General gun info

[ScottD.Betson]

So long as you live in the US, are not a felon, and don't live in Connecticut, you should be able to buy any level of body armor that you want. Not sure about eod suits, they might be legal too.

but I live in Canada :/

[BTGBullseye]

So long as you live in the US, are not a felon, and don't live in Connecticut, you should be able to buy any level of body armor that you want. Not sure about eod suits, they might be legal too.

but I live in Canada :/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_vest#Canada

 

Also, unless you have about $50,000 USD of disposable income lying around, an EOD suit is out of your pricerange. (and it won't break any bones if someone decides to punch you, not that they would)

[ScottD.Betson]

Well if I had 50 grand id spend that on the EOD Suit or something close to it, I just want to defend myself from someone decides to punch me hard enough so they smash all their bones in their hand

[BTGBullseye]

Well if I had 50 grand id spend that on the EOD Suit or something close to it, I just want to defend myself from someone decides to punch me hard enough so they smash all their bones in their hand

Then you wouldn't want an EOD suit... If you're looking for something that'll break bones, and most knives, look no further than mild steel plate! It's cheap, easy to mold, and totally impenetrable to unarmed combatants. (it's also lighter than an EOD suit by about 20%)

 

Full armor of ¼" mild steel, added outer side hardening with custom welding, (making it even harder to damage) molded to fit your body, would weigh in around 400lbs and cost about $800. (it would also be the equivalent of a suit of plate armor, only stronger and heavier)

 

If you want to go even lighter, and just block unarmed, and some knives... Light stainless steel. ⅛" would be the sweet spot, and it'll only weigh around 200lbs. Can even laminate it with light leather to make it less obvious you're wearing armor. It'll cost you about double the mild steel price though.

[Binky The Rabbit]

I just read an article about the G2R RIP ammo. It looks pretty cool, but I'm seeing a lot of comments saying 'Gimmick' and 'Not worth the $$'. Thoughts?

 

 

[BTGBullseye]

Yes, it's a gimmick... It's a standard fragmentary round for handguns, with a more uniform spread pattern. It won't even do as much damage as a hollow point.

 

Fun to watch in videos though!

[ScottD.Betson]

Well if I had 50 grand id spend that on the EOD Suit or something close to it, I just want to defend myself from someone decides to punch me hard enough so they smash all their bones in their hand

Then you wouldn't want an EOD suit... If you're looking for something that'll break bones, and most knives, look no further than mild steel plate! It's cheap, easy to mold, and totally impenetrable to unarmed combatants. (it's also lighter than an EOD suit by about 20%)

 

Full armor of ¼" mild steel, added outer side hardening with custom welding, (making it even harder to damage) molded to fit your body, would weigh in around 400lbs and cost about $800. (it would also be the equivalent of a suit of plate armor, only stronger and heavier)

 

If you want to go even lighter, and just block unarmed, and some knives... Light stainless steel. ⅛" would be the sweet spot, and it'll only weigh around 200lbs. Can even laminate it with light leather to make it less obvious you're wearing armor. It'll cost you about double the mild steel price though.

I have seen some flak jackets recently, idk if they would be ideal honestly, since they didnt look like they were superbly strong

[BTGBullseye]

Most "flak jackets" you see in stores are just mislabeled plate carriers, they don't actually have any armor in them. The ones that are legit armor, still wouldn't be very good for melee protection.

 

True flak jackets are designed to protect from the shrapnel emitted from exploding flak rounds, (usually not aerodynamic, moving at around 3000fps, and extremely low mass) and nothing else. They have trouble protecting against bullets, (it'd be good against .22cal rimfire, but that's about it) blunt-force, (fists, clubs, etc.) and knives. (or anything really sharp with a lot of mass/force)

[ThePest179]

A question on handguns:

 

Which is better, a Beretta or a Glock?

[BTGBullseye]

A question on handguns:

 

Which is better, a Beretta or a Glock?

That depends on which firearm from those manufacturers you're comparing, and what your intended application for the weapon is.

 

This question as it is currently worded is equivalent to asking "which is better, male or female".

[ThePest179]

That depends on which firearm from those manufacturers you're comparing, and what your intended application for the weapon is.

 

This question as it is currently worded is equivalent to asking "which is better, male or female".

 

Application is for defensive and recreational (fire range) purposes, and the specific firearm is a Beretta M9 vs a Glock 17. Basically comparing the handguns of Half-Life against one another (Glock without HD pack, Beretta with HD pack).

