The Myth of AR-15 Over Penetration and Muzzle Up vs. Muzzle Down

Today, we’re going to talk about 2 of the biggest misconceptions that people have about the AR-15.  To be fair, they get these misconceptions honestly.

They’re repeated ad nauseam in articles, blogs, forums, videos, and even on TV without proper context.  To complicate matters even more, there’s an element of truth to each of them.

Myth: “I think AR’s are bad for home defense because of over penetration.  I don’t want to shoot my neighbors or kids in another part of the house.”

Good.  I don’t want you to shoot anyone who’s innocent either.

But let’s dig into this a little…

First off, penetration is good.  It gets you to vital organs and stops threats fast.  In the FBI Miami Shootout, there was a famous bullet that stopped just short of hitting the heart of one of the bad guys…it was called “the bullet that failed.”  You don’t want to use bullets designed to fail.

You’ve got to have penetration to maximize effectiveness…you just don’t want to miss your targets and have ammo go through walls into bedrooms or into your neighbor’s house.

There’s 2 components to this…

The first and most important rule to minimize innocent people getting hit in a gunfight is to hit your target with every shot.  Don’t stop training when you can hit your target…keep training until you CAN’T MISS.

That is the standard that you should set for yourself.  100% hits and no misses.  It’s not reality and there’s a really good chance that Murphy will step in and mess things up, but you want to train so that any misses you have are beyond your control…not because of a lack of training or practice.

Second, you should realistically expect ANY ammunition that’s going to have effective penetration on a person to go through drywall, sheetrock, and other wall materials.

Ordinary defensive 9mm hollow points can go through 6 layers of sheetrock or 3-4 layers of steel in a car.  There’s a good chance that ANY caliber of defensive pistol or rifle ammo has the ability to go through walls and hurt innocent people.  Hollow points that may expand when they hit soft tissue oftentimes get plugged when they go through sheetrock, don’t expand, and act like a full metal jacket round.

There are bullet designs that claim to reduce over penetration on sheetrock, and some do better than others, but the best way to minimize the chances of hurting innocent people is to have 100% hits.

One thing that’s surprisingly consistent in penetration/overpenetration testing is that typical defensive handgun rounds penetrate MORE layers of building materials than .223 from a carbine.

But what about shotguns?  If we look at both ends of the spectrum, slugs have a serious over-penetration problem and bird shot has a serious UNDER-penetration problem.

In the middle, Buckshot shares a problem that’s common to all shotgun loads—the recoil is harder for smaller shooters to control, slows down followup shots.

In addition, the recoil and weight of a shotgun make it less enjoyable to shoot for smaller shooters and less practice translate directly to less comfort with the gun and lower performance under stress.

Finally, there are fewer ranges that allow you to practice with a shotgun than there are that allow you to practice with a pistol or AR.

So, if all bullets are capable of penetrating through multiple walls, it stands to reason that you might want to use a weapon platform that will give you the highest probability of hitting your threat.  For most people, the increased barrel length and controllability of an AR makes it easier to hit man-sized targets at in-house distances in low light conditions under stress.

The proof is in the pudding…while nationwide hit ratios for law enforcement are in the 12%-25% range, hit ratios with rifles for many departments are over 80%.

In addition, it’s generally easier to put a light/laser on an AR than on a pistol.  There are great laser/light options for pistols, but most shooters find them easier to operate on an AR than on a pistol.

Finally, you can use both a pistol and an AR as an impact weapon, but the AR is much easier to control and keep control of if you decide to strike someone with it.

Next is another “rule” that I thought Moses delivered himself:  Always move with the muzzle of your gun pointed down.”

There’s a joke that this is an Army vs. Navy thing…more specifically, Special Forces vs. SEALs.  It’s said that SF points their guns down so that they don’t shoot their helicopter blades and SEALs don’t point their guns down so they don’t poke holes in their boats.

The reality is a little more complicated…

When you think about indoor ranges, VERY few have fully bullet resistant ceilings.  They may have a few sheets of AR-500 hanging from the ceiling a few yards downrange, but very few ranges have AR-500 right above the shooting bays.  If there’s a potential of having ANY students on the range who don’t have fully established trigger discipline, it makes more sense to have a rule that all muzzles remain pointed at the ground so that you don’t have an errant round escape the building.

When you move to outdoor ranges, you’ve normally got berms that define the shooting bays.  Shoot over the berm and there’s the possibility that your bullet will hit something that you don’t want it to hit…again, if there’s any chance of a shooter being on the range who doesn’t have fully established trigger discipline, it makes sense to always keep the muzzles pointed below the top of the berms so that no rounds escape.

There’s another factor at play.  And it has to do with live fire shoot houses.  In many cases, there are catwalks above the shoot house so instructors can watch students shooting and moving through the structure.  If you’re an instructor, and students are going through a shoot house below you, would you want them to point their muzzles down, or up…at you?

Muzzle down makes perfect sense in these situations…in fact, it makes perfect sense in almost all square range situations, but in a real-life, dynamic, close-quarters, fight, muzzle-down isn’t always the best solution.

If you go around a corner and someone starts striking you in the face, would you be able to defend and counter attack faster if your muzzle was up in front of your face or down by your knees?  People argue both ways and people have successfully used both ways in life & death situations…but which is best for you?

If you go around a corner and someone grabs for your gun, do you want gravity working for you or against you?

Try this with a broom handle…hold it pointed down and have someone grab it and try to keep you from pointing it them.  Now hold it pointed up and have them try to keep you from pointing it at them.

It only takes a few seconds to see that muzzle-up gives you a significant advantage.  Add in a little friendly slapping to the face and the advantages of muzzle-up shoot through the roof.

If you go around a corner and are surprised, will muzzle-up or muzzle-down let you muzzle punch (which is potentially a lethal strike) faster?  Muzzle-down is kind of like a kettlebell swing.  Muzzle-up is like a jab…with additional leverage and speed.

Muzzle down is not even always the safest solution.  What if you’ve got young “ankle biters”, family/innocent people curled up on the ground, pets, or you’re upstairs while the rest of your family is downstairs?

What if you’re in a multi-story apartment building, condo, or hotel?

For some of the best research, tactics, and at-home training available for the AR rifle, I want you to check out >THIS COURSE<.  It comes from a stress shooting lab that was put together by a group of retired and medically retired special operations personnel.  They ran 100+ civilian and law enforcement classes per month (100 of which included force on force) and were able to test tactics in a home defense context in a way that no other group had ever been able to before.  They learned which training techniques actually work for civilians with limited training time and budgets, and which training methods really only work if Uncle Sam is buying your ammo.  If you have an AR…regardless of whether it’s for home defense, competition, hunting, or a worst case scenario, you owe it to yourself to get this course by clicking here now.

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