I had an idea to increase the "cover" value in my last stand area in the master bedroom of my house.  I built a layered prototype representing

a layer of armour I could add inside the closet of the master bedroom.  It consists of the following:

1.  Outer layer of drywall representing the outside of the wall of the closet

2.  inner layer of drywall representing the inside wall of the closet

3.  First layer of 23/32" plywood

4. First layer of heavy duty sheet metal (the thickest sheet metal Lowes had)

5.  Second layer of plywood (same as above)

6.  Second layer of sheet metal (same as above)

7.  Third layer of plywood

8.  Fourth layer of plywood (not in original idea but left over from bought materials)

For the shoot I used a 2.5" .38 with +P ammo (left side of the prototype), 3" 9mm semi-auto with Fiocchi 147gr (right side) and finally 12ga 00

2 3/4" Hornady TAP (center shot).  All shots were taken at approximately 12' from the prototype wall.  Below is a shot of the wall before the

shoot.

After the shoot and looking from the back there is no evidence of damage/penetration.

After removing the back most layer of plywood there is still no evidence of damag.

Finally, in the second piece of sheet metal there is a dent from the 12ga.

The piece of plywood in front of the second piece of sheet metal has almost no visible damage.  There was a slight bulge where the

12ga struck.

After removing the second piece of plywood (counting from the front) we see that the first piece of sheet metal took quite a beating.

Is this picture the .38s are to the left, the 12ga in the center and the 9mms to the right.  The 9mm had the best overall penetration but

only one round cracked the metal.  No real penetration by any rounds.

This is the back side of the first piece of plywood counting from the front of the wall section.  All rounds can be seen poking through

but were held back by the first sheet of metal (which has major dents as shown above).  The 9mm rounds were basically just sitting on

the plywood in this shot.  The 12ga 00 shots had either disintegrated or melded into one large lump.  The two sheets of drywall were

easily and completely penetrated as expected.

Obviously, this test is not conclusive but I think it shows that an improvement to a "last stand" area can be made without major cost or

effort.  There will be some weight to building a similar laminated object but not like plate steel!  The local Lowes has 2'x2' sections of the

plywood and sheet metal for "projects" that are easily purchased and worked with.  Otherwise you could buy full 4'x8' sheets I guess

and cut the down if needed.