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1923 bulletproof vest test. From the Library of Congress.
Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...t_fullsize.jpg
https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net..._vest_test.jpg
More: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016835780/
Previously:
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...765#post140113
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...002#post125307
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...107#post125853
effective armor when shot with a police issue 32 caliber at the time but hardly any protection against a Thompson .45 sub machine gun
I've seen some very graphic photos of the tissue damage done when a cop gets shot wearing a vest. Being shot while wearing a vest can still be fatal despite the bullet being trapped. The shock can cause internal injuries, shock, broken bones, internal bleeding etc. When Second Chance first began selling vests about 1977 or 1978, you could write to them and they would send a sample of the fabric to test. I was working for a law enforcement agency and we got a piece. We shot it with everything in the pistol class we could think of. The only thing that went right through it at the time was a .22 magnum round. Of course the kevlar product was in its infancy then and has since been radically improved over the years.
My former fiancee (the one I didn't marry) was shot in the chest while wearing a vest on duty, was knocked flat and had a large bruise. Luckily it was a small caliber.
Bullet resistant or bullet prof clothing can be nothing more than very heavy coat and a women's whale bone coreset. Or as the story my grandmother told about how a 12 ga shotgun blast nearly prevented my dad from existing. She and her boyfriend were planning to elope one night. She had gotten all dressed up in her fanciest dress complete with a whale bone coreset laced up tight and since it was sub zero weather and snowing she had on her bear skin coat made from a grizzly my great grandfather had killed the previous winter. As she was climbing out her bedroom window to walk through the woods to meet my future grandfather. My great grandfather heard a noise coming from outside in back of the house He grabbed his shot gun and went to investigate, seeing what he mistook for a bear trying to get into the house he shot and hit my grandmother his daughter in the side about the location of her left kidney knocking her flat. Upon examining what he thought was a bear he found out he had shot his daughter only she was not badly injured merely a bruised kidney and a couple of cracked ribs,the coat had close to a dozen holes in it from the probably 00 buck shot. her dress was tattered with holes but the whale bones in the coreset had stopped all of the pellets. So relieved that she was still alive he drove her to meet up with her beau. Instead of eloping they were married 3 months later in the church with my great grandfather walking her down the isle My dad was born a little over a year