Body Armour Penetration Tests

Sergiusz, you bring up a good point. Not all vests are created equal. The more money you are willing to spend, the better they are. You can get vests fairly cheap these days, at around $200 or so. This vest is actually considerably more due to the manufacturer. Is it better? What would you prefer to trust your life to, a $300 Battle Mistress or a $50 Ontario Survival bowie. The vest used was definitelly more expensive than what you would normally buy in that class. What makes it more expensive is beyond me.

Sergiusz, to answer you other question, this vest will easily defeat 9mm hardball fired from a 5 inch barrel. It will defeat +p+ ammo in 9mm which is about as hot as 9 mm gets.

Cliff, yes I agree. However, what I meant was that I did not change the grinds. Did I sharpen the knives? Yes, if they needed it. The knives I did not sharpen were the CS knives, Blackjack, Randall and the BK&T knives which were very sharp. I did not have to worry about sharpening the lightfoot or Busse knives as they were plenty sharp and also the Anaconda. Really the only knives that actually needed to be sharpened were the Ontario knives which I already had sharpened previously. I also did not sharpen the Bucks because they wqere also plenty sharp for this test. All the knives were about equally sharp for most purposes, so only the blade design would make a difference.
 
Cougar, allow me to quote:

"Many of the vest merchandisers make vague claims implying their trauma plates can stop a knife, but with that one possible exception that seems to be all hype. There are numerous reports of penetrating trauma plates with ease."

Now this sounds a little peculiar. The trauma plates, do you mean those heavy, almost one INCH thick cheramic or metal inlays that can be attached to protective vests? During my military service I was often wearing one of those heavy vests. With all the plates attached, it weighed at least 10 kg:s. When examining one of the plates, a label said that it was good for a 7.62 mm round vith a muzzle velocity of 830 meters per second, fired at distance of 5 meters.

I never tried to stab it with my SRK, but I can say good luck to anyone trying to pierce one of those with a knife.



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Tea drinker and hellraiser from Northern Sweden, above the arctic circle.

 
Originally posted by Cobalt:
Sergiusz, you bring up a good point. Not all vests are created equal. The more money you are willing to spend, the better they are. You can get vests fairly cheap these days, at around $200 or so. This vest is actually considerably more due to the manufacturer. Is it better? What would you prefer to trust your life to, a $300 Battle Mistress or a $50 Ontario Survival bowie.
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Hmmm, hard question... Think I would choose no one of mentioned preferring $100 Fallkniven S1 or Benchmade Nimravus. Just my own preference
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And counter question, please: do you really think $300 Battle Mistress cuts 6 times better than $50 Ontario Bowie? The same could be with vests, more expensive can but not must mean better. It is relatively easy to check how knife cuts, much more difficult is to test body armor, especially with interested person inside. So I would get the suggestion higher price - higher protection with good deal of distance, but this is a topic for separate discussion.

However very interesting test, for me at least. Thank you for additional info
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Whoa! I didn't mean to start a flame war here.... I have a bee in my bonnet about this issue; there are a lot of people who think vests can stop knives and some of them are wearing them. I keep pushing this point and some people get upset with me about it, but at least they're alive.... No matter that the guy who attacks you is weak and unskilled, no matter that you don't hold still while he's stabbing you, his $10 knife is going to go through your vest like butter. Don't expect your vest to stop a thrust or even impede it.

Cousin Cinammon: No, I'm talking about vests designed for civilian use, primarily worn by policemen. They're not designed to stop rifle bullets and any hard trauma plates they may have are much less than an inch (25.4mm) thick (they're made of various materials).

I've also seen reports of military vests with trauma plates penetrated by a knife, but I'm sure the trauma plate wasn't an inch thick.

-Cougar :{)
 
Ok, I assumed everyone in here knew that BULLET proof vests are not designed to stop knives. My intent was not prooving that a vest can be penetrated with a knife. But I guess if that's what you want to talk about go ahead. Yes a vest can be penetrated and if you use the lightfoot predator, you could probably go through three vests at the same time.

Here Cougar, just for you, true story: "Cop chases bad guy in the woods, bad guy has a filet knife hidden in his arm. As soon as cop gets close man strikes and cop thinks he just got punched. Filet knife went right through bullet proof vest and collapsed lung. Cop survives to tell about it.

Sergiusz, yes I do think that the Busse is worth that much more.
 
Oh, I see

Thanks for clarifying, and excuse my lacking knowledge of the various means of protecton.

