Armor Defeating Pistol Ammunition

[StraitR]

I didn't want to further derail the awesome thread about the Lehigh Defense Extreme Penetrator (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?27394-Lehigh-has-changed-my-idea-of-a-field-pistol) ammunition, because I'm exited about it's use as designed for predator defense. That said, now that it's been shown to easily defeat level IIIA body armor, I'm curious if this level of performance is a concern for those who wear armor professionally. I brought over the video and relevant comments for discussion. Thoughts?


It seems to do well on level IIIA plates.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMuJAWCjtok


Wow, lots to think about with this video.


Indeed. If I were one of the brave men and women in blue, this would concern me.


I get that, and....

Even when I quit in 2002 there was handgun ammo out there that would go through our vests. We never saw any assholes out there with it. I was much concerned about running into an asshole armed with any one of the millions of garden variety hunting rifles that would go through our vests.


I'm under the impression that garden variety thugs don't know enough about guns to be packing this ammo to kill cops. Am I wrong? I'm more worried about it getting banned as armor piercing.

[TGS]

It doesn't concern me.

Encountering a 5.56 AR15 is more likely than encountering someone with 1) a 10mm and 2) that particular ammo. For rural LEOs in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, et al, even with the popularity of big bore pistols they are still very much more likely to encounter anything from a 243 to a 7mm Ultra Mag throughout the course of their duties than this combo.

Outside of the stars happening to align just right on a blue moon, the only way a LEO in most of the US would likely encounter this combo is with a premeditated attacker specifically intent on piercing soft armor with a concealable handgun.....in which case that capability has already been available for decades now.

In short, this does not effect the threat spectrum in any significant way. It does not concern me in either my criminal enforcement nor dignitary protection duties.

[StraitR]

TGS Thanks, that's exactly the perspective I was looking for.

[HCM]

So why doesn't this fall under 18 USC 922(a)(7) ?

I agree with TGS but it seems to fit the definition of AP ammo in 18 USC 921.


(B) The term “armor piercing ammunition” means—
(i) a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium;

[GJM]

So why doesn't this fall under 18 USC 922(a)(7) ?

I agree with TGS but it seems to fit the definition of AP ammo in 18 USC 921.

Definition reads to me like California legal ammo?

[OlongJohnson]

Handgun vs long gun is the main key. Pure copper squeaks by, so AFAIK, Barnes bullets are GTG, but 5% zinc gilding metal jacket material is technically a brass, therefore bullets made entirely of it would be problematic in a handgun. Refresh on Obama's attempt to ban M855/SS109 for more details. That law is written very poorly.

From the LD website:

Lastly, the solid alloy construction (copper for handgun bullets, brass for rifle and muzzleloader bullets) will not deform when contacting hard surfaces like a lead jacketed bullet will do nor will it fragment as some hard cast lead bullets are prone to do.

Looks like they got this right, barring BATFE trying some argument about rifle bullets that "may" be used in a handgun. But the handgun bullets as described are legal by the letter of the law.

IANAL

[5pins]

So why doesn't this fall under 18 USC 922(a)(7) ?

I agree with TGS but it seems to fit the definition of AP ammo in 18 USC 921.

There are several types of copper. Beryllium copper is the only one band. Manufacturers can also request an exception from the ATF if their bullet is used for sporting use.
Here is a good video to help explain it better.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATqByfkEygQ

[5pins]

I’m also uneasy about people “testing” and announcing to the world how a bullet dose against body armor. I also understand that in reality this information will more than likely never be used by someone. I have shot and seen shot several types of soft and hard body armor shot with a pistol a rifle ammo but choose not to share it. I was on the fence on whether I should post my results with my .45 load.

[StraitR]

I’m also uneasy about people “testing” and announcing to the world how a bullet dose against body armor. I also understand that in reality this information will more than likely never be used by someone.

All about them YT likes and subscribers.

Testing ammunition performance against body armor for the purpose of sharing it with the general public is pretty asinine.

[TGS]

I personally am all about sharing such information.

It keeps us abreast of technological developments. If any testing involving body armor were restricted to LE/USG then the truth is that most of us in LE would not have access to that information (think about all the vampire herpes misinformation we are still dealing with in our open source environment), and the only people with the right information would be scattered or small pockets of LEOs.....and professional criminals who are going to do the testing themselves to figure out how to defeat our body armor. Those are the criminals we could actually be hurt by with this stuff, and they're going to develop that information regardless if we make it classified or FOUO.

So, we'd only be hurting ourselves. As pointed out there is a very small chance of this public info being used against LEOs, and my belief is that if we restricted it then it wouldn't actually save any LEOs regardless.


TL;DR:
It's kinda like gun control or drug and alcohol prohibition. People are going to get what they want anyway, so there's no point in hampering forward leaning LEOs who are trying to keep abreast. We all know our agencies would fail miserably at passing good info, so only those dudes with subscriptions to a regional information center that happens to get a good pass-through or guys in high level units would actually have good information......the rest of us would be working off old wives tales.