Possibility of the BG wearing armor affect your HD firearm choice?

[HRnightmare]

have no problem hitting the head at 20-30 ft distances on the fly. Or the legs, it's just as easy as hitting the other vitals areas.

You know on a real person they are going to be moving, you probably will also and your heart racing, tunnel vision, night time, slower timing because you were awoken from a sleep etc. Alot of things happen when your heart rate accelerates into the zone it likely will go to. Your usual vision flattens out, your near vision can go to hell. Your fine, gross and complex motor skills drop off rapidly. Your breathing and heart rate increase drastically which could affect your ability to hold your arms steady. a gun fight is NOT the same as shooting targets.

Also I keep 2 very sharp knives, handy.

In case you didn't stop a threat with your .45 or shotgun? You are going to attack them with a hand held blade?

I am not trying to be mean, but your plan seems more Call of Duty than reality. Again, not trying to pick a fight. I once had that opinion when I could put a 9mm through the inside of a 3" target at 25yds over and over and over. Here is when I realized that is not an accurate portrayal of my readiness.

have no problem hitting the head at 20-30 ft distances on the fly. Or the legs, it's just as easy as hitting the other vitals areas.

You know on a real person they are going to be moving, you probably will also and your heart racing, tunnel vision, night time, slower timing because you were awoken from a sleep etc. Alot of things happen when your heart rate accelerates into the zone it likely will go to. Your usual vision flattens out, your near vision can go to hell. Your fine, gross and complex motor skills drop off rapidly. Your breathing and heart rate increase drastically which could affect your ability to hold your arms steady. a gun fight is NOT the same as shooting targets.

Also I keep 2 very sharp knives, handy.

In case you didn't stop a threat with your .45 or shotgun? You are going to attack them with a hand held blade?

I am not trying to be mean, but your plan seems more Call of Duty than reality.

 

[HRnightmare]

Jeff -

Quote:
In any case, your own body armor maybe the best fight against it if you are so inclined. I have two sets. steel plates and soft plates.

Do you wear this every day?

I used to wear body armor every day at work and I can tell you, I haven't put it on since retirement.


Quote:

This is exactly why I don't wear body armor anymore unless I am instructing certain things on the range. If you don't deliberately put yourself in harms way on a daily basis, the trade off between personal comfort and security puts comfort on top for me.

I train in it frequently being in the service and working for a Gov't contractor but NO.I don't wear it every day nor do I own it for the potential to put it on in a home defense situation. I didn't mean to imply that it was what I reccomend, I was just saying if the OP was soo concerned that might be the best bet to counter a person in body armor if he absolutely feels he must prepare for that.

I mostly have it for training purposes and also for some S&G's. Maybe if someone was actively kicking in my door and I saw they had a gun and I had time to go get my BA, put it on and grab my shotgun or rifle ( which I obviously know is about a 0% chance a scenario would play out like that. I mention it purely becuase its exactly what happened to my buddy. The criminal had just been released from jail, was methed up and was trying to break down the front door for nearly 5 minutes. The guy was slamming patio furniture into his front door, within about 15 ft from the driveway where my friends police car was parked) I might wear it but I certainly was not implying or suggesting someone try to roll out of bed when they hear a bump in the night and throw it on. I do however have a set of soft plated armor.

It weighs about 4lbs total, is level IIIA and simply covers vitals in front and back. Its less restrictive than a sweatshirt and can be concealed by a jacket or sweatshirt.

The only situation in my lifetime when I think I would wear body armor at home is if you anticipated a threat coming. Such as a New Orleans during the Katrina aftermath and there were essentially nightly raids on some of the neighbors. Particularly where the neighbors essentially formed militia's to protect the group. Other than that, its a toy like half of my stuff. I don't ever expect to need to snipe someone from 750yds, I still have the "sniper rifle" or I don't expect to assissinate people in the dead of night. I still have the suppressed P22 with green IR laser.

 

[HRnightmare]

Cant go wrong with a short BBL'd AR-10 if defeating all but the highest grades of armor repeatedly is a big concern to you.

Do a search on youtube for AR500 armor. It is one of the cheapest and steel plates. There are video's of it taking .357MAG, .45, 12GA slugs, .308, 7.62X54R, .223, .22 and having barely any deformation or spalling. Heck some of the videos even show several of those calibers and several shots of each in one test. There is even one video were they have the warehouse forklift run the plate over before shooting at it. I belive they also shot it with .338 Lapua, .50's and a few others.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Do a search on youtube for AR500 armor. It is one of the cheapest and steel plates. There are video's of it taking .357MAG, .45, 12GA slugs, .308, 7.62X54R, .223, .22 and having barely any deformation or spalling. Heck some of the videos even show several of those calibers and several shots of each in one test. There is even one video were they have the warehouse forklift run the plate over before shooting at it. I belive they also shot it with .338 Lapua, .50's and a few others.

Anybody who wants to wear enough AR500 body armor to stop all those different types of rounds can have at it. Especially a bad guy.

I ought to be able to duck and run faster than he can. Heck, I ought to be able to out walk him.

 

[45_auto]

Clearly you have never seen someone take a bullet from a .50BMG or from air support. haha

Not from air support, but I was the .50BMG gunner on an M548 a little over 40 years ago. Never found using it a whole lot of fun, and I doubt that it's effects are really very relevant to a discussion on home defense.

 

[Fred Fuller]

While it might be nice to have on-call air or artillery support in a serious home defense situation (say, if the Fourth Mongolian Horde decided they wanted your big screen), but it's just a liiiiiiiitttle unrealistic to bring the idea here...