Is Over Penetration a Myth?

Is the whole over penetration issue a non issue?

We have had quite a few posts on this page about ballistics and how rounds behave. One issue you always hear about is over penetration. What we are talking about is a round going through a threat and striking an innocent.

What we are not talking about is missing the threat and the round either hitting a friendly or going through a wall and hitting a friendly. That’s called a miss.

The whole issue is that if you select a pistol round due to worry for over penetration you are compromising your weapon’s effectiveness. You should instead be working on your marksmanship.

There’s an excellent report done by a FBI agent that stresses that over penetration is greatly exaggerated and that the far greatest danger to friendlies is by stray round.  Download the report here.

We also found  good video that discusses over penetration. Take a look and let us know what you think.