Caught in a flash fire - does a vest still work?
Another good example of our not-so-scientific approach to testing but hey, how many times are you going to face controlled environment like in a lab out there? Exactly, and that’s why we come up with these scenarios, because people come to us asking questions pertinent to real life. Like: “How well does your vests do against flash fires?”
We do not only believe in our stuff, we go out and find out. And you know how much fun it is actually, so of course we tend to go a bit overboard, but at least then we know where we stand. So we started burning our ballistic panels, first for 30 seconds, then for a full minute, and then shot them multiple times. Hmm, interesting.
Test 1. First we burned the armor panel for 30 seconds in gasoline fire.
Then we shot the vest three times with MP-5, 9 mm FMJ at 1 443.5 fps (440 m/s), which correspondes to level NIJ-IIIA.
Results of Test 1: All shots were stopped and trauma in each shot was less than 0.98 inch (25 mm).
Test 2. We burned the panel full 60 seconds in gasoline fire. Well, this is not exactly a flash fire anymore, and anybody exposed to flames that long would not need to worry about his or hers vest anymore. However, we want to see how far can we go.
Then we shot it again two times with MP-5, 9 mm FMJ.
Results of Test 2: Both shots were stopped and trauma was still less than 0.98 inch.
In conclusion, the C.P.E vests containing Dyneema do not loose their protective properties even after being exposed to open fire for extended period of time. Now I think that’s very good to know, particularly if you need to travel in a vehicle across hostile territory.