I Know It Works

[stickmaker]

How many have heard that a silk scarf or handkerchief will catch a bullet?

This isn't myth; there are multiple accounts, many of them well documented. In the Twenties and Thirties, thick, quilted silk vests were sold as protection against bullets. However, I've never seen it happen.

I bought some cheap silk handkerchiefs (around $1.75 each + S&H) and dedicated one to test this.

I tried multiple arrangements. Even the one most likely to succeed failed miserably. That was: Handkerchief folded into multiple layers as if to put in a pocket, stapled at the top to cardboard with nothing but a couple more layers of cardboard behind, being hit with a 250 grain lead flat point .45 Colt Cowboy Action Load. That was a big, slow, lead bullet with a flat nose.

Maybe, if the bullet had been a softer alloy, the results might have been different. I think the main failing was that this silk was low quality. (Which is why I was willing to shoot at it. :-)

Comments

[donsimpson.livejournal.com]

The wikipedia article on "Mongolian armour" says that is the case. So it looks like silk is strong enough that it isn't torn by the bullet or arrow if there is something behind the silk that will stop the projectile, and the silk is strong and undamaged enough to pull the the surrounded projectile out by. If you just had a square of the silk clamped down and open air behind it, the silk could get stressed to the breaking point before the projectile lost its velocity. I hadn't heard about this stuff before, and am finding it fascinating.