[BTGBullseye]

The weapons have almost identical performance for self defense situations, though the manual safety system on the M9 is probably better for a civilian operator. (they are less likely to accidentally set off the weapon than they would be using a Glock's trigger safety, which is its ONLY safety feature)

 

That said, any store that sells one should also be selling the other. Try each one out, and see which fits you better, as that will be 99.999999999% of the difference between the weapons.

[DrEvilBrain]

That depends on which firearm from those manufacturers you're comparing, and what your intended application for the weapon is.

 

This question as it is currently worded is equivalent to asking "which is better, male or female".

 

Application is for defensive and recreational (fire range) purposes, and the specific firearm is a Beretta M9 vs a Glock 17. Basically comparing the handguns of Half-Life against one another (Glock without HD pack, Beretta with HD pack).

 

This stuff is almost always just personal preference. Though I would much prefer a 92FS over a Glock 17, there's nothing wrong with preferring a Glock even if they look like dumb plastic squares.

[Seattleite]

As always, all the impact force still transfers into the body, regardless of whether the armor stops it, so any round over 100-grain will likely knock the wind out of you if it's going around 1000-1200 fps and hitting soft armor. Hard armor will spread the impact more, and reduce the impact felt on one spot, but it still transfers all that energy into the body, and will still knock people down if they get a rapid onslaught of 3-5 9mm rounds.[/color]

 

I have to respond to this.

 

Bullets have almost no momentum, and their energy is just not as impressive as you think. If you somehow had an armour that provided no padding (which is impossible) and didn't distribute the force at all (which is impossible) but still stopped the bullet, it would leave a nasty bruise and that's about it. An actual suit of armour both provides significant padding and distributes the force over a much wider area, so much so that it's basically the same as being given a hard slap at best, and a paintball at worst. It would take much, much more than 3-5 hard slaps to have a meaningful effect on somebody, and the same applies to bullets.

 

Hard armour does spread it out more, yes. And it actually does such a good job that some soldiers have reported finding bullet damage on their armour when they didn't even realize they had been shot. And that's with rifles, so imagine how much less a pistol would do if a rifle already did nothing.

 

Further, knocking somebody down with a bullet is always impossible. You're familiar with Newton's third law of motion, right? You understand that any firearm that had that kind of power would also knock down the shooter, right? No number of bullets is going to knock somebody down. You can't shoot people fast enough to knock them down without knocking yourself down, and that's ignoring the fact that a gun that had that much firepower that rapid shots from it could knock people down would recoil so unbelievably hard that it would be impossible to hit anybody with it in the first place, and would seriously injure the user's shoulder.

 

M-16 uses a 5.56mm bullet, the AK-47 uses a 7.62mm round. Some might consider the AK superior, (and it very much is for reliability) and others would consider the M-16 superior... (and it is somewhat for range and accuracy)

 

It all depends on what you want to use it for, where you want to use it, and how each feels to you when you test it. (each person is different, and some will prefer one over the other for no reason but how it feels in their hands)

 

Me personally, I wouldn't ever take an M-16 over an AK, just because I prefer reliable firearms over almost everything else. (basic functionality for the desired purpose, then reliability, then quality of construction) I just can't get over the issues they had with the original M-16's in Vietnam; the soldiers had to keep 2 rounds less in their magazines just to keep it from jamming all the time.

 

Multiquote seems to be broken, so I had to do this manually.

 

All I'm going to add is that the Ak-47 also vastly outperforms the M-16 against hard armour, and leaves a much bigger and more lethal wound.

 

if it was possible I would love to own Level V Body Armor, I would want someone to punch me and break every bone in their arm and basically never be able to either shake a hand or ever touch anyone with that hand again and basically be screwed for some time

 

There is no significant correlation between the ability of armour to block a bullet and the amount of damage somebody's hard will take when punching it. Also, it is much harder to break your hand or arm than you think, you could be wearing full plate and somebody punching you full force would still only suffer minor damage to the bones in their knuckles and some slight strain in their wrist. They might, at best, break a finger. This simply isn't going to work.

[BTGBullseye]

As always, all the impact force still transfers into the body, regardless of whether the armor stops it, so any round over 100-grain will likely knock the wind out of you if it's going around 1000-1200 fps and hitting soft armor. Hard armor will spread the impact more, and reduce the impact felt on one spot, but it still transfers all that energy into the body, and will still knock people down if they get a rapid onslaught of 3-5 9mm rounds.[/color]

 

I have to respond to this.

