What sort of setup did you use?

What sort of damage did it do to the vest? Did you see anything like 'spalling' or just deformation of the vest?

The particular effect that I read about that caught my interest was leg wounds. Not really relevant to an armour discussion but an over-penetrating shot did very little damage other than drilling a nasty hole and causing potentially life threatening blood loss.

Rounds that had started to slow for whatever reason, extreme range for example, or were poorly manufactured would start to tumble and would exit the limb sideways. This resulted in massive exit wounds and irreparable loss of muscle tissue.

As a quick rule of thumb, if it dies to fragmentation warheads, it is a soft target. Even building are often considered "soft" if they are not hardened.

So the 2010 soldier still is a soft target, his 2072 successor in full elemental power armour gets the hard target badge...and has to deal with dragons, blood spirits, drop bears and SR explosive rules. Being a soft target might not be that bad, after all

I too remember reading a study that seemed to show that you had more severe injuries from GSW when you were wearing a flack vest (which won't stop bullets) in Vietnam than when you were not. It was based on detailed USMC records IIRC, but I've been unable to find it again.

If you can shoulder and fire a 137 pound M2HB off-hand....

A .38 special delivers an average of about 420 J.

There was apparently a US military test that showed that Rocky Marciano delivered over 1000 J of energy in a punch.

According to Wikipedia 7.62 NATO releases about 3kJ.

That's why .45 ACP is the holy and sacred all-American handgun cartridge. Wide diameter + low velocity = win. Smaller diameter + higher velocity = fail.

blah

Unless your you're military. Then we use .22s in our rifles and 9mm handguns. We're not actually trying to kill them.

So a tennis ball is more lethal than a 5.56mm round? I beg to differ

Depends, a tennis ball with 1.5kJ of velocity might sting.

How much mass does a tennis ball have?

edit

The back of my electronic napkin guess-timates that such a projectile would be travelling at about 450mph.

Ouch.

If it were something less 'hollow' like a golf or squash ball...

Uhm, I assume you meant "enough velocity for 1.5kJ of kinetic energy"

And who cares about mass, the decisive value for KE is the speed. Still, if you want to hurt somebody other factors like penetration come into play. Even a very fast tennis ball will only cause blunt trauma...

Velocity is energy, which is in turn mass when it comes right down to it, it's all much of a muchness anyway...

A golf ball doing over 500mph is going to hurt like hell. I imagine it might even penetrate an un-armoured person.

edit

A golf ball with the energy of 5.56 NATO has a velocity of 608 mph.....

Back of my hand guess is that that would make heads explode.

No, velocity is the derivative of position in respect to time. Energy is what it takes a accelerate a body to it velocity


And at relativistic speeds even a cotton ball will make targets simply explode...but in more realistic dimensions (wiki says the speed record for golf is 328kph), a tennis/golf/squash ball will certainly lose to faster projectiles with less diameter. Like a 20mm DU round...

Depends on the size of your target.

A little math reveals that a 5,000,000,000,000-tonne asteroid traveling at 90% of light speed would be sufficient to destroy Earth (causing a big enough explosion that the resulting rubble never recoalesces back into a planet).

Your original premise was comparing Tennis balls to bullets. I'm pointing out that objects of this sort that have been given similar kinetic energy to said bullets will indeed be extremely dangerous.

I don't have the remotest smegging clue how to get a golf ball going at 608 mph or what it's range might be but I do know it'll flaming smart if it hits you.

In the spirit of the OP perhaps I should insist that you fire two of those.....

I don't have sufficient Earth moving equipment.

My original premise was that "wide diameter and low velocity beats smaller diameter and higher velocity" is too simplyfied, as it becomes evident when comparing a tennis ball and a 5.56 bullet at their normal speeds.

Added the basic assumption you missed for you.

Yes, that's why lots of branches of the military that actually use their sidearms a lot went back to using .45 ACP, and why everyone complains about how 5.56 NATO has inadequate stopping power.

Much like getting shot with an old fashioned musket in the head would probably cause your head to explode.

wide diameter and low velocity is not always good. recently I have taken an interest in big bore doubles and have read some interesting material. the bore 2 was not very effective at killing large game because its ballistic coeff was so terrible it stopped before hitting vitals or enough vitals. It did however usually cause most large game to stop in their tracks from the impact.

as to 45acp, wasnt there a study done after the philipine war that concluded a 45 caliber pistol bullet is the smallest caliber of ball ammo that will usually take down its target in one shot?

I don't know if there was a rigorous study conducted, but according to legend .45 ACP emerged, Conan-like, rugged and heroic from the mists of time, from the American occupation of the Phillipines. .38 special wasn't cutting it for dropping drugged up knife-wielders who were carving GIs up, so .45 ACP was invented.

