It still hurts like hell.
I’ve seen you tube videos of reporters foolishly testing a vest. They usually scream and start cursing.
The guy that played Eddie Haskell (Leave it to Beaver) was a LA Patrol Officer. He took a hit closeup. The vest stopped the bullet. But, he had a bad compressive impact wound. Made a big wound that put him in the hospital.
BOOM! Shot in the SAPI plate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA6rC_WYBGM) can be quite effective. These are the inserts for the kevlar + ceramic armor referenced by thelurkinghorror.
One friend with first hand experience was knocked on his butt, but otherwise unscathed. The let him keep the plate as a nice memento.
IIRC, the original teflon rounds were developed by police officers to penetrate car windshields. Apparently the steep slope of a windshield combined with acrylic layers in the windshield, caused most regular pistol bullets to either bounce off or be trapped in the deforming acrylic layers underneath. The bullet had a saw tooth hollowpoint intended to grip and drill through the windshield while the teflon coating decreased the resistance.
Frankly, I doubt how useful such a round would be except for road blocks. Against ordinary targets, it would tend to punch through and endanger civilians down range.
This isn’t entirely true. Small caliber rounds are often more effective because they can force the fibers apart without breaking them. The ultimate version of this is the ice pick. Police and correction officer vests have specific tests for ice pick and stabbing weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_vest#Early_.E2.80.9CIce_Pick.E2.80.9D_test
Video of US soldier getting shot in vest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV0pN-LaW6E
He’s wearing “interceptor” armor and gets shot by what I assume is an Ak-47 variant. AK’s fire middle of the road size rounds, in between pistol and rifle.
Do you have a cite for this applying to bullets? The problem is that bullets are a lot softer and don’t maintain a pointy shape long enough to push anything our of the way, and the impulse for a stabbing weapon is a lot longer.
It would be interesting if true, but I’ve not heard of this.
Also, the AK-47 (or more likely an AK-74) fires rifle rounds that are comparable to our own 5.56mm rounds, a little lighter and a bit faster. The military design ammo also has a steel penetrator inside. An older AK shoots a bigger 7.62 round. It’s well into the category of rifle.
If you’ll excuse the hijack, I always take the opportunity in these threads to stress the fact that a Kevlar flak jacket won’t defend against stabbing with a sharp instrument. A friend of my sister died demonstrating this fact. Since it sounds like a UL, naturally you’ll want a source for that, and here it is. One of the saddest stories I’ve heard of youth and foolishness.
The AK-47 is a 7.62mm weapon; the AK-74 is a 5.45mm weapon. Both are, by any definition, rifles, and their ammunition is nothing at all like pistol rounds.
Wikipedia says a 7.62x25mm Tokarev will defeat a level II vest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62x25mm_Tokarev
I’ve also seen anecdotal evidence claiming that .17 HMR can defeat a vest, but that is a rifle round, so it has a very high muzzle velocity and a pointy tip.
hehe. The people who post you-tube videos of themselves getting pepper sprayed act the same way.
Huh! I’d always, ALWAYS heard of coated bullets as intended to defeat bullet-resistant vests. Are they in fact effective in that capacity? (I do gather the coating isn’t what’s relevent but the penetrating core).
Ok, but that isn’t what I am asking about. The theory you provided was that pointer, small bullets are better at penetrating kevlar than rounder bullets because they push the fibers out of the way.
For the reasons I stated above, namely that bullets deform rather quickly and have a much shorter impulse than a stabbing weapon, your theory seems unlikely. I’m just saying that I am pretty sure that pointy doesn’t help with anything – penetration is all about energy and hardness (a steel penetrator will do better than lead).
Lumpy: yes, the teflon bullet for armor piercing is a great example of how common knowledge is often wrong. The cop-killer teflon bullet business was picked up on by the media, and so that’s what people remember. Unfortunately, it was just poor reporting, and isn’t true.
This article says that some version of the 4.6x30mm will defeat ballistic vests. With a steel core and FMJ, it is only going to deform slightly when it hits target.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.6x30mm
The H&K UCP is actually chambered for this round.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_UCP
One of our Chief Constables over here in the U.K. (Manchester I think but could be wrong)volunteered to be filmed being Tasered .
When police forces decided that they would be adopting the device all the bleeding heart do gooders started whining and crying about how some criminals might get hurt.
He said it was a bloody unpleasant experience and I must admit he didn’t look very dignified on film, but he did do it for the right reasons.