This suggests to me that, when criminals are picking out their firearms, they tend to go for the smaller-sized ones. Now, I'm far from a weapons expert, so I could very easily be wrong, but I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that this bulletproof clothing is sufficient to protect one from handgun fire (we know that the coat is at least strong enough to stop a revolver bullet) - and AFAIK, this will be enough to protect today's corporate wageslaves from the kind of gunfire they are likely to encounter. Note that these clothes are being marketed to corporate wageslaves, not to soldiers, gangers, shadowrunners, or other non-white collar types.

yeah, because who wants a dental plan and a steady paycheck. also being able to form healthy, stable, long lasting relationships is for lamers am i rite?!?!1



jk, of course. after all, who has healthy and stable relationships anymore!

ever since I broke up with my gf it's hard to look at a woman without seeing the evil




on a more relevant note; it's interesting to see the market open up in this direction, though. mainstreaming these sorts of products is a sign of a different mindset on the part of society... these products may not be zomg supar31337, but give time to develope, they may become viable.

It is most likely NIJ level III-A armor, so any high velocity rounds will do -- FN P90/HK MP7 -like weapons, any rifles, or any sort of armor piercing ammunition will go right through. Or you can just shoot him in the groin, legs, arms or head.

Actually, no. Type II protects against 9mm, but doesn't stop a .45. Keep in mind that, in the testing they did in the article, the pistol was a .38.

Now, looking at their catalogue, I can say that the clothes will be useful against a .45, and will definitely be useful for robbing a bank with (up until the guys with rifles arrive).

Right. It won't stand up to continued assault from every gun firing every type of round known to man, so obviously its completely useless.

NIJ level II absolutely does stop .45 ACP FMJs. Hell, II-A does that admirably well -- the 0101.03 version of the Selection and Application Guide to Police Body Armor says "[Level II-A armor] also provides protection against such threats as .45 Auto., .38 Special +P, and some other factory loads in caliber .357 Magnum and 9mm, as well as the Type I threats." They just stopped mentioning .45 ACP in 0101.04 (the latest) and the related SAG. You can get the full 0101.04 (Revision A) here (largeish PDF).

Again, those vests mentioned in the article are most likely III-A, which is by far the most selling level of flexible body armor today, which means it will stop anything up to and including .355" 124gr FMJs at 1400fps (long barrel 9x19mm or .357 Magnum equivalent) and .429" 240gr JHPs at 1400fps (a hefty .44 Magnum load) with little backface deformation, ie. minimal blunt trauma. It will stop loads significantly hotter than that, but those generally cause more than a 1.73" deformation in the backing clay.

ZOMG 500 magnum revolver KE KE KE KE oh those jokers at smith and wesson...


In the same search I got some random related fear mongering: http://www.vpc.org/press/0406vest.htm

Here is your moment of Zen, from the above link:

Yeah, it's gotta be super concealable because now it has a holster.

Well +2 conceal if you choose the concealable ones...

To be fair, I am just a Brit, so I am not going to get started on US gun laws. As to this gun, it does look a bit like overkill. I mean, what do you want to shoot with it? Like the review said, it is going to appeal to people just because it is new and bigger but people will have to think up a good reason for it later.

In-game, I suppose this is another one of those examples of hand-guns designed for taking down a troll. I mean, it just screams anti-troll... A handgun with a rifle's damage-code.

Well fuck me, that shit is truly idiotic. I hope nobody's told them about these or these.

Big, tough, dangerous game. Lions, buffalos, hippos, elephants, rhinos. And paper targets, obviously.

Well that's just it. Kinetic energy doesn't necessarily tell you anything about how well something kills you. The .500 S&W, on the face of it, is much better designed for killing people than many rifle rounds: it's massive, by both size and weight, and thus capable of causing extremely wide wounds as deep as you could ever hope for. It just so happens you can easily get 2500ft-lbs of KE at the muzzle out of a .500 S&W (440 grainer at 1600fps), and that's in .308 Winchester/7.62x51mm NATO territory -- and we all know how insanely nasty those can be against people.

