As great as bulletproof vests can be, they can also be a pain in the ass when used by an enemy in a combat scenario. Some high-quality bulletproof vest can confer a degree of invincibility to a foe in a gun fight. To have the upper hand, military agencies are now encouraging the development and use of armor piercing bullet rounds.
Basically, armor-piercing bullets are designed for rifles and handgun cartridges with the sole purpose of penetrating a ballistic armor or ballistic shields. These bullet rounds are designed to crumble gears that are primarily intended to stop or deflect conventional bullets.
While bullet design remains an important factor in determining the level of armor penetration, increased velocity also influences the ability of any given projectile to penetrate ballistic armor. Bullet rounds discharged from a rifle cartridge moves at a higher muzzle velocity than regular handgun cartridges. This is due to larger propellant charge of the rifle. In fact, even when the exact same set of bullet cartridge fired from a handgun is fired with a rifle, it is most likely to have a higher velocity than when fired from a handgun.
Long barrel guns such as rifles allow for which allow adequate time for the propellant to fully ignite before the projectile exits the barrel. Due to this fact, the bullet rounds that are fired from rifles are much likely to have more armor-piercing tendencies than a similar one that is fired from handguns.
Let me also add that the caliber of the bullet also plays an important role in its armor piercing abilities. For example, a small-caliber bullet which is designed with much higher sectional density than a larger-caliber bullet can have more armor piercing even though they might be of the same weight.
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