9mm and Shot recovered from Army Balistic Groin Panel
Been kinda meaning to post this anyways... so here goes...
Had a discarded Interceptor, Ballistic Panel, Groin Protector (standard current military issue ballistic panel with no trauma plate)... decided to shoot it with a combination of 9mm JHP +P+, 9mm Ball, .38 spcl. JHP, .357 mag JHP, and 12 ga ~7 shot(?)... hey, it's all I had on me at the time... It was placed over a loose pile of dirt and shot at ~5' distance....
This is the some of the shot and one 9mm slug that we recovered (we recovered them all but I can't find the others right now)... notice that some of the shot is deformed, and some is not...
all of the hollow points just folded in on themselves (as seen in this photo), and failed deform much more than standard ball ammo.
Here is a photo of the label on the panel... for reference as to what exactly it is...
This is the panel assembly taken apart after shooting to demonstrate construction... the fabric goes in the sleeve... the sleeve goes in the nylon case... the nylon case is placed over the groin area... (hopefully yours isn't full of lead like this one)
This is the front of the panel... to demonstrate hit areas.... the large circle is the shotgun blast... it was taken last.. the others are 9mm, 38 spcl, and .357 mag holes
This is the rear of the complete panel assembly... clear exit holes right?? (circled for clarity).... we called "lame" on the Army for this one after the first 9mm appeared to have gone clean through.... we were in haste... yes, there is a considerable amount of energy on the far side of the ballistic panel, enough in fact to rip the fabric, and no doubt leave massive welts, and maybe even organ damage... but as noted earlier, upon further investigation we recovered every shot from inside the panel... very few went more than 6-8 layers of fabric deep... none even came close to getting half way through (clearly focusing the energy in a rather tight area)
This is a closer look fabric in the area hit with the 12 ga 7 shot... a mass of pellets are fused together there in the middle (much more than the photo shows), while some of the errant pellets penetrated much further and stopped with very little distortion... (much further was still no were near halfway through)