Frangible bullets

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:a9mJb.726828$Tr4.1855404@attbi_s03...
Also, if the terrorist
got kevlar through security, somebody's gonna lose their job.

Interesting. Will a Kevlar vest trigger the walk-through metal detectors?

If not, how will security detect it?

Have you ever seen someone wearing a Kevlar vest? It sticks out like Gwenth
Paltrow wearing falsies.

"Jeffrey Voight" wrote in message
...
Velcro gets yucked up by troops in sand. That'd be why we got to fumble
with giant buttons.

Jeff...

So which vest (velcro or metal buttoned) do you think terrorists would wear?


Ron Natalie wrote:
"Jeffrey Voight" wrote in message
...


Oh, actually, now that I think of it, the buttons would on a .mil flak
jacket. They have to make them big enough for a troop to manipulate
with gloves. Without the buttons and grommets, I don't know.


The stuff they sell for the cops around here are velcro'd.

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...
:

dum-dums

Actually, when this subject first came up I wondered if "frangible"
simply wasn't a non-gun-freak's idea of a soft-nosed bullet.

What do coppers use in their Police Specials and (increasingly) Nines?
Are they brass-jacketed military rounds or soft-nosed?

Typically Federal Hyda-Shocks or Wincester SXT's (SXT is the old "Black
Talon" with a different color and different name to throw of the shrills),
the latter which was designed based on FBI specs after the Miami shootout.
The last thing a cop wants, especailly in an urban environment, is a FMJ
bullet.

Seems to me the
latter would be much safer, and not just in hijacking scenarios. Plus
they would be far more likely to disable the bad guy.

You don;t shoot to "disable", you shoot to KILL.


I've often been amused by the thought that shooting at a man obliges
the shooter to use a brass-jacketed round, while shooting at a deer
obliges him to use soft-nosed shells (or a lead slug, in the county
where I live).

Soft nosed bullets are also COPPER jacketed (not "brass").

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Cub Driver wrote:

I've often been amused by the thought that shooting at a man obliges
the shooter to use a brass-jacketed round, while shooting at a deer
obliges him to use soft-nosed shells (or a lead slug, in the county
where I live).

Hunting ammo for rifles is also brass-jacketed. The difference between it
and
military rounds is that the jacket on military rounds covers the entire
bullet;
in hunting rounds, the tip is left exposed. This gives the military round
more
range and decreases the chance that the round will kill the enemy soldier
(as
agreed to by the Hague Convention). The hunting round expands more readily
on
contact and is designed to kill as humanely (ie: rapidly) as possible.

An FMJ bullet adds nothing to range. AAMOF, most match ammo is small hollow
point.


Rounds used by the police depend on local policies. The policy of the FBI
is to
use rounds deliberately designed to kill as certainly and rapidly as
possible.
They are not fully jacketed. The so-called "cop-killer" rounds were
designed to
be used by the police to punch through car doors. They're jacketed.

Unjacketed lead bullets are used almost exclusively in some types of black
powder
firearms and in shotguns.

Cast bullets come in tow varieties; soft lead, for black powder arms, and
hard cast (adding antimony and tin to about 8%) that are used for target
shooting. There's a school of thought that says the most damaging bullet you
can shoot at a human body is a hard cast semi-wadcutter.

Frangible bullets are typically made from machined nylon bar stock. If it
hits any flesh, it virtually explodes about an inch or so inside the body.

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
news

Hunting ammo for rifles is also brass-jacketed. The difference between it
and
military rounds is that the jacket on military rounds covers the entire
bullet;
in hunting rounds, the tip is left exposed. This gives the military round
more
range and decreases the chance that the round will kill the enemy soldier
(as
agreed to by the Hague Convention). The hunting round expands more
readily on
contact and is designed to kill as humanely (ie: rapidly) as possible.

Well, this is just a little bit off, in my experience.

Jacketed rounds aren't meant to less the chance the round will kill
the soldier, but to lessen the damage it does to his insides if he
survives the hit.

A FMJ bullet, as required by the Geneva Convestion (or the Hague...I can;t
remember which) does not expand, but therefore it also produces disabling
wounds, thus requireing soldiers to cart their wounded off the battlefield.
Thus one FMJ bullet can take five men out of action -- one wounded, four to
carry the litter.

And hunting rounds are soft-nosed not to kill rapidly but to ensure
that a leg wound or or non-fatal hit will cripple the deer, so that he
will be tracked and killed by the hunter, rather than escaping into
the next county and dying a slow death from the cold and predators.

Completely backwards. You never shoot an animal unless you're farily sure of
an _immediate_ kill (like mere seconds).


I know how hunting rounds are built. I'm sitting less than two feet
from a box of .303 British Core Lokt Soft Point.

