Marshall, Sanow, and Fackler need not bother. These ballistic results were generated on a computer - or rather, on part of a computer.
Over the last couple of years I've had my share of Western Digital hard drives crash in horrible fashion. If they didn't get replaced by Western Digital, I saved them for something one day in the future. That day was last weekend, at the 100 yard target line.
First, an image of all three drives lined up, with their respective test cartridges in front of them:
The middle drive got centerpunched by a Remington 700PSS, firing a 150gr FMJ handloaded round at just over 2700fps. I didn't expect much devastation with the FMJ, and the results bore that out. Here are the front and back views. Note the background, one of my favorite gun rags, and just about the only one I'll subscribe to these days:
Nice, neat hole, here's the back view:
All it did was push out the center screw, not a very big exit hole.
Next up, another crashed Western Digital hard drive, facing my 6.5-06 Interdiction Rifle. The load was a 120gr Nosler Ballistic Tip, Moly-coated, clocking a hair over 3200fps. I figured the Ballistic Tip would explode on impact, perhaps causing a good bit more damage due to the bullet construction and velocity. Here's the front side:
Nice, neat 6.5mm hole in the front. Here's the back side:
A-ha! Now we're getting somewhere, the Ballistic Tip opened up inside the drive, with a better exit hole, and copper fragments were left for a good distance behind the drive on the ground.
So, the last drive was standing there at 100 yards, rather defiant. It had good reason to be defiant. I had made another batch of 405gr Beartooth extremely hard cast gas check handloads, on top of a stout load of Reloder 7. These .45-70 loads whistle through the chronograph at 2050fps from my Ruger #1S rifle. Problem is, after about 10 of these rounds, I'm done for the day. I sighted in the Ruger on paper just before I went for the last hard drive. It shows, I started with the crosshairs on the center of the drive. My flinch pulled the round to the right. It still connected:
Nice big .45 caliber hole, albeit right of center. Here's the back side:
Ya, baby! If the hard drive didn't have a problem keeping the bytes and bits from leaking out before this, it sure did now! From a different angle:
Note that the warranty sticker hadn't been disturbed. Hello, Western Digital?
What does this prove? Not a damn thing. I've got several more hard drives, guess it's time to play my poodleshooter AR-15's .223 against my M14NM's .308, and my Garand's .30-06 next time. I understand that if you just nick the hard drive's case on the corner with the .223, the hydrostatic shock will cause the entire hard drive to catastrophically blow up. Even more so if it's a short-barreled M4gery.
I hope at least the pictures were entertaining!