Richard Davis Demonstrates a Rifle-Resistant Bulletproof Vest

This is a bulletproof vest designed to stop rifles.

It was created by a man who had a lot of intelligence and a hell of a lot of courage, because he was the first man to ever test concealable soft body armor.

And that's Richard Davis. Come on out here, Rich.

Mm-hmm. Big hand for Rich. Clap, clap, clap, clap.

Okay. Tell me about this vest. Uh, well, this one, as you can see, it worked in rehearsal.

This is Second Chance Hardcore 3. It's sort of a go-anywhere, do-anything type vest.

Uh, you can take the pad out of here and put it inside a deep cover shirt.

You've got a rig similar to this, where you can put it on, wear it concealed, goes through airport metal detectors.

It's sort of the soldier of fortune model.

They have a Hardcore 2, which is smaller and real cheap.

I call that the Peruvian private model. And we have a Hardcore 4, which is bigger, comes from here all the way down below the groin.

And that's, that I call the World War I model.

And that 10,000 men come out of the trenches and go against machine guns, you want to have that on.

This is sort of the basic, uh, compromise all around.

This is for rifles. For rifles. There's no vest that is totally bulletproof.

On the other hand, there's no bullet that can't be stopped.

Uh, this is designed right here, will take a 30 caliber rifle.

This vest, as Alex is wearing right now, will indeed stop a 458 Winchester Magnum.

However, today, Alex is, uh, first time for him here, so he's a little nervous, but we'll just hit him with a 308 NATO ball rather than a 458.

We've got, uh, five rounds in here just to show you what, what we got. Up to yours.

I'm just going to fire them here in the, in the dirt.

I'll fire four and leave one.

We got one left. You know where you want to put that?

Yeah, I guess, uh... Carefully, please. Okay.

I'll put my glasses on so I don't get any blast in my face.

Show you the confidence I got in, uh, in Richard- Take you down ... and his vest.

Okay, you got your hands behind your back? Yeah.

Notice how he's standing with, uh, he's not all hunched forward like this.

The impact of a rifle bullet will not knock you over.

Oh, that's one of the things I want to show you. Okay.

That's, that's true. Thanks for reminding me.

Alex is, uh, leaning back on his heels here.

I'm going to stay on one foot. One, well...

He can juggle while we do this. I'll just stay about...

I can't hold my foot up that long, but... Okay.

A bullet does not knock you down. Your reaction to the bullet knocks you down.

We in okay? Yep. Okay.

Try and get it right.

There it is. Really didn't feel like much.

Much less than a punch.

No, I'm just kidding. I was kidding, folks. There's hardly any blow to it all.

If you think about it, the physics involved, the, the energy received can't be more than the energy transmitted, which means if the bullet had enough power to knock you down, it would also knock down the man firing it.

A little, yeah. So, there's not much to it.

Uh, what happens is, just as Richard once pointed out, if you come up and stick somebody in the ass with a pin, the guy's going to jump into the air.

It's not the force of the pin, it's just your reaction to it.

When you're shot, it upset- it upsets you.

It may hit your nerves, you may jump into the air.

I can show you here. Where did that hit exactly, Helen? See? Right here. Right here.

Glad your eyes shut. Uh, we'll, we'll go cut it, we'll take it apart after.

I think you know that it didn't penetrate, or I wouldn't be standing here talking.

Run like 40 miles an hour. So what are you going to do with this stuff?

Oh, God, I got to do that. Uh, okay, basically this is a soft Second Chance.

And I'll say the police, uh, I'm doing this for is that, uh, I've got to do this maybe twice a week, and you guys do it once every 20 years.

So what I use here instead of... I don't have any metal inserts in the soft vest here, but we, uh, resort to using some magazines just to take the shock out of it, because if I didn't do that, my chest would look like a piece of raw hamburger,

and I wouldn't get to kill anybody afterwards either.

Uh, this is the, uh, fairly stiff load. This is the Federal 3/4 jacket 44 Magnum.

It's a 220 grain bullet, and you see the jacket comes up and around there.

We'll stuff six of these buggers in here.

No point that my fingers leave my hands.

And we'll spin the cylinder. Like I said, I do this for a living.

Very hard on these shirts, but I get them free where I work.

Where's that, Rich?

Boy, I hate that.

Anyway. Love it.

Looks like a little bit pregnant there.

Anyway, again, the vest would not puff up that much in real life here with the, the shirt holding it down or anything.

But the real purpose of the magazines is not to stop the bullet, right? Yeah, the magazine didn't stop the bullet.

The, the vest itself stopped it. It's just to prevent you from getting all carved up inside.

Right. Big bruise. Ah. Rich, I'd like you to- Yeah ... shoot me again one time.

I want to carefully balance that one foot to prove the point about the bullet not knocking you over.

Hmm.

Got a crazy man here. He's bigger back to...

Gotten into my act, you know.

Now, be careful.

Magazine latching that a little while. Okay, one round.

NATO ball.

It's out of there, what the heck.

Uh- I want to balance that one foot. Okay, I'll, I'll shoot right here and...

Okay. Okay, so you can get a good angle of that?

He's- I'm on one foot ... got him, got him balancing on one foot? Yep. Okay.

Nothing to it. Just a lot of fluff.