Whcih are high expansion bullets...not as good as the current merchandise,
but good for their day (late 50's to early 70's).

"Richard Riley" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:59:49 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote:

:Yet another myth -- that frangible bullets will provide an adequate
defense
:against terrorists while minimizing the possibility of aircraft damage.
:
:Frangible bullets explode on contact with a target. Good idea if the
target
:is the skin of an aircraft or the skin of a terrorist. Bad idea if the
:terrorist wears thick enough clothing or maybe a layer of Kevlar and the
:frangible bullet will not penetrate the protective layer. Meanwhile those
:bullet shards will be flying all over the place.
:
:I would prefer that sky marshals be issued armor piercing rounds that
will
enetrate bullet-proof vests and make only small holes in airplanes.
Perhaps
:a mix of the first couple of rounds armor piercing and the rest dum-dums
:just to make sure the ******* is dead.

Frangible means it comes apart on contact, like the operation pinball
target aircraft during ww2.

Not quite --IIRC, frangible means it comes COMPLETELTY apart, and not
necessarily on contact. A hollow point, for example, is designed to EXPAND,
but it still should retain about 855 fo it's original weight from the lead
core.


Far more effective are prefragmented (which is really what you're
describing) like Glasers or MagSafe. There is a version of Glasers
that are armor piercing, they punch through a hard layer and come
apart in flesh underneath. They dont go through more than one body.
Overpenetration is the thing to worry about - a 9mm ball can go
through about 3-4 people before it stops.

I can assure you, as someone working with aircraft security, that FAMs
have special ammunition made especially for that mission.

Glassers and MagSafe will punch through an aircraft skin very easily.
Anything that will stop a man will. There were experiments with "bean
bag" rounds in the 70's, but they didn't expand reliably and were
terribly inaccurate. However, a bullet through an aircraft skin is a
complete non-event. A bullet through an aircraft window is also a
non-event, despite what you saw in "Goldfinger". The only dangerous
thing that a bullet in an aircraft could do is hit something in the
control system (guess how many backup systems there are?) or take out
an engine (they can fly without one) or hit one of the people in the
cockpit. (there are two of them, at least)

But FAM's are good enough shots that none of that is going to happen.
It might happen if the bad guy has his own gun aboard and starts
shooting at random - but then an armed FAM is the best chance to save
the airplane anyway.

"Richard Riley" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 05:58:18 -0500, Cub Driver
wrote:

:
:The only dangerous
:thing that a bullet in an aircraft could do is hit something in the
:control system (guess how many backup systems there are?) or take out
:an engine (they can fly without one) or hit one of the people in the
:cockpit. (there are two of them, at least)
:
:Well, it could hit me--that's dangerous!

True, and that's something that everyone involved would like to avoid.
All the good guys, anyway. All that blood to clean up, all the
paperwork. Just a bad scene all around.
:
:Thanks for the information about frangibles / prefragmented / sky
:marshal rounds. But are the marshal's rounds different again from
refragmented?

FAM's have rounds that are loaded especially for the unique job
environment that they face, rounds that are not commercially
available. I can't comment any further than that.

The Glasers are amazing. I don't have any direct experience with the
MagSafes, but they're similar. The Glasers have a thin copper jacket,
designed to tear away. Inside they take #12 birdshot, dip it in
teflon, and swage it into the jacket. The teflon keeps the shot from
fusing. When it hits, each piece takes off on it's own path and makes
it's own wound channel. If it's not a lethal hit, there's so much
surface area in the wound channels that the target bleeds massively,
and goes into shock within a couple of seconds. Get hit in something
like the upper thigh, you'll bleed to death in 30 seconds or so. I
saw a sick horse put down with one shot to the chest from a .38 with a
Glaser, it was down in a count of 4.


A terrorist is a different kind of animal to put down. Any such assailant
must be put down on the first shot...IMMEDIATELY.

"Tom Sixkiller" writes:

Have you ever seen someone wearing a Kevlar vest? It sticks out like Gwenth
Paltrow wearing falsies.

And here we make fun of journalists for assuming that all private
aircraft are Cubs.

Sheesh...

--kyler

Tom Sixkiller wrote:

So which vest (velcro or metal buttoned) do you think terrorists would wear?

The military flak jackets sometimes come up in mil surplus stores, but the ones
sold to cops are readily available all the time by mail order. I'd bet they'd
pick the cop style.

George Patterson
Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is
"Hummmmm... That's interesting...."

Peter Duniho opined

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
om...
Really, we have kevlar detectors out there now? Getting Kevlar through
security
would be trivial.

Furthermore, is Kevlar a banned carry-on item? I don't see why it would be.

One hopes that if several young, large un PCarab/un PC men go through
security with kelvar vests, someone will become suspicious. But that might be
too much to ask cor.


-ash
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