EDIT: See, some folktales still live on. When I slam in a mag of .45 ACP, that's like loading up Paul Bunyan right there. How can y'all not get excited and start air riffing over that, to have some living folklore in your hand? One of the reasons I shoot and compete using .45 ACP in spite of the fact that it costs 40 cents a round when I buy in bulk is because it's so folkloric.

Bah, y'all are compensatin. .22 mag, .22 shorts, and .410 shotguns are the way to go.

But yeah, when scary people come out of the jungle with a machette, I want a big bullet. (Sawed of 12 gauge perhaps.)

And that's a difficult assumption, because slug-like bullets will lose their energy very fast.

the 1911 with 45 acp is a rather manly combo. I have investigated recently the prospects of hunting with a 1911. Most I have come across who have done so had excellent results when within 25yrds.

You're firing slugs out of a sawn-off shotgun?

"Short and fat is where it's at!"

A winner is you!

My home protection weapon is a 16gauge Ithaca 37 with an 18 inch barrel. First round fired is normally a slug, because I have learned from experience that nothing says I am ready to shoot your ass than putting a slug through their radiator while they are trying to load their truck with tools from your shed.

I'm personally not (sawed off in the manner I'm speaking of, and not just "short barrelled," is illegal in the US, and it's one of the laws that they take -very- seriously), but in a jungle, with machette wielding individuals after me?

Heck right I am. (And perhaps big-as-heck buckshot; I've never done a comparison between the two, from an illegal weapon, on a person before. Strangely.)

This is the sorta reason I miss Dumpshock.

And I have to agree with Robin, a classic 1911 in colt .45 acp is about as manly as Clint Eastwoods jock strap. If it where any more manly it would grow nuts and demand beer (and none of that sissy shit either) before it would let you load it.

My Springfield 1911-A1 says hi. I don't know about manly, however... more like "classic". It has probably one of the most recognizable looks for the average person.

my Springfield 1911 Milspec say hi back

Big, clunky, expensive and arguably the best military hand gun EVER!

Not my style but I can appreciate it.

My next gun purchase is likely going to be a solid entry-level 1911. I've got to get it pretty soon after the move, or I'm afraid all the other Texans will make fun of me.

I recommend a Kimber TLE2. I've gotten one used and it was accurate and reliable "out of the box". Very comfortable to grip and shoot as well.

Link: http://www.proguns.com/kimber-protleII.asp

I don't know if you consider that entry level or not, but IMO it's probably all the 1911 you'll need. The price is a bit high but you can always go used like I did. That's a bit more of an adventure anyway.

for that much I'd probably go with

http://www.galleryofguns.com/genie/default...x?item=PX9628LP
or
the one I have http://www.galleryofguns.com/genie/default...x?item=PB9108LP

To drift back onto topic, sort of, I'd say that a character should go with what she's comfortable with, not just big gun. Both Sykes and Earp stressed speed and accuracy over impact. If you just want to mini-max it won't matter but for role play it should. I don't mean that a woman can't fire a big gun but it should be in character. RL I have a .357 magnum and a 92F Beretta 9mm but if I could only have one weapon it would be the smaller, .380 Beretta Cheetah. smaller bullets than theo ther two and fewer rounds than the 9mm but I like it better.

Do they work out of the box? That's sadly become an important question when dealing with 1911s.

I've been trying for a very long time now to train my mom to use .45 ACP and 7.62x25 Tokarev (not a super deadly round but it kicks pretty hard out of a TT-33) but she keeps saying that it hurts her wrist. (Finally got a her a .38/.357 magnum caliber revolver.) I'm kind of mystified by this because I've never remotely felt any wrist pain from operating firearms. People always say crap along the lines that women should be running around with .357 magnums, .40 S&Ws, and 9mms and not .45 ACP, 10 mm, etc. I used to dismiss that out of hand as being socially constructed sexist nonsense but now I begin to wonder if there is an element of truth to that, given the difficulty that my mom had been having. I am kind of reminded of this thought because you're saying you'd go with the .380.


The way I personally feel about it, the "real" reason anyone would use 9mm or anything lesser or similar would basically be because the cartridges are cheaper. At 40 cents a round at a good bulk price .45 ACP makes me cry in some ways. But in terms of ease of handling and so forth .45 ACP is plenty easy to use. You just need good form and a pistol with some weight. The more I shoot the more I find myself affected less and less by the recoil. When you look at a 9mm cartridge it's just so small. Except as an economy measure I can't imagine why someone would want to use it when it's not really that much easier to use.