Of course, much depends on exactly what you meant by performance, here. It certainly hasn't got the armor penetration potential, the range or the accuracy.

Absolutely. Hence the stupidity of people going on about Barrett M82s, Desert Eagles, etc.

Hunting a rhino or a hippo with a handgun? That is going to take some real balls...

I meant that I don't think it'll penetrate armor anything like a rifle. The only thing it has going for it seems to be large kinetic energy, and the question is will this cause enough blunt trauma to pose a serious risk?

You don't have to be hunting to shoot those. It could be self defense. Hippos are by far the largest man-killer in africa (if you don't count disease-bearing bugs ofc)

AFAIK, the Big Five have all been bagged with the .500 S&W, most of them several times I imagine. Handgun big game hunting isn't a huge sport, but some people do take it rather seriously. In any case, the only thing that makes the .500 S&W less than optimal for hunting these is the fact that it's a revolver and not a rifle. The cartridge itself is as good for big game as anything.

Yep, it won't. With 440gr @ 1600fps I imagine it would be able to bash through most level III-A, but with blunt trauma alone it would certainly be a far poorer weapon for engaging armored opponents than, say, the Taurus 30C (.308" 110gr FMJ at 1800fps = ouch). [Edit]The Raging Hornet and Bee might be better examples, with .22"-ish 45/46-grainers in the 2500fps-range. I seriously doubt III-A will have what it takes to stop that.[/Edit]

You are familiar with the equation for kinetic energy, right? How big it is is nearly irrelevant.

~J

Yes, I'm aware of the equation. This bullet apparently carries more kinetic energy than a 7.62mm NATO rifle round, which is why I wrote it.

Btw, are you aware that bullet mass is proportional to the square of the caliber? This makes diameter just as "relevant" as velocity regarding kinetic energy. If we assume that bullet length also increases with caliber, caliber even becomes more important than velocity for increasing kinetic energy.

Yeah, about 45-50 ft-lbs more at the muzzle than the US standard M80 Ball 7.62x51mm round. To be fair, that's comparing the hottest commercially available .500 S&W load to one of the weaker 7.62x51mm loads -- generally speaking, the former is a tad behind the latter in KE.

Yes. Assuming that the bullet is a perfect cylinder (which is never true but we can assume) the mass of the bullet would be equal to length*pi(radius)^2*average density.

Since calibur is a measure of diameter, increasing the caliber would increase the mass, assuming that nothing else is altered.

However, it is not true that nothing else is altered. It is unlikely that there will be a demand for armor piercing .500 slugs, meaning no tungsten or depleted uranium rounds in that caliber.

Rather.

Yep! But when you increase the mass without changing the propellant, you decrease the velocity for a net reduction in kinetic energy. If you add propellant, you generally could have gotten more kinetic energy by just doing that in the first place without adding mass.

There are reasons for adding mass, but kinetic energy gains are very rarely among them.

~J

Look mate, you replied this to me:

As pointed out, that bullet carries more KE than some 7.62mm NATO loads. So you got some facts about the weapon at hand wrong and implied I didn't know basic physics.

Why you're retorting with all this about "there's no reason to add massa" I don't know. No one said that. No one thinks KE is that important. It's more like derived property of other factors that are important for wound ballistics and penetration. It's like evaluating sprinters and then talking about how hard they punch. Sure some of the stuff that makes them run fast also makes them able to punch hard, but really who cares.

Exactly. Not only is big game hunting with large revolvers a hobby but sometimes people who go camping in areas that have dangerous animals, such as bears, might carry a large caliber revolver with them in case they need to defend themselves from the wildlife. Should you need to shoot a bear or a boar you're going to want a very damaging round because if you don't stop that animal quickly it would be really awful.

Ehm, that's what laymen would call a rocket launcher (that's what we used it for in the army, to launch 84mm rockets, though you can get other rounds for it AFAIK). http://world.guns.ru/grenade/gl10-e.htm. Having carried that thing, and the ammo for it, on several occasions, I would consider it too unwieldy for your average hiking trip. Reloading is also a bit cumbersome.