.45 can defeat body armor? (Phoenix Arizona shooting)

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DerGlockenpooper

New member
There was a shooting a few days ago in Phoenix. This is what the newspaper reported (who knows if they got it right):

Cop goes to domestic disturbance in parking lot, approaches car, and is met with gunfire from a .45.

He is hit three times I believe, once in the arm I think, but the issue is about the one that hit him in the chest.

The cop returned fire, BTW, and hit the BG in the leg and downed him. The cop was also using a .45. (This is what the paper said, hopefully they got it all correct).

Here is the quandary:

The paper says that the cop was wearing a ballistic vest, but that the .45 penetrated the vest and went into his chest, just next to his heart.

Now, of all the calibers, the .45 is the last I would see penetrating the vest (it is a low penetration round, fat and slow, and that is what makes it GOOD because it makes a nice hole with less overpenetration like other rounds, eg 9mm).

So, anyway, should I assume the newspaper got it all wrong, or is it possible that the .45 defeated the body armor (what about a trauma plate?).

I read the article very carefully, and it definitly stated that the cop was wearing body armor and that the BG used a .45 and it went through the body armor.


Ps- Kudos to the medical response team, who left the cussing, bleeding bad guy on the ground for 15 minutes while they worked on the cop to saved his life. Too bad the BG did not bleed out....
 
Maybe the BG hit him under the armpit. The only other way I see that is if the guy was using 45 Super. Defective vest maybe?
 
That's strange. I Agree with you that the .45 should be the LAST round to worry about penetration... Maybe it just left a nasty bruise and broke a few ribs.

With any luck, the BG can spend the rest of his life in jail (not likely) and just maybe the Dr. will decide that the leg has to be amputated.

I know I'm dreaming,
Ben

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Almost Online IM: BenK911
ICQ # 53788523
"Gun Control Is Being Able To Hit Your Target"
 
FWIW, an officer was killed in Boise, ID last year while wearing a bullet-proof vest. Yes, the perp shot him under the armpit (at contact range).

So I would assume that this officer was shot in the same manner. I don't believe .45 could defeat the vest.
 
Its possible that the bullet penetrated the vest - one of two ways:
1. A "Vest" is made in 2 parts. The Carrier, and the Pannels. There are several pannels that contained in the carrier and if the bullet hit the carrier and missed the pannels - you have a penetrated vest.

2. Pannels have a lifespan... the recomendation is to replace the pannels after 5 years. Kevlar looses its elasicity over time. If a deparment was a little lax or if the Officer didn't think about it... You can EASILY go past that 5 year recomended timespan by as far as another 5 years. A 10 year old vest may contain kevlar fibers that have become relatively brittle... as a result less able to stop a prenatration.

Or
3. The bullet entered the chest from an angled shot the hit above the vest or through the armpit.
Or
4. Ballistic Vests are rated for a given level of protection - I dont have those levels on hand, and what they are able to defeat... It could be possible that the .45 was actually a hunting load with a .45 caliber bullet... I dont think a normal police vest could handle the energy of a hot .454.

Anyways...
A "Vest" doesnt make an officer bullet proof... all it can do is help increase your chances. Sometimes - the chances just are not in your favor. Thats the job a LEO faces.
 
I have known one officer personally that was shot with a .45ACP in the vest. It did not penetrate the vest but he said for a couple of hours he wished it would have killed him.
A few years ago I took one of my old vest that had surpassed the life span that George detailed above. For shucks and grins a couple of friends and I decided to do some ballisitics testing on it. We fired several shots from a .22 into the back panel with no visible signs of impact. Four rounds of "hot" loaded .44 magnum 210 grain JHP bounced off leaving a light mark that looked like that left by a lead pencil. I then retrieved my .41 magnum from the house loaded with "hot" 210 grain JHP and put up the front panel. The first shot from the .41 buried the bullet six inches into the elm tree it was leanig against.

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Gunslinger
 
Could the BG have had Teflon bullets? They could defeat a vest, if I remember correctly.


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***Torpedo***
Life is good if you can survive it!
 
Not all vests are created equal.

Vests are divided into "threat levels."

The higher the threat level on the vest, the better it is able to resist bullets.

If the cop was wearing a low threat level vest, a very close range shot COULD penetrate it.

It could also be that the vest was old. Vests DO age, and once the kevlar starts to break down, they become easier and easier to penetrate.

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Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Torpedo:
Could the BG have had Teflon bullets? They could defeat a vest, if I remember correctly.

