still better than nothing
I would like to see someone test that.
Hug or a reach-around?
@@Nickrioblanco1
Partially, you can see the results of the test in this video also. Any trunk smaller than hugging diameter will have it's outer 1/3 and 1/3 sections be of less thickness than this trunk mid section. Thus succumbable to penetration by rifle rounds. Your body is of more width than the stronger part of the trunk, thus exposed.
But, it's FAR better than nothing
Showing off that FAL para and thinking we won't notice the flex
Glad to know I'm not the only one who got bricked up when I saw FAL
That's quite an old rifle, it's original Argentinian, used in the Balkan wars then legalized and converted from full-auto
Rosario made?@@PolenarTactical
@@PolenarTactical Beautiful rifle.
@@PolenarTacticalI still remember those old videos with it. G3 vs FAL etc. Good times
One of my old neighbors from the 5th floor was at Donetsk airport during the last days of the battle. He was hit in the leg during a firefight while hiding behind a pine tree, we joke that he needed to hide behind a century old oak because he is so fat 😂
I hope he’s ok with y’all joking about it😭😂
@@bup3493 trust me, most people who were there are the type to either keep quiet about it and tell nothing or joke about it with everyone as a coping mechanism
@@bup3493 If you think he'd have a problem with it, you haven't met anyone who's seen combat. Those guys have the most fucked up sense of humor on the planet
@@bup3493 I had a buddy in Afghanistan who got 2 of his fingers shot off. I called him "Elden Ring" as a joke now since the main faction in the plot is Three Fingers. He thinks it's hilarious. Gallows humor is a natural coping mechanism.
A lumberjack once told me he’s cut down 27,572 trees.
“How do ya know exactly how many?” I inquired.
“Easy. I keep a log.”
Bruh.....
>groans
Ooof.
Lmao. I going to use than. Cheers 🍻
Boo! [Throws popcorn]
Done a lot of shooting in the woods, with trees as my target (sorry tree huggers) and it definitely depends on the type of tree. Living trees are definitely stronger than dead ones too.
Live trees have water
The type of tree is very important. A season live oak tree growing in the american south is very resistant wood and was used for the stress parts of wooden sailing ships. Other oaks are not so tough. These are experiment that I would like to try. I have a lot southern pine logs and I may give it try.
Paul did a great video on this topic a few years back. Definitely worth checking out if anyone wants to see more.
A far as I'm concerned polnar just stepped on Paul's toes. They know what's up
@@Jezus42 They are both incredible content creators that have and are continuing to spread invaluable knowledge and safety that can never be replaced.
@@Jezus42 The more data that's out there the better. Paul tested trees that were still in the ground, but what if you were fighting in a lumber yard? Or if you had a pile of fire wood outside your home? Zįga's test still has plenty of value.
@mtgAzim ok besides stepping on Paul's toes the data is in. A tree of sufficient girth is bullet proof. They could have been hey Paul already did it better than we ever could. Fake ass youtubers doing fake ass human shit
@mtgAzim oh wait I read polnar fucked the dog trees are bulletproof
We were taught in the army that unless it is really thicc. the tree is a concealment not cover. It would be interesting to know how well would a tree and Level II armour work against rifle calibres. I reckon the tree would slow down the bullets well enough for armour to withstand the hits.
That .308 woul definitely be stopped by soft armor
Well nobody ever accused the army of actually being smart
The thing is with trees, is that they get exponentially thinner, as you move further away from the exact centre.
Im not a geometry major, but basically its something like a double inverse square.
Shoot a few inches left or right of centre and you might be shooting through 30-40% less wood.
Basically you need a very thick tree, or a very thin soldier.
As you can see from the video we aimed and hit pretty much dead center to get a comparable results for different calibers.
But this is super interesting. It makes sense but i never though about it that way
It's much less drastic than that because of the square root - halfway between the centre and the edge you still have ~87% as much material, and inversely you need to be 87% of the way to the edge to have half as much material to go through. So once it would really start to make a difference you're almost shooting past the tree anyway
@@dinamitemasterthat makes even more sense 😅
Ok, so i just imagined that we could make a curve graph with distance from center on one side and thickness of wood on the other - and the graph would look like a tloris of the log itself 😀
@@PolenarTactical That's exactly what I arrived at as well, the equation can simplify to sqrt(1-x^2) which happens to just be a half circle. So elegant. And they said I'll never need trigonometry in real life
@@PolenarTactical This is completely unrelated, but did you ever film anything on LDT rifles? I'm looking to buy an AR15 and see you carry both Schmeisser and LDT, and I'm confused on what makes the difference in price since they seem to both be made by them?
