The popular YouTube channel Demolition Ranch set out in April 2021 to answer the question: is kinetic sand, which has the consistency of malleable sand and clay-like mixture, bulletproof?
For the test, five boxes filled with kinetic sand were lined up, equaling roughly seventy pounds of sand. The goal was to test various calibers of rounds to see how much penetrating power the rounds have against the unique sand.
The first test was conducted using a .22 long rifle, which was absorbed by the first box. The second was a .357 magnum, which left a small indentation on the back wall of the first box but left no exit hole.
The next round tests a 10m
m round, which penetrates the first box, but doesn’t make it out of the second box. Surprisingly, the 10mm round never expanded and was found intact buried in the sand.
Next up, the team fired a .50 caliber Beowulf round, which entered and exited the first box, but is stopped deep inside the second box. Then the group used a .308 caliber bullet, which had higher penetrating ability than the previous .50 caliber.
After firing several rounds a the plastic sand boxes, the containers were destroyed. Demolition Ranch decided to build a giant sand pile on a table in the hopes of it staying intact long enough to shoot it with the rest of their weapons.
Next up was a .50 caliber Barrett rifle, gold-plated with an incendiary round. The sand pile was decimated, with the explosion taking place deep inside the pile, but the round never exited, leaving the cement block behind it completely intact.
The team at Demolition Ranch concluded that people who really wanted to increase their protection around a house using sandbags should fill them with kinetic sand.
