Clay Shot With Lead vs Ballistic Gel

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Okay, guys. Guys, I'm I'm serious this time. This is really cool. I think I may have finally figured out a way to utilize clay projectiles better. Look at Look at the excited little woman frolicking with her baking glass. Okay, A, it's called an apron. And B, the idea was to add small rocks and sharp projectiles into the clay so when it explodes, it cause additional damage to those around it and possible shrapnel damage. Yes, against flesh. I could see that would be uncomfortable for other people, of course, not me. Oh, man.

[00:00:31]That's super cool. I've heard whisperings that the Aztecs and other indigenous American peoples have done something similar to that with Obsidian.

[00:00:37]I see. We're just making up names and and places now. No, no, it's it's the Americas. Hold the phone. You're telling me there's an entirely new world? Yeah, it's it's a fascinating new place filled with new peoples, their cultures, their own belief systems. Sir Serge, what what are you doing? Huh? Oh, me. I'm just getting ready to spread the message of peace, love, and forgiveness of our Lord by any means necessary.

[00:01:05]I don't I don't think that's that's quite what Jesus had in mind.

[00:01:19]Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, nerd and nerds. Now, out here, I finally got some ballistic gel.

[00:01:24]Um, so I was doing some research into it and as far as it goes, like for a stomach shot. This is going to be a torso shot with no bones. You need like 8 in. This is about 4 and 1/2 in. I made the front a little thicker so you add more of the gel in it to simulate skin.

[00:01:36]And I have a few different shots here to try out. So I have this one here cuz a lot of people commented like, "What if you put something in between the clay to make it explode more?" So this is lead inside. This is about two and a half ounces of lead. I've kind of built that into it and hardened it over time. So this is a lead shot. So, we're going to try that here. This here is a scatter shot. So, what I did with this one is I took small rocks, small gravel, small sharp pieces of things and added that to it as well. So, I built these as well.

[00:02:04]This is a different kind of clay that hardens like concrete. So, it's a much firmer, harder type. And then I have just standard clay shot. After that, I do have lead. Now, the big thing I want to test is clay shot against, let's say, skin cuz I know it hits hard, but I don't know how it'll do against this.

[00:02:20]So, we're going to test it against a ballistic gel, starting with the clay shot, then from there move to scattershot, then to lead, and then to this one here, and probably end with just 6 ounces of lead as well to see if I can punch through that. Because historically, it is noted that they would actually have to have a special tool remove the lead from the soldier if he was hit. So, we're going to check and see how much I can get through here.

[00:02:42]>> Now, we're going to be starting with standard clay shot. This is just about 3 oz. So, not super heavy, but enough to get some good velocity. I'm going to do some far away ones, then up close to see the impact, and we'll just kind of start rolling down from there.

[00:03:09]Do it.

[00:03:10]>> Oh, that was much closer. You see that one?

[00:03:13]>> Yeah.

[00:03:42]You guys didn't get it.

[00:03:46]>> What happened?

[00:03:46]>> So, that was the standard clay shot and the first one hit and actually hit the um hit the wood. It broke off, but you can see the pieces are embedded in the ballistic gel here, here, and here. The second one was a clean shot and you can see they actually carved through it entirely there. So that went through about 4 and 12 ines of the ballistic gel. So I'm going to try a few more shots um with just the clay and see what I can do.

[00:04:11]So I'm having difficulties with my ballistic gel. It's the first time I've used it. It's kind of falling apart.

[00:04:16]Obviously I need to work on that. But and you know best case scenario I have these two pieces here, this block. So, that'll probably be a good show cuz if it makes it through all that, that's, you know, probably 8 and 12 in.

[00:04:54]All right, that was about as good a shot as I can make. And this one here, you can actually see I put kind of a ceramic polish over it. Held together much better. That hit was right here. And you can see that that basically went in um almost through maybe about um an inch into the ballistic gel. So definitely good impact. And I think that's probably for me just to kind of get a good sense.

[00:05:16]I'll probably cap it out there with just the clay cuz we have a lot more to go.

[00:05:19]And I've been really having a hard time with this ballistic gel. But overall, these are still punching into it by a good inch and a half. Um so that's definitely indicative of severe damage I think coming in with just these. So, next thing I have here is the scatter shot with that S there. So, I made a few of these and these have those small rocks in there as well. So, those going to be very interesting to see if it does hit that target, if they explode and move out, what that's going to do, if it's going to penetrate deeper into that ballistic gel.

[00:06:42]Okay. So, for that one that hit it was right here, I believe. And you can see the uh projectiles right here from that impact. Some of them went off the side a little bit. Uh it didn't appear that any of them actually penetrated into the skin. I think you can see um the one I made with uh the one I made with the hay. It's got a piece sticking out right there. Just a little one. But I think that Oh, no wait, I'm wrong. Sorry. Okay, that's cool. So, there's actually small rocks infused in here where that exploded and hit. So, this little rock here, this projectile, it broke and it penetrated into the dummy pretty well. So that whole shrapnel thing, you know, it definitely has a chance to do do some additional damage depending. And then just for fun, since that's a replica shield and these clay shot is going really fast, I want to do one standard clay shot against that shield. It's not going to say much, but I think it'll look super cool.