I learn something new everyday
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I hate to beat up on the sharpness thing again, but this is not all about sharpness. It has a whole lot to do with point and blade geometry that delivers the necessary shearing effects on the fibers. A blade with more belly will stall out as the angle of attack becomes too steep. A blade with a very sharp and strong point followed by a fairly straight (bellyless) angle back to the hilt will penetrate the plates and the vest far better than a sharper knife with the wrong edge shape. My thoughts, anyway.

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Jerry Hossom
www.hossom.com
 
Jerry, I agree, and think that is obvious from the knives tested. But it appears cougar and cliff seem to think sharpness is more important in stabbing into very fibrous tissue, than the shape of the point of the blade.

whatever the case, there it is. Take it for what it is. I will be hacking the vest up with the knives soon, but will probably not post it since I will get people with the agenda of how vests can be defeated all over again or moronic comments like "anything can hack a vest up" or " I'm not sure what this test proved".
 
While this vest test sounds impressesive it doesn't mean squat when the nut-case trying to kill you is VERY determined to end your life. He does not care if you have a vest;stab-proof,bullet-proof,it won't matter!
And besides,a criminal will not spend that amount of money on the knives you tested with;an icepick or kitchen knife,or even sharpened screwdriver would be more to his liking. Be real when it comes to testing because false findings will give someone a bad impression, especially when they died because of an icepick to the eye socket.
 
I have only subjective experience to back it up, but I would opine that tip shape is a much bigger factor than sharpness in penetration. In phone book stabbing, some of my knives penetrate a lot better than others, and they are all sharpened pretty much the same.
 
Cobalt.

Once we all get over the fact that your test was not for the vests but how the different blades fared being stabbed into a kevlar material, then we can all talk knife shop again.

How do kitchen kives fare?

What are your conclusions?

It seems to me that it is the tip profile and grind that counts. Body and depth of blade are the main constaints.
 
Cobalt :

it appears cougar and cliff seem to think sharpness is more important in stabbing into very fibrous tissue, than the shape of the point of the blade.
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I said that a sharper blade has a bias in favor of it, this does not mean it will perform at the highest level, just that it has an advantage.

If I was to run a foot race on crushed stone against a world class 100 m sprinter and I had sneakers on and he had to run barefoot the race setup would have a bias in favor of me. However I would still loose badly.

-Cliff
 
Cliff, actually in your race scenario, comparing the sharpness of the knife for stabbing purposes is more like comparing what socks each runner wore. Sure, they may help a very slight bit, but not much more than that. I think that tip design is the overwhelming factor here.
 
Sharpness can make a big difference on penetration of a stab depending on the material and the method of the stab. It depends on how much "cutting" of the material the blade has to do which depends on the blade geometry. A very high belly angle has to be very sharp in the tip area, a very low one doesn't. In regards to slashing, which was also mentioned, edge finish is much more critical on most materials and can be the critical factor.

I have never stabbed or slashed such vests, never actually seen one in fact, so have no idea how much of an effect edge finish, would make for this particular case in regards to stabbing or slashing. It is of course fairly easy to determine just severely blunt one of the better blades and see how much of an effect it makes.

If the vests are similar to wood and your strikes are perpendicular to the vests, the best performers will have slim and narrow profiles with a very low tip rake and zero or negative main belly angles. Sharpness will make little difference as long as the tip is well defined (bevels meet evenly).

-Cliff
 
"It depends on how much "cutting" of the material the blade has to do which depends on the blade geometry. A very high belly angle has to be very sharp in the tip area, a very low one doesn't."-- Cliff I agree with this point if you are looking at comparing blades with profiles like the battle mistress and steel heart. But when your looking at the really pointed bowie or modified tanto or dagger styles the sharpness becomes much less a factor since these styles penetrate so well.

"In regards to slashing, which was also mentioned, edge finish is much more critical on most materials and can be the critical factor. " --Agreed


I would compare the vests to the chest/shoulder area of a wild boar. Very tough and pliable. I will eventually slash at it and maybe hack at it with the Khukuri's to see how they do. I'm sure I'll end up with a pulverized vest.

Greenjacket, my conclusions for my own use were that the thinner bowie style or chisel point tanto's performed the best. The big survival knives just didn't penetrate as well. But then again those knives are more of a hacker/wacker style knife than stabbing styles.

 
If this is worth a flame war everything is worth a flame war. Whenever you post on the net somebody will post on a tangential issue. Sometimes people will even disagree with you.

-Cougar :{)
 
Cougar, you should ask yourself this, when you stated yourself that you failed to see the point of this test. It seems to me that you were part of the cause of the flame.

If you wish to continue this, that's fine by me. I love a good flame
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