Multiple hits on a vest

[kannonfyre]

My father recently told me about how a close friend of my grandfather was killed in a gangland assasination back in the late 1950s. This friend was a police sergeant and was having coffee at a roadside cafe when three men got out from a nearby parked car, approached him claiming to be reporters wanting to interview him and swiftly drew handguns and started firing.

Needless to say, that unfortunate police officer was killed. As my grandfather was that cop's close personal friend and the latter had no surviving close living relatives (apparently most perished in WWII), he handled the burial arrangements and signed off on the death certificate. According to my dad, granddad told him that his late friend sustained "several" bulletwounds to the torso.

If we consider that the most common pistol calibers in Singapore where i now live (and then a British colony in the 50s) were .455 webley, .38 Special, .38 S&W and the odd 9mm fired from a browning HP, would a modern class IIA kevlar vest have saved this officer's life?

If we assume that he was hit by 3 .455 webley, 2 .38 special, 2 .38 S&W and 1 9mm round, would a concealable class IIA vest have prevented penetration even if the shot grouping was tight? Would the blunt trauma be bearable enough for this cop to draw his S&W M&P revolver and return fire?

 

[StrawHat]

Assuming we are talking about Kevlar, the end results would most likely be the same. Not from the blunt force trauma but from the fact that a vest when struck by a bullet responds to the rpms by twisting and becoming smaller. By the second or third hit, it is covering an area about the size of a saucer and it looks like your shirt has been poorly stuffed with straw. Not at all like what is shown on TV or the movies. Basically, if he would have been able to return fire without the vest he would have been able to return fire with it. The rearrangement of the vest just makes it more awkward to do so.

 

[CWL]

but from the fact that a vest when struck by a bullet responds to the rpms by twisting and becoming smaller. By the second or third hit, it is covering an area about the size of a saucer and it looks like your shirt has been poorly stuffed with straw.

Can you please s'plain this to me in simpler terms? My English must not be good enough to understand how bullets create "rpms" & will make a vest "smaller" to the "size of a saucer".

 

[1858rem]

Can you please s'plain this to me in simpler terms? My English must not be good enough to understand how bullets create "rpms" & will make a vest "smaller" to the "size of a saucer".

the rifling in the barrel puts a spin on the bullet to add stability, when a bullet is coming out of a 4" barrel at a 1000 feet per second with a 1:16 twist you get, umm.... i dont remember the math but im pretty sure it is near the 11,250 revolution per minute zone if i guessed right.

that's about 11,250 times 8 boolits = 90,000 rpms twisting at the kevlar shrinkin' it up like it had a horrific washer/dryer incident

 

[Oyeboten]

I have a 'Vest' from around 1932 which was rated to stop 'Thomson' rounds, and several 'light' Rifle Cartridges also.


Quite 'good' Vests have been available for long time...though usually, they have tended to be 'heavy'.

The one I have, uses several layers of overlapping tempered Steel plates and padding...all heavily Sewn and Gusseted.


So, since I do not know about present day Vests or their various ratings, I cannot say about which one would have saved him.


But, any 'good' Vest from the late 1920s on...should have, so long as the rounds were being fired at the Vest, and not into his Head, Neck or Armpit...

 

[JimmyN]

The number of revolutions it will turn in a minute is irrelevant, what matters is the number of revolutions over a given distance.

A 1:16 twist is one revolution of the bullet for every 16" of forward travel. If you shot a target 4' away the bullet would make 3 revolutions as it traveled from the barrel muzzle to the target.

So if the bullet traveled 1" from the time it struck the surface of the vest until it stopped then it only rotated 1/16 of a revolution, while it was in contact with the vest, not 11,000+.

In your scenario the bullet would have to stop at the surface of the vest, then spin for one minute to rotate 11,000+ times. I've seen a lot of vests that were shot but none exhibited what you're describing.

 

[mljdeckard]

There is not a vest system on this planet (INCLUDING interceptor with SAPI plates) I would trust to save my life against 8 bullets fired in a real-world shootout.

 

[CWL]

... i dont remember the math but im pretty sure it is near the 11,250 revolution per minute zone if i guessed right.

that's about 11,250 times 8 boolits = 90,000 rpms twisting at the kevlar shrinkin' it up like it had a horrific washer/dryer incident

That sure is some crazy math. Ever hear about the law of conservation of energy in physics? How do you create more energy than what you started with?

FYI, Kevlar and other modern bullet-resistant materials are rated (Levels I, II, IIA & IIIA) by firing 5 pistol bullets into a 8" square of material. While the material will contract in order to absorb the energy of the bullet and disburse it to as much area as possible, the material will then release. It won't keep contracting until the wearer is squeezed like a tube of toothpaste.

 

[fedlaw]

I was taught that multiple hits to a vest can be lethal if a tight grouping just below the sternum. I don't recall any discussion regarding revolutions of the bullets.

 

[CWL]

I was taught that multiple hits to a vest can be lethal if a tight grouping just below the sternum. I don't recall any discussion regarding revolutions of the bullets.

Right, blunt force trauma can and will kill. Not all the energy is disbursed laterally by a soft vest and the bones & tissue underneath will still be damaged.

