What happens if you shoot a bed sheet?

[Mr_Rogers]

Don't know about sheets but here is an eye-witness account of a demonstration by Bill Sykes of the "Fairbairn and Sykes" duo.

"And the other example, which I saw demonstrated, was after we did the combat pistol course, and all were felling (sic) rather over-confident with the knock-down power of the issued Colt cartridge, Bill called a greatcoat-clad sergeant over to stand at the fifty-yard target backstop. The 'target' stood with feet about thirty inches apart, hands in overcoat pockets, and holding the garment away from his body. A loaded 'Thompson' was set at repetition fire mode, and Bill tapped-off single shots that struck the center of the man's coat. At each shot I saw his coat 'flick' and I, like everybody present, assumed that the bullets just hit the multi-layers of cloth and dropped to the earth. Our greatcoats were double breasted heavy woolen material, with a same cloth lining, plus a heavy-weave horse hair-like spacer, so that's six layers.

 

[zootsuit002]

I really would have expected more from The High Road, than some of the responses that I have seen here. Many of you have dismissed this out of turn without even looking at it scientifically. I suspect that that is why you probably also believe in global warming being caused by your SUV. As soon as the variables (plural) of resistance become more than the force required to penetrate variables (plural also) when exceeded by the force applied against. Then and only then will the bullet penetrate. This is the whole principle on which Kevlar works. We can get into all kinds of sub-discussions on fabrics moving out of the way and what not, but it is mostly pointless. When the force applied against the fabric (composed of speed, inertia, and friction variables) is less than the force required to penetrate (composed of the resistance to movement and the resistance to penetration variables as well as the friction and time variables) the bullet will stop. All of you who mocked the idea in it's entirety are now forced to give up 3 IQ points for being wrong in your ignorance and unlike THR and I will give up 5 Cool points for having to point this out.

 

[jon_in_wv]

I'll second that.

 

[Norinco982lover]

Have your friend hold the sheet up and shoot him...er the sheet...

 

[Grey_Mana]

Moderators, please delete this thread!!!
It is revealing super secret classified technology, virtually giving away America's next generation of interactive tank armor!

All that steel and polymer welded on military vehicles are just smoke and mirrors. The real protective layer is 100% cotton, 260 thread count.

 

[gregormeister]

I don't understand why the moderators have not locked this thread yet???
Oh because its not based on a soon to be anti-gun president. My bad....What rubbish...

 

[Pongwoo]

for the love of god people 6 pages on this non sense, after this i can start my thread on how many body's can i penetrate with a 5.56 in a row?

 

[benEzra]

according to the theory you can stop anything that way(if I remember correctly)bc the sheet catches it it's the resistance that makes it penetrate like the baseball ex above. of course for a bullet it'd have to be a huge sheet like maybe the size of deleware so a bed sheet i would say no

A sheet made of fibers with enough tensile strength and elasticity to withstand thousands of pounds of force concentrated on a sub-half-inch spot could catch a bullet. And it wouldn't have to be huge, just a few feet across, probably.

BUT, cotton and other bedding materials lack the necessary tensile strength to stop a bullet in a single layer; it doesn't matter how big the sheet is, the threads right around the bullet will rip and the bullet will go through.

If you wove a curtain of cotton (cellulose) fiber a foot or two thick, yes, it could stop a bullet, just like cellulose phone books will stop a bullet. But a cotton sheet won't.

 

[jon_in_wv]

No its not.








I know that doesn't make sense. But I'm ok with that.

 

[tim71]

Someone told me once that they did something similiar. Only the story was that you could hang a bedsheet from the top; like a closeline, and shoot it with a .22 and the sheet would simply move out of the way.

I don't know but several things. First, the lower you shoot the sheet, the more likely the sheet would move out of the way. Also, I'd think a smooth round bullet like a FMJ .45 would be more likely to push it out of the way.

I could see that being possible, especially if you were close enough that the muzzle blast helped move the sheet.

Tim

 

[3pairs12]

What about thread count I wonder how much that would matter.

 

[Grey_Mana]

for the love of god people 6 pages on this non sense, after this i can start my thread on how many body's can i penetrate with a 5.56 in a row?

