Dynamic Jacket Removal and the ‘Bullets Journey’

On impact soft cored bullets are designed to deform. The interaction between core and jacket during the penetration process is of particular importance if bullet performance is to be optimised. A bullets jacket serves several core purposes: (1) engagement with rifling; (2) inertial confinement, and; (3) cushioning on impact. In the latter two cases the jacket is primarily acting to control the nature of the stress / shock loading within the round both on and post-impact. In order to further inform armour design, via both dynamic (flash X-ray) and post-mortem (microstructural and X-ray computer tomography) analysis of impact / penetration events and recovered targets, an attempt has been made to provide additional insight into the bullet penetration process and the influence of the jacket on the same.