My father swears that he has seen this, but it has all the trapping of an urban legend (although not abstracted):
My father is employing a college student who is working towards a major in Criminal Justice, and along with this is taking some basic firearms training class (I believe he’s striving to be an FBI agent). In it, he was allegedly taught that a cotton t-shirt, suspended as a target, will actually catch most bullets.
My father initially vehemently denied any such idea, but the student prepared a demonstration, and now my father affirms that he has seen a hanging t-shirt actually stop a speeding bullet.
I guess it is possible but then we are getting into the particulars. A .223 traveling at muzzle velocity, no, probably not. A .22 short at 200 yds, maybe.
The OP did not mention whether the bullet had been fired (with a stardard powder charge) from a gun. I’m pretty sure that a t-shirt would stop any bullet I’ve thrown as hard as I could throw. The SDMB has taught me to read carefully.
I’m visuallizing the shirt collapsing around the bullet. The key is that the shirt is hanging freely, not stretched tight. When the bullet first strikes the shirt, that part of the shirt just goes with the bullet, but drags more and more of the shirt along with it. This slows the bullet down gradually. A shirt weighs a lot more than the bullet, so once the shirt has “caught” the shirt, neither is moving that quickly.
For a good visual, hold a piece of tissue paper by the corner, and throw something small and heavy at it (like a quarter or a rock).
I’m with ZenBeam, as much as that’s worth. The shirt is pretty low density, and it is certainly believable that at initial impact, that circle of shirt hit would be able to accelerate sufficiently quickly as not to enter into the crush or shear level of forces. as more of the shirt is accelerated, the inherent strength of cotton as a fiber comes into play, probably proportional to the square of the time. Yes, if the shirt is firmly attached, the bullet would shear it’s way throught. I can punch a hole through a square sheet of rubber laying on the ground with a blunt stick, but certainly cannot if it is suspended by it’s corners.
As far as I can gather, the shirt was cotton and suspended on something akin to a clothes line. The shot was taken from at least some significant distance (at least 30 meters, perhaps), and with handgun, IIRC. The bullet allegedly didn’t even penetrate the shirt.
We’ll go ahead and test this. I’ve got a variety of handguns and ammunition. That’s okay, you don’t need to take the shirt off.
There is a vast difference between stopping a bullet as you said in the OP and what you said in your last post. Try this test with a paper target behind the hanging T-shirt and we’ll see what gets stopped.
I might actually have an opportunity to test but you have to set some conditions. “Speeding bullet” covers a vast range. For handguns alone bullet weights will vary as will diameter shape and velocity but large factors.
You also need to define whether you are using some heavyweight cotton T-shirt of the type peope use for logos etc or a lightweight cotton T-shirt of the type you would wear under a dress shirt. The difference in material thickness is considerable.
I don’t know how many fellow firearm Dopers have this experience, but some loads of .22 short go so slow you can see the bullet travel if the light is right. I am guessing the muzzle velocity could not have been more than 550-600 feet/sec, maybe less. :eek: And it still looks and sounds like a “firearm”, so, coupled with the t-shirt phenomenon mentioned above, it could work…
It’s all about free-hanging t-shirts. A bullet hits it, the thing constantly slows the bullet down, pushed backward and backward and backward. Perhaps cotton is strong enough so that it deforms immediatdely around the bullet but doesn’t break, making a little pocket in which the bullet rests.
It wouldn’t work on a shirt strecthedc voer something, say your body.
I’ve seen little .22 shorts in flight (I was right behind the pistol) in flight. It kind of makes sense though. You can watch the flight of APDSFS rounds from an M1 in flight. Now granted, they’re illuminated by their tracer base but you get a sense of the trackability of a ballistic flight.
Just cut me off if I start claiming to have an ability to see birdshot in flight…
I’ll try it this Sunday, weather permitting. I’ve very skeptical a shirt could stop a .308, but perhaps in can stop a 9 mm fired from a carbine rifle. I’ll give it a shot (pun intended).
I never heard of this, but my guess is that the greater the diameter of the bullet, the more likely this is to happen. Of course the velocity matters a lot too. This is probably most likely to happen with handguns and not most rifles.
It also probably depends a lot on shot placement. I imagine of you hit the shirt towards the top near to where it’s clipped, the bullet will probably go right through.
No matter what, I wouldn’t depend on a Tshirt as a backstop for target practice.
Yes, I performed the test two weeks ago w/ a High Point 9 mm carbine. I even took photos to document the results. (I am serious.)
As soon as I scan the photos I’ll put them up on my web page. As far as a “conclusion” goes, I’ll keep you in suspense until I post the “research report.”
I once saw a demonstration that was somewhat related.
A silk scarf was suspended by two corners and a .22 was fired at the center of the scarf from about 15 ft. away. The bullet drew a line from the center of the scarf to the bottom as it pushed the scarf upward in its passing.
The claim here was not that the scarf would stop the bullet, just that the bullet wouldn’t penetrate the scarf.
I’d love to hear a detailed account from the guy who actually did the demonstration of the t-shirt.
*I wouldn’t normally revive a Zombie thread, but
[ul]
[li]Crafter_Man promised photos of his results,[/li][li]Crafter_Man still posts regularly, and[/li][li]four years of suspense is enough, dammit[/li][/ul]
