Plaster as cover?

[Daddy Warcrimes]

This may be posted in the wrong place.

It's well documented how drywall does not stop bullets. A recent home improvement project has got me thinking.

My house was built in 1916. The walls are 3/4" plaster backed by wood slats. This stuff has broken half a dozen of my drill bits. I went through 3 jigsaw blades for a hole for an outlet.

Obviously this wouldn't stand up to several shots (probably not more than 1 pistol round in any spot) but I'm thinking it may be usable as temporary cover.

Any experience or thoughts on this? Should I be asking the Box o` Truth?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[P95Carry]

What you describe is plaster and lathe and is usually thicker than drywall but IMO it will not do much better at stopping projectiles - just marginally so.

The reason it dulls drills is the plaster mix usually has a lot of fine sand in it as well as lime etc - very abrasive. I'd still regard it as much more concealment than useful cover.

[QKShooter]

My place was built in 1910

Yep, old plaster & lathe has flint sand in it and that is tough on cutting tools. It sure is denser than drywall also.
The lathe is usually only .25" thick and that's not much.

A bullet would blow through it decently easily though & multiple rounds in close proximity to each other and you would pretty much be toast.

Consider it to be concealment rather than cover.

[SIXTO]

it might do a little better than drywall, but only a little

[randytulsa2]

I wouldn't depend on it, but it might slow a round down, deflect it, or make it fragment somewhere other than in me.

But I'm not thinking of it as good cover, and I might try to shoot through it myself if I had a powerful enough weapon (12 ga. w/a slug or a rifle) and I had a real good idea where the BG actually was.

[Tom G]

It won't stop a bullet. It might provide a hiding place.Im lucky. I have a cinder block wall through the center of my house.

[pgrass101]

I don't think that plaster will be a very good bullet stop. It seems to be to brittle

[lowflyer]

Check out this video.

[rocky]

Next time shoot a outlet hole.

[Daddy Warcrimes]

I see the consensus here as: better than drywall, but not good enough.

My conclusion: For use as cover and concealment, plaster should be treated like drywall/cardboar/paper. If I need to shoot through it, add 1 for good measure.

Solution: Dupont Kevlar Stormroom
Now if I could just win the lottery.....