In the Danish armed forces back in the G3 days we were told 80+ cm wood, 100 cm earth, 30 cm brick, 15 cm concrete, 3 cm iron, 15 mm steel.
A tree can hide you though
I remember it to be 50-100 % more respectively in the papers of the german army during the cold-war era. Maybe they also expected fire from BMPs and the alike.
or one Wife...
@@kalenderquantentunnel9411 That was propably for a different caliber as u already suggested. I can second Palle's numbers were also told in my unit in the german army.
I worked for a guy who fought in Rhodesia. He said positive things about being able to shoot through trees with the FN but the gurrilas didn't have much luck with the AK.
It depends which ak you're talking about, and which fn you're talking about.
@@fortnite.burger Rhodesians always just called the FAL the "FN". Even then, the only FN designs available in Rhodesia at the time would've been the Browning Hi Power, which obviously wouldn't be what was mentioned here, as well as the FN Model D, which would probably be better than the FAL for penetration, and the Browning Auto 5. Again, not something that anyone is going to associate with penetration. As for the AK, we're talking about your typical Soviet AKM, likely a lot of Russian made AKs specifically, since the AK74 didn't exist yet and Russia was the main one providing direct material support to a lot of the guerillas in Rhodesia
@@filmandfirearms sure, but as you can see in the video, the 762x39 out penetrates the 308.
@@fortnite.burger Most likely, the first .308 just hit a knot, something Ziga acknowledged as a possibility, which is why they fired a second round
I'm impressed that the insanely short AR15 barrel pushed the 55gr projectile fast enough to make it through!
10.5" is standard military issue M4 barrel length. They realized around the 80s that the M16 20" barrel didn't actually give that many practical benefits compared to how much longer and heavier it made the weapon
It didn't.
My Mauser Kar-98K's 7,92x57mm WWII steel core FMJ ammo was completely through & through holing 12"-14" maple & walnut trees at 300m and leaving head-sized divots in the hill behind it.
A Tree is better than nothing, just choose your tree wisely
My grandfather was in Angola. He used to tell me stories of how the Cubans would call the fal "rompe troncos" or something to the likes of "tree trunk breaker" in english.
Pine is one of the easiest woods to split. You should try something more dense like Oak, Hickory, or Cherry.
A nice thick log of oak, hickory or cherry is also a bit more expensive... we got this pine for free
True, but most of modern forests are artifical monocultures of conifer trees, not hard wood. At least in Europe it is like that, most of original forests (oaks and beeches) were destroyed in the past. So when you go to some random forest in 2024, it's high probability that there won't be any oak or beech near.
I think in the tropical rainforest, the hardwood trees are denser and would be better able to stop a rifle bullet.
As one man once said to me after showing similar thing "And that is why firefights in forest usually end up on ground level".
Gets me to think, how lower part of a tree, with roots and such compares with higher areas. I mean, tree fiber on root level is more twisted, can be better at stopping bullets.
Military Arms Channel did a similar test a long time ago… Rifle Penetration Test… also tested 5.45x39. The results were also counterintuitive
We found 20" of spruce/pine stopped everything but three or four rounds of 7.52x51 within an inch or so would allow the last one to penetrate.
Glad to see you using a safety t shirt.
I knew about the safety squint, but this is a whole new level of safety for me!
Probably safer than British Army issue vest,lol!!
to note: different type of trees will have different outcomes, just stay behind hard cover folks
I just want to know if I have to carry a tree stump around or if they'll make a carrier?
Wooden body armor coming to gun stores near you
Alternatively known as "Coffin"
I have heard about exotic iron Wood maybe this will work!
Thank you for getting straight to the shooting part without much talking.
Do a comparison between 10/12” AR and maybe 16/20”.
I guess the higher velocity provided by longer barrels will get the bullet to fragment and not penetrate all the way through
In Rhodesia we consistently shot through 6 inch thick mopane trees.
That is with FMJ NATO rounds.
should redo it with ballistic jelly to see visually how much power decreased
That sounds like an interesting test to do :)
Paul Harrel did a similar test a few years back. The 7.62x39 out penetrated the 5.56 on all accounts.. I think the video was called "Ak 47 vs M16 Power"
We were taught to do hand stands behind trees when being shot at. The rounds will deflect off your uniform.
I've learned today Arex made a nice AK clone.
