How bulletproof is a solid wood door?

My house has interior hollow core doors. I am considering replacing my bedroom door with solid wood, 1-3/8" thick hardwood. Type of hardwood unknown. Assuming the door is secured against being forced open, I'm curious about what rounds/type of bullet may likely be capable of piercing this door. Oddly enough, I found no you tube videos of any sort of testing of this issue. Has anyone tried to shoot through this sort of door?

Probably not a whole lot. Definitely not rifle calibers. The rest would depend on the type of ammo and the barrel.

Plastic actually does better believe it or not. I don't know if they make plastic door though
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A solid wood door will slow a bullet much more than a hollow core door, but I would still expect penetration with most types of cartridges.

The door you are considering would not stand up to anything including 22 lr.

These doors are to resist against being forced open or kicked in.

I don't know about stopping bullets but, I replaced the master bed room door with a solid core masonite door, so the door has a 1/4" sheet of masonite on each side and is filled with compressed and glued saw chips. I replaced the jamb also so I could use a 1 1/2" door ordered with 4 count 4" hinges and reinforced the strike side of the jamb with 1'4" steel, and a locking doorknob with a half deadbolt. I expect the jamb will fail before the door from battering.

The hope is to simply slow an intruder till we can grab a gun and get our wits about us. Plus it allows for less sound transference and just feels nice when you operate it.

I found this, looks like a 40 JHP goes right through, even at an angle.
http://www.crime-scene-investigator.net/FiredBulletPerformanceInUniqueEnvironment.pdf
Still, I wonder if the doors are all wood, or some kind of particle board with a veneer.

A typical solid core door is particle/chipboard with a 1 1/4" solid frame around the outer edges and has a wood veneer

I lived for a while in a house with a fiberglass front door. I'm sure they make interior fiberglass doors as well.

Not sure if fiberglass is any better from the penetration perspective.

Another issue is, even if the bullet penetrates the door, does it still have enough velocity to do much damage?

Someone should come out with a line of reasonable looking Kevlar doors for just this purpose. Seems like there would be a (smallish) market for them.

Not at all.


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What's the point of getting a bullet proof door with drywall walls that won't stop a little .22 unless it hits a stud??? Then there's the lockwork. A couple well placed rounds will defeat the lock and let the intruder walk in anyway.

Sadly it will not stop a bullet. A 9mm 115 target rounds have amazing penetration.
Years ago I was preparing to demolish a hunters cabin on our place, so decided to do a test using a hi-power.
The rounds went through 2x4s , 2x6s, metal siding, and doors.
Hope this helps

Well, you could glue up some 2x2 or 2x3, maybe 5 or 6 feet long and 80% as wide as the door. Then just hang the ugly thing on the inside of the door. Now, I'm wondering if 2x3 (which would be nominal 2.5" thick) would stop a bullet.

All that said, there are far better places to spend time and money.

A few years ago I made up 16 targets with 3/4 in ply on front and back,
(total of 1 & 1/2")
12" of compressed foam rubber in between (an old mattress) and on the
front I had two layers of cotton, 1 layer of denim, and 1 layer of leather.
Then I rounded up 16 .38 Spl. loads and tested all of them from a Model
642 at 3'. Every one of them went clean through everything and kicked
up dust 40 to 50 feet down the trail. All "exit wounds" looked about
the same. Don't know if this helps, but it can't hurt.
P.S. The cotton, denim & leather was a 4" x 4" square on the front
plywood for my "target". Believe it or not, from 3' I hit the "target"
with all 16 shots.

Funny thing about penetration, seems like if I'm behind it things go right through, If I'm shootin' through it, seems the darn things hold up, But truthfully, bullets go through a lot of stuff. Maybe they should make doors out of 14" ballistic jet that seems to stop most projectiles.

Plastic absorbs an amazing amount of energy. I've seen rifle rounds stop by 4 IPhones.

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Arik said:

Plastic absorbs an amazing amount of energy. I've seen rifle rounds stop by 4 IPhones.

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Click to expand...