That's crazy talk PW. I purposefully don't tuck my shirt in, so it will hang free like a bed sheet and stop your puny rounds.

Likewise dresses. Have you ever heard of a pretty woman getting shot in the legs while wearing a dress? Of course not. Throughout history, the only people actually getting hurt by bullets are men wearing tight clothes and naked hippies.

But I'll tell you a secret. It is legal in the US to buy bedsheet-piercing rounds. What you want to do is:
1 - go to your local gun counter
2 - wait until it is just you and the salesman, with nobody to eavesdrop. If necessary, just stand there and wait until people clear out. Don't worry, you won't look like a pyschopath if you wait for hours.
3 - The secret sign is the most important step. Walk up the salesman, wink slowly, touch your nose with your left index finger, do 3 quick hip thrusts and say "Hey partner, I'd like to pay you to give me your best bedsheet-piercing rounds. "

 

[Chisel Head]

...I guess if that is true the Klan has something with the sheets they wear. I might even press a couple into robes except all mine have bears and poodles on them. That might not make me to popular at the next convocation of the Claven!...

Maybe, try printing a dragon on the sheet you'll be wearing to the party.
Vanguard, maybe try this experiment. Drop the bedsheet from a high elevation. Then, shoot it as it falls downward. Best to use a hollow-pointed projectile

 

[Superlite27]

after this i can start my thread on how many body's can i penetrate with a 5.56 in a row?

Too many variables in this question.

1) Do you mean "bodies" as in "live" bodies, or bodies as in "corpses"?

If you mean "corpses", they usually cover those with a bed sheet. This will probably influence your experiment because, as determined by this thread, bed sheets have a supernatural, unexplained influence on ballistics.

2) By "in a row", do you mean front to back, or side to side?

3)Also by "in a row", do you mean as a measure of shooting skill (e.g. "how many can I hit in a row?") or as a measure of penetration (e.g. "How many bodies will a 5.56 penetrate if placed in depth?")

4)If you mean as a measure of shooting skill, we'd have to determine distance. Shooting bodies at 10 feet will not be as good as a determinant as, say, 100 yards.

5)If you mean as a penetrant, distance between bodies would also be a determinant. The further away from each other, the fewer that would be penetrated. (Especially if they were covered in bed sheets)

Where are you going to get the bodies?

If you do mean "live" bodies, How are you going to get them to line up?

(I'm only volunteering if I get to hold up a bed sheet.)

 

[GBExpat]

Reminds me of a "WackoNut" security guard that worked graveyard shift at our hotel for awhile in the mid-70s.

Unfortunately, Management had decided to reduce costs and dropped the contract with the offduty VABch police.

This kid, like the rest, only carried a nightstick. Sometimes he would try to spin it and, as often as not, would end-up hitting himself. Embarrassing. Even with that, I felt safe because of the pistol under my jacket.

In conversation very early one quiet morning, he told me that if anyone ever drew down and shot at him, he would just sidestep the bullet. Pardon? Ayup, I had heard that right ... he figured that he was quick enough to sidestep the bullet and if he has a piece of wood in hand he could even hit it like a baseball.

By this time I was becoming thoroughly entertained and continued the conversation.

The one other Interesting Fact that I learned from this fellow was that there is no gravity on the Moon because it has no atmosphere ... the atmosphere is what holds us on the surface of the Earth.

Hmmm ... still a mystery why they wouldn't allow him to carry a firearm.

 

[Ky Larry]

If Zombies ever learn to wear bed sheets, we're all in trouble.

 

[rfwobbly]

Ask your pal to explain the bullet holes in "Old Glory" then.

 

[Pariah 88]

i know this is a old thread and apologise.

I've heard about this and can't find anything on google either. I heard this from my dad, who was a shooter of many guns etc. He told me a sheet on a washing line would stop a bullet. I have thought of writting into Myth Busters about. I want to know if it is physically true. I know the idea seems stupid but hell in this world anything is possible. Stranger stuff has happened. Plus what about different calibres of rounds. Or what fired from. This is plausible.

 

[Sam1911]

This thread is too stupid to live.

Look, if you REALLY can't believe your brain and think this maybe has an ounce of validity, it is REALLY easy to go test it for yourself.