Same here, thing looks sweet
I did a penetration test with college textbooks before, and each time, the 7.62x39 had slightly better penetration than the 7.62x51. The 5.56 did well too, but was always in 3rd place. Basically the .308 (7.62x51) would always break apart while the 7.62x39 would become deformed, but stayed intact. All were FMJs.
Pine is also quite soft. I recommend trying out beech or oak.
I used the AG-3 in the army. It shoots roughly 308 (7.62x51mm). I never checked it myself, but we were told that this thing would eat through both trees and dirt, but that it would have difficulty with sand bags and sand-filled rubber tyres. Then there's the MG-3..... Which will just gnaw through just about anything.
cant wait for the sequel; hiding behind bullet - can it stop trees?
I didn’t know the Swedish Chef had a firearms channel. J/k, Thanks for the share friend 👍🏻 🙂.
I loved the modem with the brain fart. One of the best parts of the video. I still can't stop laughing. Good to see the tree test.
Thats awesome test thanks , can you try copper rifle bullets ? Tree o 8 too please
Funny result, in the Australian Army we used FAL's to shoot through 6 easy iron engines and then followed up shooting through a M113 with 11 inches compressed aluminium. The 5.56mm, yeah could not do any of that, dangerous round kept ricochet back to the shooter.
I don't know who told you the M113 has 11 inches of armor, but they were full of shit. For context, even late WW2 heavy tanks, which could shrug off high velocity AT rounds, didn't go much above 6. The difference between aluminum and steel is not that much
@@filmandfirearms To be exact, the M113's armor is only 12mm to 40mm thick. However, I doubt that the 308 can penetrate that armor because I used the 7.62x54R with a bullet with a steel core piercing compared to the 308 with only a lead core bullet. As a result, the bullet jacket broke and the steel core was pinned to the armor, we were only able to penetrate the M113 armor with 12.7x108mm. My country's army mostly uses old M113s and M48s as targets for shooting practice
@@CallMe_Gene I could see it happening if you found just the right spot in the armor, or maybe if someone didn't know the difference between spalling and penetration, but it definitely wasn't a common thing. The M113 was designed to withstand 7.62 NATO, so it would quite a surprise if it failed at that
That would be 11 inches of COMPRESSED aluminium as told to me by the Royal Australian Armoured Corp who also advised that any round over 7.62 would punch through. Thank you for respectful contribution.
Oh and myself and the rest of my Artillery battery say 100 men shot one and all went through an M113. We had 10 tonnes of small arms ammo to get rid of our we get a reduced training ammo allocation for the next year.
Great video
Thanks
I wonder what the differrnce would be on a live or freshly felled tree with the sap and water still in it ??
Would be interesting to see the difference hardwood would make and also fresh vs dry wood. May I suggest a series? 😂
I remember being told (1960's training) that with the .303 British you had to be behind a 12" diameter tree to be safe. Probably the same for the 7.62 NATO and most .30 cal rifles in military use.
Love me some TreeO8
I love the modem sounds! Made me laugh! 🙂
I had a forty foot Douglas Fir that snapped off at 8 feet in a very strong wind storm. This is has become my new pistol target. Yesterday I noticed that I had out two .40 S&W bullets though the tree with their noses just sticking out a few millimeters on the other side.
Could you repeat this with hardwood tree of same diameter?
I submit to you that on the FN, you need to ease your gas setting by 2 and then see how it goes. A well maintained FN should run comfortably tuned to around 5-6 as a gas setting. Reduce the amount of gas going to the piston by 2 and watch that FMJ exit harder. FYI, that 7.62x51 boattail is always going to deform in the wood as they are unstable in flight. The trick is to get it faster at the muzzle to defeat the wood. By the by, I was taught to shoot by Veterans of the S.E. Asian Wargames 1960-1973. 😉
I got to do testing on "balistic kevlar panels" on US mobal radar trailers from the 80s, it was unofficial and used 7.62 39 n 54R, fun stuff. We also tested lexan. Note, we tested wood penetration just because.....palm logs too, they seemed the toughest.
Another RUclipsr did a tree barrier penetration test, years ago, and both the .308 & .223 struggled to get through (particularly the .308). But when he tested some 5.45 rounds in an AK, they went through like that tree was made out of warm butter.
The point is, if your going to use a tree as cover, make sure its a very thick tree.
The .308 having trouble penetrating doesn't really suprise me. Generally velocity ends up being more important than KE.