OK, but gluing 450 IPhones to your bedroom door could be expensive.

It might also be hard to sleep if they all rang at the same time.

The good news is the bullet will penetrate the door in either direction.

A .22 LR solid will penetrate 6 1/2" of pine.
I tried it on a 6 x 6 to see if solid wood is better than boards, and it went right through. Steel doors work much better.
A plain bullet only has to retain 200fps to penetrate a person.

Ballistic fiberglass panels inside walls and doors can provide up to level 3 protection and still keep a normal appearance.
They are commercially available.
Bullet Resistant Doors | TSS Bulletproof Glass

If you asked Oscar Pistorius, he'd tell you "not bullet proof at all".

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Barrier penetration depends on both the cartridge being used as well as the specific load/bullet used.

In wood here is some data I copy and pasted for somewhere about 15 years ago - sorry I can't recall the original source.

The loads in yellow are those that might be stopped by a 1.5" thick solid wood door (but it's very doubtful).

Plywood has a fair amount of glue in it, and each ply in the wood presents a new penetration challenge for the bullet as the wood won't just continue to split along the structure of the grain, so plywood is a lot more bullet resistant than solid wood - when the same wood is used in both applications.

As a comparative example, I've personally shot 73 gr FMJ .32 ACP rounds through 2 stacked pine 2x4s and shot 95 gr FMJ .380 ACP rounds through 3 stacked pine 2x4s. That's 3" of pine for the lowly .32 ACP and 4.5" of pine of for the .380 ACP. Having a .380 ACP shoot through 4.5" of pine, isn't a strong recommendation for solid wood doors made from pine.

Compare that 4.5" of pine with 1.8" of plywood noted below and it's an indication of how much tougher plywood is than soft pine.

Wood also varies a lot in density. A solid oak door for example will be more bullet resistant than one made of soft pine (there's a reason they used oak on ships of the line).

Bullet penetration table, inches of plywood (test blocks made up of 1/2" sheet ply).

.380 ACP (9mm Kurz)

95 grain FMJ 1.8"
85 grain Silvertip 0.9"

.38 Special

158 grain SWC 2.3"
125 grain JHP +P 1.7"
110 grain SJHP +P 1.4"
158 grain SWC-HP +P 1.3"

9mm Parabellum

123 grain FMJ 4.4"
115 grain JHP +P+ 3.0"
115 grain JHP 2.7"
115 grain Silvertip 2.5"
124 grain Nyclad 2.3"
147 grain JHP 2.0"
80 grain Glaser 2.0"
140 grain SJHP 1.7"

.357 Magnum

158 grain SWC 4.0"
145 grain Silvertip 3.0"
125 grain SJHP 2.5"
158 grain JHP 2.2"
110 grain SJHP 1.8"

.41 Magnum

210 grain JSP 3.4"
175 grain Silvertip 3.0"

.44 Magnum

185 grain JHP 3.7"
240 grain JHP 2.9"
233 grain Shot Shell 2.3"

.45 ACP

230 grain FMJ 2.8"
200 grain JHP 2.4"
185 grain JHP 2.4"
185 grain Silvertip 1.7"
135 grain Glaser 1.3"

12 Gauge Shotgun

1oz Slug 3.5"
00 Copper Shot 2.1"
000 Shot (LG) 2.1"
00 Shot (SSG) 1.9"
0 Shot 1.6"
No. 1 Shot 1.4"
No. 4 Shot 1.2"
No. 7 Shot 0.5"

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Steel is a different question with a host of different variables,a nd the mathematical models used to produce performance are pretty complicated.

Practically speaking, thin gauge mild steel used in metal residential doors isn't very bullet resistant at all and most handgun rounds 9mm Para or larger with FMJ or jacketed hollow point construction will penetrate them.

If the door has a solid wood core between the 2 mild steel plates, it might be a different story.

If on the other hand the door has 1/4" of mild steel plate, the odds of penetration with a handgun round are low.

Try to find a solid oak four or six panel door, it might not stop all pistol rounds but it will sure slow them down.