Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Them Carharts are tough

Carhartt Jacket Stops NYPD Speer Gold Dot 9mm 124-Grain +P Hollow Points





“Four of the shots that cops fired at a madman waving a knife in Midtown failed to penetrate his jacket — which was not bulletproof — and the NYPD will now check the weapons for malfunction, law enforcement sources told The Post.” The Post reports that the non-bullet-resistant jacket in question was a Carhartt. Regular reader will instantly wonder: how many bullets did the notoriously inaccurate NYPD fire at one Garry Conrad, how many hit him and how many failed to penetrate his outwear? Glad you asked . . .


A sergeant and an officer fired a total of nine rounds at 46-year-old Garry Conrad on Wednesday, with one of the shots killing the depressed Broadway stagehand who refused to drop the blade at West 49th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Four of the bullets got lodged in Conrad’s Carhartt jacket, sources said, adding that he was not wearing a bulletproof vest.

Another shot grazed the wrist of bystander Lauran Code, a 46-year-old lingerie designer from California.

Setting aside the controversy over bulletproof jackets for a moment . . .

The way I read it, New York’s Finest landed five shots on Mr. Conrad — no doubt at point blank range — four of which didn’t make it though his jacket. That’s a little over a 55 percent hit rate on the intended target. (Note: we’re not counting the injured bystander as a hit unless her lawyer cuts us in.)

That’s outstanding! You know, for the NYPD, whose “normal” hit rate is 18 percent. As for the hollow-point rounds not making it through Mr. Conrad’s jacket, you’ll be pleased to know that the cops reckon the cops GLOCKs didn’t malfunction.

John Cerar, a retired NYPD deputy inspector who headed the department’s Tactics and Firearms Section from 1985 through 1994, said the incident was difficult to fathom.

“I have not heard anything like this. There would be no reason for it,” Cerar said. “There would have to be some kind of defect. I would certainly look at the ammunition.”

Cerar noted that he recalled one incident in the 1970s in which the target of a police shooting escaped injury when one bullet struck his leather jacket and was somehow deflected, failing to wound the man.

“It was just an anomaly,” he recalled of that incident.

“An anomaly is one thing, but four anomalies is another thing entirely,” Cerar said, referring to the four bullets that never penetrated Conrad.

FYI: The NYPD switched over to “deadlier” hollow-point bullets in 1998. The Post article has been censored amended. The first version correctly named the cops’ ammo as 124-grain +P Speer Gold Dots.


http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...nypd-speer-gold-dot-p-9mm-hollow-points/


[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=144&v=fdXfDcY-0gU[/video]

A bad lot?

Carhartt Arttic jackets are dam tough, if that's what he was wearing. But not that tough.

Isn't that the preferred "campfire carry load"?

I bet the CC world will be reavaluating their carry rigs and ammo for the next decade, this will be entertaining.

Better bullets/better powders.....

Just trying to trigger a healthy debate on the ol'fire. Lol

Federal 124 HST's for me. That's my campfire load. They make swiss cheese out of Carharts.

I suspect the reason for the failure is something n one would normally think of. I believe that the officer had actually lubricated his cartridges with something like Break Free CLP.It was able to penetrate into the powder charge degrading the propellant about 50-75%. The pistol still cycled because of the lube drounds. I had similar happen to me with Winchester Silvertip 10mm. I hadn't lubed the rounds, but I had failed to wip the contact surfaces clean and the nature of CLP is to penetrate. Unless that is checked for, it will be overlooked and the ammo itself would take the rap.

This case is most likely an explainable anomaly or inaccurate reporting from the get-go. The cursory examination of a bullet that appears to be just under the skin may have penetrated from the other side and tumbled. A competent autopsy will clear all that up.

As to the powder contamination theory, it stands to reason that if the cartridge couldn’t produce adequate velocity, it also wouldn’t have cycled the gun reliably.

It’s worth noting that trace amounts of anything you clean or lube with will rarely – if ever – cause you a problem with quality ammunition. One of these rounds was completely submerged in WD-40 for 11 days. It detonated without issue.

Most factory ammunition is air tight to at least 1 ATM.

It’s an anomaly just like .270 Winchester rounds bouncing off Texas deer. This should start the criminal crowd stampeding the farm and tractor stores until the FBI spends a gazillion dollars on a 10 year study to come up with a round to deal with the issue. Chuck Schumer probably has his peeps drafting a bill to outlaw Carhartts. Meanwhile, there is an obvious, logical explanation out there that has not reached the credible media (if that exists).

I think when this is all said and done, there's going to be a very reasonable explanation for this. Probably beginning with, it probably didn't actually happen that way. Or, they'll find the bullets actually traveled through some intermediate barrier first...or something like that.

If there's enough energy to cycle the slide, then those bullets can penetrate a jacket.

In short, I'm calling BS on this one.

Duluth Fire Hose makes far tougher work wear, and they've gotten a lot of miles, in advertising, from a customer who was saved from serious injury because his Fire Hose gear stopped him from being sliced up by the tusks of a wild boar. I'd imagine that if Carhartt could get around the fact that their customer was a madman, who is now dead, if they could prove their work wear stopped bullets, it would be a heck of an advertising pitch.

But in reality, just about anything can stop a bullet, including air, once it has run out of steam. So unless a dud, coming out the muzzle at a non-expanding rock throwing speed, that round could have done a lot of stuff, hitting the pavement or going though body parts first, expanding and losing steam, prior to coming to a rest in heavy clothing. With 9 rounds fired, an innocent bystander struck, and only 1 fatal hit on the madman, that is par for the course, having an 11% fatal hit performance. Not too far off from the 18% National average.

Good point, Gary. I'll bet those four "hits" were actually ricochets. Makes more sense, in light of accepted statistics for NYPD shootings.

Maybe the 40 isn't such a bad thing after all?

I'm wondering if those four hits were actually pass through and they found them on the off side after travel through?

Objective or intelligent reporting is a thing of the past, I have trouble believing 4 124 grain bullets at near 1000 FPS failed to go through a cloth jacket.

I've seen several shootings where bullets ended up being stuck in clothing. Usually after they passed through a torso, arm or leg. There are a good many folks with as much or more investigative experience as me, and I'm sure they have seen the same.

There is a disconnect between the evidence as it actually was, and the interpretation of the evidence as it is actually reported.

I carry that load in my G43 with confidence. In my 9mm's with longer barrels, I have started carrying the Hornady 135 Grain Critial Duty (+P).

Something with some give will stop a lot of energy. Many times I've seen a high powered rifle bullet stopped by the hide on the far side of an elk. The hide will stretch way out then snap back.

Don't discount a tangential shot that hit a lot of jacket but no perp.