9mm vs armor?

Nothing new about this, barrel length isn't that important. Body armor comes in various levels. It has been known for a long time that the lower levels of body armor will not stop 9mm, 357 mag etc, but will stop 38, 380 or 45. I'm not sure where various 40 S&W loads fit into that. Most of the body armor worn by LE officers today will stop common 9mm loads. This is why the military went to 9mm. They recognized this as early the 1940's during WW-2 and actually wanted to make the change in 1946.

The Russians have spent a lot of time and effort developing 9mm loads that will defeat even the better body armor. I would be surprised if we don't have similar loads as well. But I've not known of them being public.

http://www.defensereview.com/russian-kbp-gsh-18-pistol-and-9mm-pbp-ap-ammo-for-special-applications/

It probably has to do with several factors, one of which is definitely the fact that the author was trying to sell a customer on how good the armor was and did not want to slip into any situation that might show his product in a less than favorable light.

On the technical side, you have two issues: velocity and blunt trauma. First, a 9mm from a 16" carbine ha the potential to be traveling faster than a .357 Mag from a 4" revolver. Depending on what level of body armor was being tested (and what time period the author was selling armor) if the armor wasn't rated for .357 Mag it might not stop a 9mm from a 16" carbine.

IIRC level III-A armor is rated to stop 9mm FMJ at 1,400 FPS (level II and II-A are lower) and out of a 16-18" carbine you could be looking at anywhere from 1,200 FPS for heavier bullets to over 1,700 FPS for some of Corbon's loadings. These numbers are for current off the shelf rounds. I would think that thretically if you were able to limit the ammo to ONLY use in SMGs, you might be able to push velocities higher.

Even if the armor did stop the round, the resulting impact could cause the armor to technically fail due to excessive backforce deformation (proxy for how much blunt force trauma is received by the wearer).

Going back to the "trying to sell products" idea, I think there are just too many variables for a salesman to risk loosing a sale by letting a customer shoot something that the vest isn't rated for.



Now, of we're talking about fighting people who are wearing armor (bad guys of course) I would not count on a long barred 9mm SMG to penetrate body armor EVERY TIME. You may get a few, or the velocity may be low after getting through the armor and not be able to make it to vital organs.

I see two options if you're worried about having to fight armored adversaries. First, of you're stuck with a 9mm carbine, practice failure drills and shooting where the armor isn't (head) if you don't get the desired result by shooting center of mass. Alternatively you can use a rifle and not worry about soft armor.

They can hit the head every time, on Walking Dead, LOL, practice 2 to mass, one to head, in your drills.

OMG there is always so much misinformation on handguns and 9mms and these types of subjects.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_vest
Just look under performance standards. That is the general idea of what the different levels of protection are designed to do. That includes the velocities that were tested and the weights that were used. If you don’t see something on there you need to contact the company and get more testing results. If not, it’s a wildcard. Yes some companies are worst then others but a respectable company will not risk over inflating it’s body armor information at their companies risk.
That being said, there is an expiration date on soft armor. The material will weaken. Plates come in different forms and standards, but that is being taken into a unnecessary direction of this thread.
Lastly this is not a 9mm vs .45 vs 40 debate. Generally, if you have a regular big name brand standard 2a vest with no trauma plate it will stop most normal auto loading handguns. There’s no special military 9mm going through it, there’s no military conspiracy of defeating enemies in body armor with a handgun or other secret reason for or anything of the such.
The fact is it’s not guaranteed in life that any armor thing will save your life if hit, we all just hope for the best. In reality.

I don't know the answer, but have done some testing with IIA and IIIA vest material. I don't know that common 9MM ball or JHP ammo at any velocity reasonably achievable in a carbine length barrel would penetrate.........ymmv

If the picture/article posted were true, armor that can stop 7.62x39 would be "completely wrecked" by a 9mm. And that isn't true at all. Even lightweight soft body armor can stop 9mm.

I think the original quote is more directed at the sales presentation. Just like any performance demonstration, you never want to look like a fool in front of potential clients. Of course, the key detail is missing - the protection level / armor rating. The salesman was directed to not allow a SMG to be demonstrated against their product. I think you have to also consider the source as well - his boss is the sales manager and most likely former salesman. So phrases such as "rifle performance" and "wrecking body armor" have to also be taken with some hyperbole.

Here's a familiar link for some ( http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/9luger.html ) where some real chrono data was taken for a given barrel length.

Also, youtube so generously shows everyone how to defeat most body armor up to Level IIIA (top handgun criteria) .... use a com-block 7.62x25 handgun such as a CZ52 or TT33 OR anything 223. Also note that there are UL test levels more stringent than Level IIIA that will stop rifle calibers.

Body armor is assigned levels of protection. This translates to what calibers it will defeat. The barrel lengths of 9mm SMG's add velocity, but not enough to defeat a body armor level assigned to the caliber.

In general, the smaller the diameter of the projectile and the faster it's moving, the harder it is to stop.

As a rule, not all body armor is the same...not even close.

Rule #2, not all 9mm ammunition is the same. The 9mm on the shelf in Walmart is probably less powerful than 9mm Nato which in turn is less powerful than L7A1.

