[citation][nom]mikeynavy1976[/nom]"the reason the destruction didn't seem very large is because the iphone didn't offer much resistance, so not much energy transferred into it from the bullet.the reason 50 cals do so much damage to a person or larger ordinance is because they usually offer enough resistance to stop the bullet, so ALL the energy created by a 50 cal's velocity and weight get put into that object, obviously destroying the hell out of it"True, but a lot of damage also comes from the speed the round is travelling at. The round is creating a "pocket" of air around it that does a lot of damage too. That is why you can mess up a limb pretty bad without a direct hit. If the bullet passes close enough the air will do the damage.[/citation]
This seems to have been beaten to death on the Telegraph and Gizmodo (and soon to be here): 50cal > Ipod 4g > Air around 50cal. The 'shock wave' theory didn't hold up, the phone was certainly shot by a 50cal bullet and suffered very little damage aside from the unfortunate bit right in the path of the bullet. I suspect this might be more true for a bullet with a squarer nose, like a 50cal A/E round which is very squat despite being just as wide as the 50cal BMG round used in this experiment. If the BMG round really did create a 'wake of destruction' you can bet it wouldn't have the power to be effective at 2000 yards. Just a though.