Backing up a bit to shooting a man flying off his feet. Theoretically I do think it is possible (not impossible).
A rifle bullet can easily have kinetic energy of 1,000 ft-lb. It is enough to send a 1000 lb mass 1 foot straight up, or to send 200 lb mass moving at 18 fps (about 12mph). But in practice, it is rather difficult to get that energy fully transferred to the target.
One story account is the closest that I have heard. It was on a documentary. An army medic was hit by a sniper round. The chest plate in his body armor saved him. It was slightly nicked and they couldn't recovered the projectile. It was believed that the bullet bounced back upon impact. Basically his body absorbed the substantial portion of the energy. He remembered it was like being ramped by a fast moving truck. When he regained his bearings, he was on the ground flat on his back meters away from where he was standing. His teammates' quick reaction and fierce covering fire kept the enemy from follow-up shots. They managed to pull him to safety. Nobody remembered seeing him flying in air, but I would think it must be quite close to.
-TL
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A rifle bullet can easily have kinetic energy of 1,000 ft-lb. It is enough to send a 1000 lb mass 1 foot straight up, or to send 200 lb mass moving at 18 fps (about 12mph). But in practice, it is rather difficult to get that energy fully transferred to the target.
One story account is the closest that I have heard. It was on a documentary. An army medic was hit by a sniper round. The chest plate in his body armor saved him. It was slightly nicked and they couldn't recovered the projectile. It was believed that the bullet bounced back upon impact. Basically his body absorbed the substantial portion of the energy. He remembered it was like being ramped by a fast moving truck. When he regained his bearings, he was on the ground flat on his back meters away from where he was standing. His teammates' quick reaction and fierce covering fire kept the enemy from follow-up shots. They managed to pull him to safety. Nobody remembered seeing him flying in air, but I would think it must be quite close to.
-TL
Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk