bad guys with body armour

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General Geoff

General Geoff

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This is the main reason my home defense gun is a rifle; because sometimes thugs wear body armour. I'm sure it's not too prevalent among the criminal element (yet), but the way I see it, better to use a rifle and not need it than a shotgun or handgun and have it bounce harmlessly off kevlar.

Am I being paranoid? Am I justified in my concerns? Perhaps both (being paranoid does not mean they're not out to get you!)? :)
 
Rifles are better fight stoppers then handguns. You have the added advantage of being able to penetrate soft body armor in the unlikely event you would need to. I think you made a good choice.

I never encountered a criminal wearing body armor, but have seen it recovered when search warrants were served.

Jeff
 
And the main reason why I practice head-shots in IDPA matches........................yeah it costs me time AND points, but I'm getting more proficient.

Last I checked concealed carry of a rifle was somewhat difficult!
 
I'd like to point out that even if a thug is wearing soft body armor that could technically make a pistol or shotgun round nonlethal, it wouldn't bounce harmlessly off. It can still cause massive bruising, break bones, and cause other damage due to the sheer impact forces involved. If you blast a thug in the chest with 00 buck at 15 feet, he's not going to laugh and keep coming at you. It's still going to hurt him, stun him, and knock the breath out of him, giving you time for followup shots.
 
I don't fault your reasoning, but the potential use of a rifle also has downsides. The projectiles can usually penetrate most residential wall constructions, with rounds inadvertently zipping through the neighborhood. Unfortunate victims of ND's have been sitting on the opposite side of their home, the bullet passing through multiple walls.

The overall size of rifles give them problems negotiating hallways and bedroom corridors; unless a self loading action, manipulating a bolt or lever to reload can be restricted by the same, and introduce another action that can result in an ineffective weapon.

Home defense sources consider a 20 ga auto shotgun with No. 4 to be a more ideal choice in long guns. Pistols are still the best by and large, and most generally used.

The odds of an intruder are small for most of us, one wearing body armor much smaller. I wouldn't want to get keyed on a single issue in home defense.
 
i am less of a headshot guy when doing mozambique drills, after the shots to com do not do the trick, i transition to the pelvic area. i do train on hostage targets and headshots, but i also spend time on going to the pelvic area. chop the trunk and the tree will fall.
 
It can still cause massive bruising, break bones, and cause other damage
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Newton's second law still applies: they aren't taking any more force than your shoulder is taking. Sure, a bullet concentrates the force but body armor, or even heavy clothing, cushion the blow. If you want to cause massive bruising through body armor, use a compound bow.
 
A few months ago the local rag had some kind of story peripherally stating a local criminal had body armor. the picture they had showed like a fishing vest to me.

of course this is the same paper that a couple years ago had a picture of a revolver and called it a semiautomatic assault gun pistol.
 
Aim for the center of the upper thorax, four - five inches up or down shouldn't matter too much
thorax.jpg
 
This was 30+ years ago but I remember a story about a transit cop whose wife bought him body armor for Christmas. not long after said officer saw a kid grab a purse from a lady and took chase the cop was almost in arms reach of the kid who swung around and shot him point blank with a 45 auto. Knock the cop down but the vest did it's job but the bruise he had was something else, from his collar bone to below his navel he was a black,blue and purple and according to him a serious hurting puppy.
 
I also heard that .22s could penetrate body armor if so why not use a Ruger 10/22... ammo is cheap, using hi caps are cheap, and most importantly I doubt they'd cause to much collateral damage.
 
.22 punching through body armor: Thats why assassins use them right? I hear this too much. The old armor of the day (60-70s) maybe could be penetrated by a higher velocity small round, but today's stuff is great in that regard. If it can stop a knife, it could probably stop a .22.

This is up there with "all cop cars, past and present, come with 440 intercepter engines and nitrous. Seriously! My grandfather was a cop in XXXXX department".
 
Not up on body armor manufacturing, however, I would assume chemicals or something.

so on that note:


Chemical Bullets!!! :D Got criminals? Give them some of your CAUSTIC attitude with Acid rounds! Dont get BURNED by the high cost of HSTs and other wonder-rounds! They have a low BASE price! :D Too darn much time!
 
Cutting body armour

Most likely they use water. Water Jets are 55,000 psi, .005" streams which can slice through most fabrics, and when abrasives are added, through most metals.
 
better to use a rifle and not need it than a shotgun or handgun and have it bounce harmlessly off kevlar.
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This is why we have something called the "failure drill".

I don't think you understand how soft bodyarmor works, it absorbs the energy of the bullet, it does not "bounce off". If you hit a BG wearing soft bodyarmor COM with a shotgun slug, it won't penetrate the material BUT the 2" depression it makes into his sternum is going to cause quite a lot of internal blunt force trauma.
 
Here is at least one instance where the BG wore body armor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_courthouse_shooting

Here's another. Note the comment from the police about more and more perps wearing body armor.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2008/07/11/chinook-takedown.html

and another:

http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/...081008-fatal-shooting-body-armo.33cbc8c9.html

one more:

http://www.officer.com/web/online/Top-News-Stories/Man-in-Body-Armor-Shoots-2-Baltimore-Officers/1$40645

All via Google in a 5 minute search....
 
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And note that the shooter in the Tyler courthouse case didn't fall even after the CCW-holder managed to stick a .45ACP below the vest.
 
There is a wide spread belief that rifles are overpowered for home defense, with poor ammunition selection they can over penetrate of course but with proper selection they are a great choice.

With fragmenting bullets their penetration is often less or equal to handguns with far better terminal ballistics and they are capable of defeating body armor. Hornday TAP in .308 is very good, it will penetrate body armor but fragments readily and has very impressive stopping capability. Many .223 bullets have been shown to penetrate less ballistic gelatin than handgun rounds.

Hornady's published ballistic tests of TAP ammunition is available here

Given the opportunity I would far rather grab my LR-308 with 110 grain TAP than my Sig in 40 S&W.

The human body is extremely elastic, counting on the impact of a bullet slowing or stopping a bad guy with body armor is pretty optimistic. The impact of the bullet is not dramatically harder than the recoil of the SG, remember equal and oppisite reaction. Mythbusters also did a test with shooting a pig hanging on a hook to see if a bullet could knock someone back. A small shove from a human caused the pig to fall, a 12 gauge slug did not.
 
Our local PD keeps track of any thugs seen or even rumored to be wearing body armor.

Tactics against them are adjusted accordingly.
 
Unfortunately unless it is a crime to have body armor in your state the police keeping an eye on them wont do much good.

The home owner wont know they are rumored to be wearing body armor, the police might not get there in time and when they do they wont know they are rumored to be wearing body armor either.

It is pretty easy to quickly procure body armor quickly so it is very possible they never were identified as having body armor.

It probably isn't very likely to run into a BG wearing body armor but if it does occur it is even less likely to know about it ahead of time.
 
When I was young, I was taught a song about where to aim on a target with body armor. Let me share it with you.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes ;)
 
You might be a little paranoid. Body armor requires a bit of forethought and not too many criminals have that. I didn't see any HD situations posted but I think there was a case where the home invaders were pretending to be police last year were wearing some. Still the odds are well against it.

Still, a rifle is better than a pistol for other reasons so if that is what you want to use I don't see the issue.
 
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