I'm 6'1", about 200 pounds, and working as an EMT means that I get to do such fascinating things as try to haul people who weigh three times what I do out of cars that aren't the shape they used to be; I'm not a bodybuilder, but I've got enough core, shoulder, and arm strength to make shooting higher-caliber weapons amusing rather than annoying. That said, .45 ACP is fun to shoot, but I can shoot .40 S&W just as accurately at nearly twice the speed, because I don't lose all the extra time handling the recoil from the .45.

RE: slow/fat vs. fast/small; some recent events might add to the discussion.

The shooter at Fort Hood last year used an FNH Five-seveN (5.7x28mm, essentially a very high-velocity .22 pistol). Reportedly, he was also found to be carrying an unfired .357 magnum. He fired what has been described as "over a hundred rounds," and injured 43 people, 11 of whom died at the scene and 2 of whom died despite transport to a trauma center. This represents a roughly 25-30% fatality rate with a fast/small handgun round.

I live a fairly sheltered life and was unaware of the Ft Hood incident.

Interestingly one of the commentators quoted in the Wikipedia entry compared it in character with the Virginia Tech shooting.

That shooting was carried out with a .22 and a 9mm packing hollow-points. The fatality rate was about 65%.

That's more than twice as high, possibly suggesting that the AP rounds of the Five-seveN caused many more through and through injuries and reduced the amount of soft tissue trauma the victims suffered.

Question is, what happens when you shoot someone in body armour with a Five-seveN or a P90?

Ronin,
You, quite simply, cannot go wrong with a kimber. They might be the best 1911 clones on the market.

You're the only person other than myself that I've actually encountered who has a 7.62x25 pistol. I'm rocking the CZ52, and I love it. I reload it with 85gr .30 jhp, and it's great.


I've taught a lot of girls that are on the small side. Higher caliber handguns are definitely much harder on them than for most guys IME. The trauma to the wrist is actually reduced significantly with revolvers. The forward weight distribution is easier on the wrist.

I also have http://www.galleryofguns.com/genie/default...x?item=PB9108LP , actually. And yes, it works out of the box. I recommend getting some nice mags for it, you can get 8 round mags relatively inexpensice these days and they don't stick out.

<edit> except mine is stainless, not parkerized.

On the issue of recoil and size... I'm not sure how much I buy into that. I'm tall and quite lithe (6'4" and only 144 ibs) and to further extrapolate, my wrists are female sized (going by watch sizes, at least. I can share watches with my girlfriend). My .45 gives me no problems at all, but I've been shooting since a very young age, so experience may play into it somewhat as well.

I remember a report about the Fort Hood shooting which said that the place was divided into lots of cubicles and that the shooter fired wildly through the walls. So the different fatality rates might be just due to a different modus operandi.

I hear you, I have to buy women's gloves. Even so, pound for pound, dudes are stronger. Not just in muscle, but greater bone density, as well. (sexist? Perhaps so, complain to your maker.) I'm not saying that women can't shoot the big guns, and yes experience does have a huge hand in it. On the whole, though, girls tend to find larger caliber handguns more uncomfortable than men of comparable size do. (In my experience)

My experience involves being an avid shooter and hunter in rural america for most of my life and teaching many people to shoot both professionally as an NRA pistols instructor, and as something of a hobby before I got my cert, and after I let it lapse. (can't teach in this state, CLEET's a bitch.)

I'm not claiming to be THE AUTHORITY, and feel free to argue, I just thought I should establish a basis for my claims before people rail against them.

Experience plays a great part into it as well, but let's also not discount the tried-and-true-but-fundamentally-real "everyone is different," especially when compounded with "every gun is different." Someone experiencing painful recoil may just have issues with the grip angle, size of the grip, shape of the grip, how it all fits together into their hands...my wife can't stand shooting my 9mm Glock 19, but she was having a blast with .357 Magnum loads in my uncle's Colt -- we've discovered, since then, that she just like the grip and angle of a wheelgun more than an automatic. I could probably get a .22 conversion kit for my G19, and she'd still find it uncomfortable to shoot. Just something about it doesn't "click" with her.

As far as women and recoil versus men and recoil? Never discount the heft of ego. I don't think it's necessarily an issue of every woman really feeling more recoil than every man, I think it's a combination of hand size and grip strength, overall weight, comfort/experience with firearms...but also, and perhaps especially, that a woman may just be more likely to complain about recoil making her uncomfortable. Given the prevalence of 45 vs. 9mm fights on forums and in gun clubs across the country already, how many of us know a guy that would actually be willing to say, over a beer after a range trip, "Man, that 9mm really wears me out!"

I will say that an Airlite will wear me out after one cylinder. Those things are murder on me.