[/quote]

"Armor" piercing bullets get their quality from the very hard penetrator round. These rounds are made of steel, tungsten, etc. To protect the rifling in the pistol barrel the rounds are coated with a softer gilding metal or teflon. The teflon coating has nothing to do with the bullet's ability to penetrate a bullet resistant vest.
 
The officer was shot between the front and back panels of his vest. Basically under his arm. The bullet traveled through his lung and exited the front of his chest. The officer is doing better acording to the media, the punk that shot him died yesterday I think.
 
In other words, the officer was shot in an area where the vests really aren't effective, no matter what caliber is used.

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Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
Sounds very similar to where President Reagan was shot. Reagan also had a vest on, though he was shot with a much smaller caliber bullet than this officer. In fact they couldn't even find the bullet hole for a while, though he was massively bleedling internally.
I hope the officer is doing OK.
 
Folks should be very reluctant to opt for lighter armor than IIIA - given that in addition to rifle threats, there is .45acp ammo touted as being able to defeat body armor such as http://www.aguilaammo.com/45acp.htm

Is there level III armor that really is full coverage but does not weigh so much that it would restrict movement in a domestic or business defense situation (where you won't be running down the street trying to tackly someone)
 
I dont think a .45 ACP load could penetrate a well maintained appropriate leveled balistic pannel - even Aquilla's light fast loads... Which I thing are crap.
 
Thanks Bruel. I just used the term teflon bullets because that's what we used to call the armor piercing bullets.

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***Torpedo***
Life is good if you can survive it!
 
Thanks all. As I suspected, the paper got it wrong. The newspaper definitely said that he was wearing a vest and that the round penetrated it. I read it at least ten times looking for something I missed because I knew it was wrong. No way a .45 is going to penetrate the front panel of any decent vest.


Ps- Torpedo, in case you aren't familiar with the anti-gun crowd, we are very careful about some word usage here. The anti's have everyone convinced that any coated bullet is an armor pricing round, which is totally false, as I am sure you know. So, we are very careful to not let anyone reading this misunderstand and believe those silly rumors. The "armor piercing" pistol round is a myth contrived by anti-gun propaganda to make us all look like we are creating "cop killer" bullets. As you know, it takes a very special designed bullet, out of a very special designed gun or rifle to make armor peircing bullets work, and they are not available in the common defensive pistol. There is no such thing as "armor piercing cop killer bullets" that can be shot out of defensive pistols, but such statements by anti-gun forces do make good headlines and scare the sheeple.

[This message has been edited by DerGlockenpooper (edited July 21, 2000).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Torpedo:
Could the BG have had Teflon bullets? They could defeat a vest, if I remember correctly.


[/quote]

no no, teflon does not help defeat a vest, thats something from the movies(loosely based on something). teflon and kevlar bond when put togather. the way the myth about teflon got started was the infamous KTW brass(or bronze) round.
it was designed to penitrate thick winshields and other car parts from smaller caliber guns like alot of cop carried back in the early 70's. the KTW is not a "cop killer" round, it does not penitrate kevlar armor any better than a jacketed bullet.
the only "cop killers" are bullets with steel or tungsten cores that have sharp points, or sharp pointed all steel rounds going really fast.
do some reasearch if you dont belive me, it will back up everything i have said.



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It is Possible that the officer was wearing only a Level 1 body armor vest.. Level one is only rated for up to .38 LRN bullets..
As far as an officer wearing level 3A, I would not personally want to have a 3A vest on for an 8 hour shift or more..A level 2A or 2 will easilly stop .357 mag rounds, the 2A is rated to stop a .357 at a slightly slower velocity then the 2.
The way they rate body armor is to fire 6 rounds of a givin caliber, the vest must stop ALL 6 while at the same time allowing for only a certain amound of inentation in the clay backing they use to determine whether or not there will be "blunt Trauma sustained..It also has to be able to take at least 4 rounds hit on a 30 degree angle.with none penetrating. The vest must be able to meet these requirements, and be tested both wet and dry.
Also, Kevlar does NOT have a shelf life. Age alone does not cause it to break down, what does that is over exposure to ultra-violet lights, dampness from sweat and improper maintainence. This is one reason many police depts.. give them the 5 year limit, simply because most warrentys will expire after that
because the manufacturer's do not wanna be liable due to failure of the vest because of neglect or improper care givin to the vest and you would be surprised how often even some cops do some pretty foolish things with the vests they have. Like leaving them exposed to direct sunlight and not keeping them clean. All these things greatly reduce the effectiveness of the vest.

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"what gives a government that arms the whole world the right to disarm it's own citizens?"
 
It's possible to defeat threat level 2 vests with the old Super-Vel 230s@1000fps. I did it with a new Safari land along with several other loads and other calibers..henry
 
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