Ordinary Household Items

Which Ordinary Household Items Could Actually Stop a Bullet?

Don't believe the movies—that cast-iron skillet won't save you.

 POPULAR MECHANICS

Which household items could stop an intruder’s bullet?

We hope this is a strictly theoretical question—or that you have plans to move to a better neighborhood shortly. Assuming the former (and, admittedly, there is a morbid entertainment value in fantasizing about extreme self-defense scenarios), the first thing we need to establish is what sort of bullet are we talking about here?


If an ISIS terrorist, say, were to drag an AK-47 or any rifle suitable for hunting man or beast through your unsecured doggie door, you’d be pretty much out of luck. Rifle rounds travel with sufficient velocity to penetrate virtually anything you might put between you and them—including many “bullet-­proof” vests. The good news is that rifles of any sort are seldom used in crimes, and hard to fit through your doggie door. So let’s say Mr. Bad Guy is packing a more realistic 9mm pistol, an extremely common weapon the world over.

Your first instinct might be to duck around a corner, run into another room, or maybe crouch behind your sofa. Not ideal. “Bullets will go through your wall very easily, especially if it’s just a piece of Sheetrock,” says Dr. Karl Chang, an applications development engineer at the DuPont Kevlar Ballistic Group. “They will also go through most of the furniture in your house since there is not much substance there.”

Don Sherman, the ballistic lab manager at Wayne State University, helped us figure out some good (and not-so-good) things to hide behind: A refrigerator probably won’t hold up, but a paper-filled filing cabinet or a full bookshelf might. A solid wood door is a safer bet than, say, your closet’s sliding doors. If you can run to the bathroom, you might do well to hop in the tub, assuming it’s a steel or cast-iron model. No need to strip down first—though that could help distract or, perhaps, frighten your assailant.

If you can’t slip away, what can you grab in a pinch? For that, we enlisted the help of Dr. Cynthia Bir, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. Bir runs the Biomechanics Injury Research Lab, and was kind enough to oversee some live-fire testing for us. The ballistics-savvy among you will want to know that the items were shot with 124-grain 9mm full-metal-jacket ammunition from a distance of six feet. The rest of you will want to know that very few of them survived.

If you’re confronted in your kitchen, don’t reach for the cast-iron skillet. Surprisingly, that didn’t stand up to the gunshot. However, if you can make your way to the laundry room, that 14-pound box of kitty litter could save your life, as long as you hold it so the bullet has to travel the long way through. A 1,000-plus-page textbook succumbed.


We’re not saying you should shoot at our magazine. But don’t throw those issues away, just in case.
POPULAR MECHANICS

We’re pleased to note, however, that 23 issues of Popular Mechanics, positioned correctly, could work. That’s more than 2,700 pages, a stack about three inches thick. Remember that next time you consider recycling your back issues.