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Unconventional Helmet Testing


vf1000ride

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Something that was brought up in another thread, will a helmet save you from a gunshot.  Had an old helmet to try it with so figured I would give it a go.  It's a 15 year old beat up Shoei RFR helmet so no great loss.  First shot is from a .177 caliber Crossman powermaster 66 airgun, no idea on velocity but it got all 10 pumps. :beating:  Didn't go through, I had really expected it would.  Second shot was .22 cal, an Aguila super colibri at roughly 550fps from a 6" Ruger MKII.  No penetration.  Third shot was a standard velocity .22 short, roughly 900fps with no penetration but it did crack the fiberglass shell.  That's about as much firepower as I can let loose in the basement.  Gotta say the old fiberglass shell on this Shoei is tougher than I had expected but I think if I could have stepped it up to standard or hyper velocity .22 that even from a pistol I would have gotten penetration.  Until I can, or somebody else can get to the range and put some larger rounds into a helmet I will still hold onto my belief that a motorcycle helmet is a for shit form of body armor.  :dunno:

 

 

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Try a polycarbonate shell helmet. That stuff is a lot tougher than fiberglass.

Polycarb is serious business. My old professor used to make spinning police lights out of the stuff. His competetors would use regular acrylic. He would bring a baseball bat to trade shows and offer reps to wail on their lights. He would then offer to lend them the bat to use on competetor's product... it was a hell of a selling gimmick.

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Cool stuff

I feel maybe I should elaborate a little about this little experiment.

 

I did this kinda because of the dumb comments that where made in the biker beating thread.  I know that what I have shown here may make you feel justified in feeling that a helmet may protect you but please do not take this test in that kind of light.  If you are trusting a motorcycle helmet to do anything above and beyond protecting you in a crash you will quickly find yourself on the wrong side of a coffin.  I had honestly expected one of those three or even all three of those shots to penetrate the chin and side of that helmet.  For the non gun owning people who may read this please understand that the airgun pellet and two bullets I fired into the side of that helmet are the absolute lowest power ammunition you can buy.  I have that stuff because I practice pistol shooting in my basement and can shoot that ammo without hearing protection while indoors and a phonebook or 4-5 magazines are enough to stop the bullets.  Anything that a concealed carry owner may have on them as a defensive weapon should easily punch right through the side of a helmet.

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The super colibri rounds don't have any gunpowder in them, it's just the primer compound.  There is very little smoke and smell.  I usually only shoot 5-10 at a time and I am done so I have never bothered with vents.  I also have the Co2 airpistol and the pump airgun I shoot down there.  Obviously those don't require much for venting either.  If you where to be shooting something with gunpowder, venting would be a good idea.  I have shot the CCI CB shorts and also the standard velocity .22 shorts I used in the video before and they start to foul the air pretty quick, not recommended without venting.

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this only strengthens my theory that any armed biker insurrection against the combined might of the US military should be lead by the Shoei unit, head first.  it's the only way.

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I'm intrigued by your results, because I took an old helmet to the (outdoor) range, and my .22lr went through it no problem.

It did stop buck shot, but everything else got through. Not sure if the .22 went through both sides, or got caught on its way through the second layer though.

The larger rifle rounds were no question. 30-06 makes a big hole.

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I'm intrigued by your results, because I took an old helmet to the (outdoor) range, and my .22lr went through it no problem.

 

 

I would liked to have shot mine with regular .22LR but didn't want to in my basement.  I looked up the specs for the pair of .22 cal rounds I fired into the helmet.  The Aguila super colibri has roughly 11ftlbs of energy and the Polish .22 short with 845ftps comes in around 52ftlbs.  Comparing that to a standard .22LR at 1200ftps, it will have around 130ftlbs of energy.  I was honestly throwing some of the lowest power ammunition you can possibly buy at the helmet and it didn't go through.

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