 

Bullets have almost no momentum, and their energy is just not as impressive as you think. If you somehow had an armour that provided no padding (which is impossible) and didn't distribute the force at all (which is impossible) but still stopped the bullet, it would leave a nasty bruise and that's about it. An actual suit of armour both provides significant padding and distributes the force over a much wider area, so much so that it's basically the same as being given a hard slap at best, and a paintball at worst. It would take much, much more than 3-5 hard slaps to have a meaningful effect on somebody, and the same applies to bullets.

 

Hard armour does spread it out more, yes. And it actually does such a good job that some soldiers have reported finding bullet damage on their armour when they didn't even realize they had been shot. And that's with rifles, so imagine how much less a pistol would do if a rifle already did nothing.

 

Further, knocking somebody down with a bullet is always impossible. You're familiar with Newton's third law of motion, right? You understand that any firearm that had that kind of power would also knock down the shooter, right? No number of bullets is going to knock somebody down. You can't shoot people fast enough to knock them down without knocking yourself down, and that's ignoring the fact that a gun that had that much firepower that rapid shots from it could knock people down would recoil so unbelievably hard that it would be impossible to hit anybody with it in the first place, and would seriously injure the user's shoulder.

You're entitled to your opinion, but my information comes from military vets which have actually been shot by those rounds. (unfortunately they don't do online stuff, and live in another state, so I can't corroborate for you in a timely manner)

[Seattleite]

People also claim to see ghosts. Physical impossibilities are still physically impossible no matter what anecdote people tell.

 

Again, the momentum of a bullet is roughly that of a speeding golf ball. It has more energy, sure, but energy has no direct influence on the ability of an impact to conduct through objects. If your armour provides enough padding to reduce the felt impact of a golf ball 99%, it'll do exactly that to a bullet that fails to penetrate it.

 

Also, the energy of a 9mm is low enough you can literally punch with that much energy. Bullets don't work because they have a lot of power, they work because it's concentrated into a really small area. Once the concentration is lost it's just wasted kinetic energy with negligible momentum. You NEED to penetrate, or it'll have all the combat effectiveness of a lewd hand gesture.

 

And knocking somebody down with a bullet is as likely as wielding a sword that weighs 35 kilos. Physics does not allow it.

[BTGBullseye]

You obviously don't realize that people don't brace for an impact from a surprise opening salvo of bullets... If braced, no bullet can knock you down. If not braced, and not readied for the bullets, they can easily knock you over. It's not just a question of physics in relation to the impact felt, as the entire momentum of the object is transferred into the body, regardless of if you feel hardly anything, regardless of the amount of padding, and will push you by that amount. If the impact moves your center of gravity enough, it knocks you down.

 

In addition to all that, you keep pulling back to just a single round assumption, whereas I specified multiple rounds in a very rapid succession. (the total energy would be equivalent to me tossing a 10lb weight into you at 10 mph, it wouldn't hurt much, but you could easily get knocked off balance if you weren't prepared for it)

[Seattleite]

Problem:

The momentum of a .50 BMG is ~43ns. (49g at 860m/s.) A 9mm is only about 3ns. (8g at 360m/s.) A 5.56mm is only about 4ns. (4g at 940m/s.)

 

The momentum of a really weak jab, moving about 5kg at 10m/s, is 50ns. It has more momentum than all three of those rounds combined, and it still doesn't knock you down. At best it might stagger you if it catches you totally off guard.

 

And even if you had a gun that could put out rounds with that much momentum fast enough to kncock people over, it would throw the user around like a ragdoll. You know, 'cause every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Remember? Then you add on how much MORE momentum is in recoil than in the shot due to the propellant and the air in and in front of the barrel also being propelled... Yeah, this is just a right stupid idea.

 

You will never knock somebody down with a bullet.

[BTGBullseye]

You again completely ignored the situation. If you brace for it, very little can knock you down, but if you don't, or can't, even extremely minor impacts can throw off your balance enough to knock you over. I'm not saying it would pick you up off your feet and throw you a dozen yards away, just push you far enough off balance to fall over.

[Seattleite]

And you are underestimating the amount of momentum that takes. Again, I used a punch that is notorious for its inability to knock people down, even with a surprise hit, as the baseline, and it has more momentum than a .50 BMG, 9mm and 5.56mm combined. And that is with the lowest speed estimate I could find, and a very comservative estimate of the involved mass, just the arm without any of the trunk. An actual jab has much more momentum than that, and STILL can't knock people down.

 

Simply put, if it can't get you moving too fast to put your foot back in time, nothing can ever knock you down under any circumstance. All it can do is force a half-step back. Shouting and hoping they are startled into falling over would be more effective.