Bullet proof vests

Factual Questions
1

Often times those accused of notorious capital offenses will be transported to and from court appearances wearing bullet proof vests. My question: Hasn’t anyone noticed that the HEAD is the most vulnerable part of the body to an assassin’s bullet? What good is a bullet proof vest if the head is left as vulnerable as ever?

2

A head is a much more difficult target to hit than the torso. The body is much larger and much simpler to keep in a sight picture.

Both the military and the police services train to shoot for center mass for this reason.

3

Just to add to picker’s excellent answer. A weapon-sight superimposed over the intended victim’s head looks good in a move but it gives the wrong impression of what an assassin is likely to be aiming at. Myself, I’d try for a nice big exit wound in the back rather than a head-shot. :eek:

4

I would have thought the body was just as vunerable to bits of lead flying through it at high velocity.

Reminds me of the scene from the end of “Dumb and Dumber” too :slight_smile:

5

True, but for how much longer I’m not sure. I just had my annual inservice training and during the firearms session we were trained to draw and fire at the head. This training was difficult as hell and the instructors made you keep doing it until we scored 100% hit ratio. This was intense & stressful. The state DOJ doesn’t mandate this particular training, it was something the instructors came up with.
But seeing body armor is now being sold at Sams Club it may be required training in the future.

6

I assure you, it’s going to be a lot harder if you actually need it, though, as I’m sure you already guessed. More to the point, it’s not something most people need. Lastly, the head is pretty damned hard, even against bullets. Many people survive bullets to the head quite well.

7
      • Either that, or switching to them FN pistols…
        ~
8

But far less do than those whom are shot in other areas. We were required to hit the head area with 2 rounds in 3 seconds from 15 yards. Point shooting. No sights. And we were moving across the floor towards cover while doing it. I got pretty proficient at nailing the target twice in the nose area of the head with my .40 cal. That would be pretty hard to survive. It might be really hard to duplicate that in an actual combat situation, but if you nail the guy a few times in the chest and find he’s wearing kevlar, you’re going to have to go for a head shot anyway.

I had the oportunity to shoot one of those back in October. Not bad. Zero, I mean ZERO recoil. The ammo for these available to the general public do not defeat body armor, by the way. And seeing that many officers get killed by their own weapon it might be a bad idea to carry one that could defeat your vest. :eek:

9

Hey, I saw this one documentary, called Lethal Weapon 3. Man, those magic cop-killer bullets are pretty intense. Say, why don’t the cops use THOSE to kill the baddies? Or do they only kill cops? I’m confused…

:smiley:

10
      • I have read online that people who have tried test-firing the civilian-legal ammo at various soft-armor. They report that (-in addition to having very-minimal recoil) it will go through one side of a level-II vest very easily. Which is not that surprising; soft vests are intended to stop short stubby pistol bullets that can’t disrupt the fabric weave. Long skinny rifle-style bullets poke a little hole in-between the threads and stretch that to a big hole, and then slide right through.
        ~
11

Cite?
I’d be highly suspicious if the testing came from the Brady Bunch as they have an specific agenda to ban everything.

Even if it did penetrate I wouldn’t get my grundies in a bind over it. Lots of over the counter goodies will penetrate. Knives, arrows, many types of ammo shot from a rifle, etc…
One thing about the gun I didn’t like was that it was a little big and awkward. They need to make a compact version for CCW.

12
      • No, it was gun-enthusiast people who had bought them and were curious about the subject. Look around for posts on the High Road and AR15.com forums.
        ~
13

Not to overly hijack, but how do armor vests actually work? Is it just harder-than-normal material? I’d suspect there has to be something to minimize the kinetic energy, but I’m not at all certain how such a thing would work.

14

Actually no. Not “soft” body armor anyway. Police vests used to come with a hard plate (in addition to kevlar) to absorb shock trama and protect against edged weapons.
But it was found that hard materials, like steel, may cause the bullet to ricochet upwards, towards the jaw & lower head. Many armor companies now use a softer material for the shock plate. Velocity has a lot to do with whether a bullet will penetrate or not. And the barrel length of the weapon can affect velocity. A .22 fired out of a handgun probably won’t pentrate a level 2 vest (the most common worn by cops.) Fire the same .22 round out of a rifle at the same vest and it may get through. :eek:

HERE
is a simply expination of how they work.