Yes, given the right combination of ammunition selection, barrel length and armor level, a 9mm can quite conceivably go through armor... which would be really embarrassing for a salesman... or disastrous for someone that decided to skimp on their budget and get a level IIA vest for duty work.

I have seen some "testing" on 3a body armor in person, with my own eyes. Our old vest stopped all of the 9mm and 12 gauge slugs shot into it. A standard 9 mil will go right through a car door though

This is the only 9mm I know of that is effective on most body armor.

GunnyUSMC said:

This is the only 9mm I know of that is effective on most body armor.
View attachment 775844 View attachment 775845

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Gunny,

What kind of round is that? I have never seen anything like it.

Mike

All I can say is it’s clandestine. There are no headstamps. With the sabot there are no rifling marks transferred to the bullet. I believe it is loaded to plus p plus leave.
Can’t tell you where I got it, or I would have to kill you.

bullseye308 said:

View attachment 775726 Please don’t go off topic or try to make this something it isnt about, ok. If you can’t do that please move on to another post.

I was reading an article about the Angstadt UDP-9 and the author mentions he used to sell soft armor and was told while demoing it not to let it be shot by an smg because it will defeat it. I’ll add a pic of that. The gun in question only has a 6” barrel and I wouldn’t expect that to be enough barrel to get enough velocity to do the deed. I carry a G17L with a 6” barrel and wouldn’t think it could defeat a perp with armor.

My question is, what length barrel would it take to get the velocity to get that kind of penetration? Obviously I’m not looking to test it out and I have the utmost respect for all law enforcement and would never harm one. Bad guy with a vest is another story.

It’s just that I’ve seen that mentioned before but with no mention of needed velocity or barrel length to do it. This is just for curiosity sake.

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If your question is based on what factors needed to defeat an opponent wearing body armor, I can't offer anything in ballistics. However, I can tell you what we were taught in the Army that I never really see talked about.

Aim for the groin.

Testicles, femoral artery, bowels, pelvic bone, hip joints, massive nerve cluster, femur.....these things all are tightly located on the groin region and the odds of putting a round through more than one with a shot is fairly high. Even if the target is wearing a groin plate this should be your primary target as the joints open wide with movement and can move to allow entry by virtue of how they freely hang from the body armor.

This is of course all predicated on them wearing some form of headgear along with body armor, mind you. But the groin provides a target rich environment of possible damage points that all either lead to death caused by massive blood loss due to arteries (in under 3 minutes), debilitating pain due to nerves and testicles, cripple them with hits to the pelvic bone, hip joint, or femur....well, you get the idea.

If you are worried about shooting bad guys with armor, it is stupidly easy for them to be wearing AR500 rather than a soft cover. 9x19 isn't doing crap against that. 2 to the chest, then pelvic girdle unless you have an easy headshot.

Mayvik said:

If you are worried about shooting bad guys with armor, it is stupidly easy for them to be wearing AR500 rather than a soft cover. 9x19 isn't doing crap against that. 2 to the chest, then pelvic girdle unless you have an easy headshot.

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Pelvic girdle shot placement is where it’s at

My “major 9” loads for USPSA open are 115 gn JHP’s just shy of 1500 fps out of a 5.5” barrel.

I wore armor for almost all of my 22 years in service on the street (my first vest I had to purchase myself - a minimum first generation "Second Chance" model). In my last ten years I was wearing level IIIa with shockplate that my department issued. Since it couldn't be re-issued when I retired and was slated for a garbage can I was allowed to keep it - and it's still hanging at the back of a closet 23 years later.

All of this was years ago and I was in charge of training for a few years and as a result was involved in the various controversies with the first "kinetic" handgun rounds that hit the market before they were put out of business. Yes, those kinetic rounds (simply a very hard bullet in round-nosed configuration) would go through most standard vests when fired from a handgun. Since they were also teflon coated - the press dubbed them either teflon bullets or simply "cop killers". I believe the first ones we were concerned with were manufactured by KTW (if memory serves). Most of that is just history now - but it's not hard to figure out how to make handgun powered rounds that will penetrate a given vest up to around a IIIa... I doubt that anyone (other than some name-less agency that has a real need for "specialty items"...) has access to them any more.

As far as armored opponents - bad guys wearing armor (and at times full police uniforms) were a reality down here in south Florida back during the wild times of the late seventies up through the very early nineties. Since my service was from 1973 to 1995 it was a daily factor in my calculations for armed incidents. I used to advise my guys that if an armed opponent didn't go down after two center of mass hits they were to "aim lower" starting about six inches below the belt line or aim higher from the throat up.... As anyone who has worn body armor can tell you (along with just how uncomfortable the stuff is to wear on duty day in and day out....) is that there's all too many places where body armor isn't protecting your tender body....

Yes, the info about threat level and the various projectiles each one will defeat is important - but body armor alone won't keep you alive in a critical incident. I know of too many officers that were killed while wearing good quality armor to ever forget that your tactics and strategies in an armed confrontation are always more important than whatever equipment you have with you at the time things go to hell.... In my years we lost three officers a year (every year without fail) to deadly assault of some kind (not all of them to gunfire) - counting Dade and Broward counties as a single entity.... I very quickly quit going to funerals, period, Glad I'm long out of that line of work...