In an episode of the Sopranos, Lady gangster Lorraine Calluzzo comes into a local bar with her boyfriend/minder to collect protection money. Phil Leotardo, [Frank Vincent], comes in soon after with his friend Joey and another goon and violently reminds her to kick up to Johnny Sack, not Little Carmine.

Phil then shoots a gun at Lorraine through a phone book with a 38 caliber pistol but, the bullet only makes it to the 'R's. Phil remarks that its her lucky day and "next time, there'll be no next time."

I submit this myth to our two great Mythbusters to sink or swim..

Thank you

Depends on how thick the phonebook is, the distance from the gun and the type of round use in the .38 (standard vs +P, etc). I've shot my 9mm Makarov at close range (6ft) at phonebooks and that round will go right through at least one good sized phonebook and halfway into another. A 9mm MAK is comparable to a .38Sp in power.

Target wadcutters are very soft swaged lead with a flat nose fires at very low velocity. This would be the best candidate to be stopped by a singe phone book. Many .38 special loads use soft lead bullets that easily flatten. However there have been loads for .38 that use wadcutter type bullets with thick copper jackets. These penetrate very well through barriers and will likely penetrate a phone book with ease.

By the way 7.62X51 ball will penetrate 9 average phone books so unless you hve a very large backpack it won't help.

Last year, I wanted some empty .38 special brass to use for blunt arrowheads. I took some wadcutters out to my shed and fired several into two Yellow Pages books. None penetrated the first. (I didn't check to see where they stopped....)
The soft-lead bullets were quite flattened.

Would not reccomend this with stouter loads.

The New York City Yellow pages would probably stop wadcutters. Burlington Iowa's Yellow Pages. A .38 would cut through them like a hot knife through melted butter. But then again there are only like three people in that city.

quite often you will find that softer bullits are used by gangsters when they shoot people they wish to kill. hollow points, wadcutters and talons are designed to do as much damage as possible. so it is possible this is the reson why the bullit didn't pass all the way through the yellow pages.

quote:

hollow points, wadcutters and talons are designed to do as much damage as possible.

The only thing wadcutters are "designed" to damage is paper targets.

Yes, the phone book could easily stop a .38 round. The .38 barely breaks 1000 fps. I've seen much faster bullets (2600 fps) get stopped cold by a hefty phone book.