I've had steel that's been punched straight through by 55gr fmj .223 but is completely fine against 180gr .308
I guess in some cases an extra 100m/s can make the world of difference.
Also surface area of the impact.
.50 ae has the same energy than a 7.62x39mm but it can be stopped by a good ballistic helmet while the AK round zips through both sides.
Terminal ballistics are quite complicated but generally that's true, higher velocity will give you better penetration
100m / s gets ur round to target quicker if its moving thats important for deflection
Standard or ball ammo for .308 is 147 or 150gr. (Depending on rifle, ~ 860m/s muzzle velocity)
So it is significantly faster than 180gr. (~780-790 m/s)
180gr is getting towards slower hunting rounds (BTHP) that are optimized towards less penetration.
Also. Impact point was lower down, meaning it did not get as much help from previous impacts causing internal damage to the log.
Many small issues can add up to a big difference.
Pine is a softwood, any plans on repeating this testing on a hardwood sample of similar diameter?
You should try this again with a hardwood of approximately the same diameter, something like oak or beech would seem like a good choice for your part of Europe.
A little surprised I am, tree 08 disappointing it is 😮
Depends on the ammo too. I'm not sure how it is in Europe, but over here we have access to AP ammunition which will usually zip straight through multiple trees
AP is definitely better in penetrating stuff
We used normal FMJ
How long did the wood dry before shooting? I think a "fresh" tree behaves differently.
What wood?
Woods can be different?
As a wood worker, you should try with denser woods like oak. Ebony could be interesting too, but I don't think it's cheap enough to be shot at...
What was the distance fired from the wood?
One thing to consider, and maybe test at a later date, is the hardness of the wood. Pine is quite soft, so rounds that it gets fully penetrated by could possibly be stopped by something like an oak or cherrywood tree.
That'r true, but a nice cut of oak or cherrywood tree would be quite expensive. And this pine was completely free 😅
Use Sellier & Bellot 150gr FMJ for the same test.
The result may vary since it is significantly faster bullet.
Anything's better than just fresh air!
what can you say about Galil?
fantastic conclusion. I would have never concluded that myself 🤣
A living tree has quite a bit of water in it also.
Next time I go in the woods, I know what I am going to carry. Those trees are totally SUS.
You ever done a breakdown of the construction of that tire wall?
Yes, but we didnt go into too much details
ruclips.net/video/22U7lCnAGis/видео.html
This is great.
I think the bullet construction will make a big difference too. The hollow point will deform and stay in the tree, a monolithic round mau go through.
Does that mean that I now have to carry a tree log around with me at all times to protect myself from incoming rounds?
Nearly as safe as hiding behind a car door - like in the movies! lol
“Tree 08” LOL😂
I can hear the Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth from the Tree Huggers 😂
is the 7.62x39 steel core?
THANKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
three-o-eight ❌
Tree-o-eight ✅
I used to use a S.A.F.N 149, which fires a 30.06 and my brother and I were out hunting one day and we got separated by a moderate size hill, and I wanted to find out where he was, so I thought that I would fire a shot or two and let him know where I was, but I had bit of think about it and thought that I can't fire this thing into the air, because the bullet is going to go for six or eight kilometres, so I decided not to fire into the air, but there was a tree about two foot in diameter, it was a tree about sixty years old, so I decided to fire into the tree, and what happened shocked even me, and the bullet went straight through the tree and dug a furough or trench about three metres long and about a foot wide, but the hole on the other side of the tree was big enough to put my head in, and we're talking about a hole ten or eleven inches in diameter, so I found out how powerful that old 49 was and a person could hide behind and tree for safety. The tree that I shot was a gumtree.
High velocity bullets also pull debris into the wound channel.
It's due to the low pressure behind the bullet compared to the high pressure in front.
I think that works a little different on a live tree full of juice. It's why you let fresh green cuts of wood dry before cutting into firewood. Trees vary greatly and aren't great for consistent testing and results.
If I was in the woods getting shot at, I'd seek cover behind trees. It's better than nothing.
Absolutely
Enemy can't hit what he can't see
When my little brother and I were teenagers, our dad bought us each a 7.65 Argentine Mauser. We tested their power by trying to shoot through trees. My dad stopped us, concerned we were just killing trees that were far older than any of us...
I worked with a WW2 veteran who fought in New Guinea once and he told me they were fighting the Japanese in semi open country near Rabaul. He said they would sight each other and the Japanese would often drop down behind a palm tree for cover. They knew to aim about 10 inches above ground level an dead centre; the .303 round would go through a palm tree and usually nail him. The Japanese 6.5mm round often wouldn’t go right through.