[00:07:55]Yeah, I mean that would definitely be a bad day. This thing is not super strong construction. So, you can see I don't know exactly what the wood type is. It's quite a few layers, but that's just that's not going to stop that thing at all. And that's just clay, by the way.

[00:08:09]There's no lead or rock in there. So, moving fast, guys. Moving fast. Now, before we go on to the lead filled test, I want to try a different way to do the scatter shot cuz I feel like it didn't show very well. So, I want to test against some wood and see how it pushes apart when it hits and if those scatter shots are going everywhere. The idea this came from Aztec Meso American peoples. And there's a lot of secondhand accounts they were talking about filling clay with sharp projectiles like obsidian to make it more deadly or damaging even against armored opponents.

[00:08:37]So, if it hits and explodes on the armor, you still get cut. There's no primary evidence as far as they haven't found any clay filled shot with that, but it's something that definitely stands to reason where if you have access to both those materials, you're making anyway, you might as well put it in there to make it a little bit more deadly. So, I'm going to test a few of these against the wood here and then get some slow motion close-up shots to see if I can kind of see those rocks spattering out and basically what amounts to shrapnel so that way it doesn't only hurt you, but possibly cut the people next to you.

[00:09:31]So, looking at some of the shots we have here, here, um, and then I think here. Yes. And so I can see where the clay kind of erupted into a powder here, but I don't see where it cut into the wood. However, I feel if I did have something like obsidian or very very sharp, it would probably embed in this. That may be something to revisit at a later date.

[00:09:52]But I just wanted to do that before I move on to try and showcase a little bit more of how this worked, the reasoning behind it, and just kind of, you know, some fun smashy smashy. But let's get back to the day at hand. And then moving on to is lead. So, I have about 2 and 12 o of lead in these clay shots. I've hardened them together. And so, it really has to be a really good shot, I feel like, for it to actually hit the delivery mechanism and to punch into it.

[00:10:18]They have to be solid straight on. So, this is getting harder and harder as my ballistic gel keeps falling apart. But, if I can get a center shot in there, I think it'll at least give me some indication of of how things are going.

[00:11:01]Okay, so that one with the lead was right here and that went through and through uh the entire thing. It didn't actually disperse. I feel like it held together well enough to where it was good, but that was definitely punching through about maybe that's 4 in about 4 in of uh the ballistic gel. It went into the one behind it as well, but not enough to go all the way through. It kind of ripped it in the back, but went probably another inch and a half in the back there. So, that's definitely good.

[00:11:24]Now, I'm going to try to get like a slow motion shot up close.

[00:11:58]Hey, Okay. So, you can see this lead shot here was what hit it. It's got a little chip in it right there. You can see the lead exposed on the interior. That was right here. So, you can see that punched through relatively well and easily out the back. You can see the exit wound right here. So, it was able to go through and through. Thing about ballistic gel is it's supposed to simulate like you know the entire interior of the body, not just the skin.

[00:12:29]the muscle and everything. So, I definitely feel like that was a gut shot. It's going to be embedded in there. Um, not going all the way through. I think it's just cuz man, this ballistic gel is never worked with it before. What I want to do now is kind of a two for one. This is a different type of clay. I'll put the description on the bottom. I forget exactly what it is, but it's supposed to harden similar to concrete. And I can already tell much firmer, much harder. So, I have some of the ballistic gel down there just kind of as an offshoot. But, what I really want to do is see this type of material cuz it's awfully cheap. how well it holds up against that wood in comparison to clay. Cuz honestly, this could be a really good type of alternative use.

[00:13:04]It's very light. This is about 2 oz here. This is just about 3 and a half.

[00:13:08]So, they're big but light. So, I want to see what kind of power I can generate with this kind of clay and how it's going to work.

[00:14:06]So, overall, I'd say this stuff is pretty novel, pretty cool. When it hits the wood, it still does explode. You can see one of those hit the ballistic gel here and wedged into it a decent amount.

[00:14:15]The weird thing about it though is that they're large, but they are super light.

[00:14:18]Actually makes it really hard to throw.

[00:14:20]I kept pulling left a good amount. So, it's a different kind of ammo cuz it's large, but it weighs almost nothing. So, I think the velocity is probably honestly slower than it would be, you know, just because it's got more drag and it's not as dense. You can't get as much energy behind it. All right, everyone. Well, I hope you enjoyed that.

[00:14:36]Did not go at all as I had hoped it would. Um, I have a lot to learn when it comes to ballistic material and gelatin.

[00:14:43]I think I got enough decent results to show differences between them, but nowhere near what I had hoped for. So, um I'll try and improve that ballistic gel. Making it yourself is a lot cheaper, but it is kind of getting it set up. So, if anyone wants to donate for, you know, fulls size torso versus lead shot, I I wouldn't be opposed to that, but if not, have an amazing day, guys. I'm going to go ahead and collect all my clay shot that didn't Oh, that didn't break. If you enjoyed that video and are curious how much power an axe of this size has, feel free to check out the video listed up there. It is my video. It's full of manliness.