 

[rcmodel]

I've seen a lot of vests that were shot but none exhibited what you're describing.

It won't keep contracting until the wearer is squeezed like a tube of toothpaste.

LOL!

That pretty well sums it up folks!!

Now excuse me while I go unwind my target backstop.

It keeps getting it's panties all twisted up in a wad by those spinning bullets!

rc

 

[Oyeboten]

It depends on what kind of Vest it is...


Layered, overlapping, large Steel Plates, padded between and underneath...probably, 8 rounds of mixed .455 Webley and .38 Special, right over the Heart, you'd freel a little 'breathless' and dazed...would be about it.

Kevlar, you'd be dead...


Bullets are said to sometimes continue to spin somewhat, after their forward motion has otherwise been impeded...but Handgun Bullets do not posess enough rotational momentum for them to continue spinning very much, once they are impacted or finding resistance.

Artillery Rounds were well known for sometimes coming to rest on the ground, and laying there 'spinning' and gyrating briefly...even as Bullets may...

 

[isp2605]

There are sure a lot of folks spouting off stuff they have no knowledge of. The 11,250 rpm statement is a classic. Some people don't know when to stay in their own lane and not embarrass themselves when they spout off such drivel.
I've seen several guys wearing vests hit with multiple rds. The vest worked the same whether multiple or one.
To answer the OP's question just do a websearch on NIJ Level IIA vest and you'll find the ratings.
A IIA vest will stop all the rds you mentioned except for maybe the 9mm then it will depend on which 9mm rd. Some a IIA will stop, some it won't. A IIA vest is rated to stop a 158 gr .357 mag rd at 1375 fps. The .455 Webly, .38 Spl, and .38 S&W are below the .357 mag level.

 

[MisterMike]

Photo of a kevlar vest (liner removed) shot with various rounds from 18", showing no penetration:



More: http://www.bulletproofme.com/Photos/Ballistic_Testing_PHOTOS.shtml

In theory, if you were fortunate enough not to take any hits outside the area of the vest and if the blunt trauma was not sufficient to cause a fatal injury, you might survive. When bullets start flying at you, it's a crapshoot--sometimes a single bullet from a .22 can kill. OTOH, I've heard of a number of instances in which individuals have taken multiple hits and survived. Certainly a vest helps your odds.

 

[rcmodel]

Don't see much "winding" going on there in that photo!

Anyway, I think it was only those terrible Black Talon bullets that wound your vest up and squeezed the life out of you like a Python on a chicken!

rc

 

[mljdeckard]

And churned your guts with razor-sharp impeller action.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I have tested old IIIa panels that have suffered more than 40 impacts from 380, 9mm, 45 acp, .357, and 44 mag before failing via a round actually penetrating and that was due to compound hits on the same spot.

People most definitety do live through multiple hits.

 

[Vonderek]

Yeah MisterMike but your photo is obviously life-sized and the vest has been "spun" so many times it is now only three inches across. While none of the rounds penetrated, its wearer was obviously killed after being squeezed into the size of a small gerbil! Now I know the secret to how the gnomes were created in "Phantasm"!

 

[JimmyN]

Anyway, I think it was only those terrible Black Talon bullets that wound your vest up and squeezed the life out of you like a Python on a chicken!

You're probably thinking about 'Fang Face' ammo, with the rotating nytrillium cone of death, for which there is no defense, and no substance in the known universe that can stop it once unleashed on an opponent.

 

[JShirley]

kf,

Yes, he should have been able to return fire.

J

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Just curious, StrawHat, where did you get your information? You give a fairly detailed reply almost like you are describing personal knowledge, but it is so completely wrong. The detail is absolutely amazing, the whole twisting, saucer-sized stuffed with straw description is very vivid, fictitous, but vivid.

I ask because these strange rumors creep up time and time again and I am always curious as to how they start and then become accepted and passed off as fact.

 

[Jbabbler]

Mistermike the only reason that vest isn't all twisted up is because some of the guns used probably had a LH twist rifling while others had RH twist. They canceled each other out. duh...

 

[Jim K]

Bullet rotation is real, but has almost zero effect on a target, except in the anti-gun gang's claimed "buzz saw" effect of the Black Talon.

If we assume a 1:10 rifling twist, a bullet will make one full turn in 10" or about 1 turn in full penetration of a human body. An expanding bullet may cause greater wounding than a non-expanding one, but one turn does not a "buzz saw" make.

Jim

 

[Uncle Mike]

That sure is some crazy math. Ever hear about the law of conservation of energy in physics? How do you create more energy than what you started with?

I don't know...but my wife can do this when she gets really mad!

11,000 rpm bullets... hmmm, that would mean the bullet would have to travle for a minute to reach this speed of rotation... I think?

How far away was this guy....

 

[Shadow 7D]

I think that it was one of the problems when they first started making vest, that it was just layers and not bonded / sewn together, also you can see movement on the vest in slowmo, but on modern vest as described above, you can be hit multiple time in the same area (not same spot) with out penetration. Trauma plate can be different, cracking the ceramic and all, but I believe that even then you still have superior protection.