Another Great One ' 💯💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
Thanks 💯
I'd like to see this test using Fort Scott Munitions solid copper and solid brass ammunition.
penetration and stopping power is two different concepts constantly fighting each other. 308 or 762 in an FAL or SLR do give you some stopping power better than similar ammo, but if you are looking for penetration depth, it is not the round you are looking for.
Was that seasoned firewood or a freshly cut tree?
Freshly cut pine, still full of moisture and sap
I'm wondering how much it being a log and not being rooted to the ground was a factor, too; not sure how heavy that log is, but I'd imagine it might've moved a bit when hit, whereas most trees probably wouldn't budge at all.
Remember reading what Clint Smith said about the .308. It goes through stuff to hit stuff.
I saw you rest that rifle with its flash eliminator on the deck that's slack
This is roughly what I expected. Years ago I had a .308 and was out in the Everglades in Florida. I found a 6 x 14 inch wood beam and stood it up with its 14 inch width facing me. I then placed a steel pail behind it. I shot my .308, an H&K 91, and the bullet went through the entire width of the 14" beam, through both sides of the steel pail and I still couldn't find the bullet but I think that it must've been pretty much out of gas by the time it made it through the steel pail. I wouldn't feel safe behind anything but a fairly hefty tree. I think I'd like a Giant Redwood or Sequoia.
Depends on the bullet design. Armor piercing rounds would all likely sail through that log.
That was my service rifle.
We learned: 60cm of tree gives you cover.
In 1976 I fired 3 rounds grouped tightly together at a 15 cm thick concrete culvert wall at a distance of about 10 metres, the third round went right through.
Very much depends upon the type of tree. Soft wood like pine that you were using in your test isn’t the best, but an Oak tree will be much more effective.
Pine is also not hardwood, oak or hickory might yield different results, though would likely be harder to find in a diameter that would offer a rwasonable amount of cover and not just a modicom of concealment
Just curious, what kind of lumber are you using for these tests? I feel like Softwood vs. Hardwood might make a difference.
Absoluetly
We used just a normal pine tree, that's what was available. It a softwood
@@PolenarTactical Missed opportunity there for another dick joke... do better.
@@PolenarTactical I know that you're neither a botanist nor a carpenter (at least as far as I know), but do you know which species of pine?
@@jic1 english is my second language and what i thought was called pine but it isnt. It's a spruce tree
@@PolenarTactical Norway spruce, maybe? Despite the name, it grows across central Europe and the Balkans as far south as Greece.
Obviously the selected tree trunk (I presume) did not reliably stop the rifle rounds from penetrating. However, most rifle rounds show some degree of damage, slowing the bullet and removing some - not sure how much - energy. To be more defensible as a test, one should fire say ten rounds of each sample bullet and get an average from that. Also, I expect that different 'barricades' be used for each set of test rounds. Preferably all from the same tree, but roughly the same diameter.
Speaking of diameter, the test sample shown seems to be rather smaller in diameter than the trees with which I am familiar.
I would expect a hardwood tree - oak, walnut or such - to be harder and more resilient to penetration than soft wood. At the same time I understand and concur one - as a target - does not always have an option.
All told, that diameter of pine is not suitable for anything more than handgun rounds. However, it is better than wall board.
I carried the L1A1 SLR during the 80s. There was a lot of talk about the 7.62mm being able to go through a brick wall at 1 mile. Can it? :)
also depends of ammo..you could use hp 308 and ap 556!,!,!....alll these were fmj?
Yes, the info about the ammo is written in the video next to the rifle when i shoot.
All ammo is standard FMJ
It all depends on the tree. 308 goes about 6-10" into a maple and oak. Farther into a tree that is less dense, like pine. But density isn't all that matters. Water content has a great deal to do with how much energy it takes out of the bullet. So it all depends.
While doing a live fire exercise in the US Army back in ‘85 I was carrying an M249 SAW. I was in a prone position and couldn’t see anything ahead of me due to all the low brush and weeds. The only thing I could see about 50 meters away was a tree almost straight ahead of me. Once we started firing I figured I’d aim at the tree. It’s didn’t take long till it started falling over. Not sure how many rounds I’d fired at that point but everyone on the firing line looked at me as I was cheering my accomplishment. Sometimes it’s not the size of the round but the number of hits. 😉
It depends on how hard the tree is and whether it full metal jacket or a hollow point with a 308