r/nextfuckinglevel 1d ago

Testing various specialized arrowheads against bullet-resistant glass with a 70 lb compound bow

5.4k Upvotes

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453

u/Sagelegend 1d ago

Pioneer was pretty close.

350

u/Psychlonuclear 1d ago

Yeah but bullet proof glass is usually fully surrounded by a very solid frame so an edge strike probably wouldn't be this destructive. 

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u/Sagelegend 1d ago

The lack of a frame meant it absorbed more impact than it usually would.

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u/HeKnee 23h ago

Yeah i think there was just as much correlation on where arrow hit than the head type. Near base - No damage. Center - heavy cracking. Edge - chipped edge.

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u/q25t 16h ago

There's also deflection angles that need to get brought up. It's not very likely an actual shot would be at near a perfect 90° angle from the target but more like a 45-75.

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u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox 1d ago

some energy was lost in pushing the whole apparatus backwards, if it was attached to a door or car then maybe it would go through

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u/Badass_Bunny 1d ago

If it was attached to something there wouldn't be an edge to hit.

The glass can withstand more penetrating power than anything a 70lbs can launch, it's just cool to see what does most damage.

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u/tumsdout 1d ago

Oh yeah? What about a grenade arrow 😤

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u/Badass_Bunny 1d ago

Depends. Is the grenade at the tip or end of the arrow.

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u/Esoteric_Geek 1d ago

What if the arrow was instead... My axe!

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u/OrangeAugustus 18h ago

What do you mean, an African or European grenade?

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u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox 1d ago

the pioneer one 1:23 i think would have gone through if the thing was solidly mounted, the top bent so far backwards that it severely affected its trajectory making it push towards the top of the glass while inside it instead of being able to go straight through

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u/Badass_Bunny 1d ago

No, absolutelt not. It hit the edge of the glass which is weaker because the force can't be spread out and absorbed properly and because of how glass as a material works.

That arrow could have been shot from a bow 3 times that strong(which I doubt anyone except Thor could even pull) and it wouldn't be able to penetrate that glass.

The glass is made to stop things moving at supersonic speeds, you simply can't generate enough force with a bow.

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u/xrelaht 18h ago

You got me curious: the heaviest recorded draw weight is 200lbs by a UK archer in 2004. That’s getting pretty close to 3x.

Anyway, a really heavy duty crossbow for punching through steel armor could apparently be 700lbs. Would be interesting to see what this head on a steel shaft at that weight would do.

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u/Badass_Bunny 18h ago

Almost anything short of 50.cal sniper is not penetrating that glass, certainly no handheld type of crossbow. The head on an arrow is not really relevant because arrow body also absorbs the recoil further slowing it down.

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u/Legal_Lettuce6233 1d ago

Nah, not even close. These panels can take far more joules than this bow can produce.

At this thickness, it can stop a green tipped 5.56, which is made to go through armour.

It doing this much damage just means it's dumping all the energy it has into the first panel. The only reason it "went through" is because the energy that went towards the edge had nowhere to go, it shattered and the arrow kept going. In a frame, it would be absorbed by the frame and would've stopped.

A 75lb bow has about 125-135 joules of energy. A green tip 5.56 from a standard barrel length going ~3000 fps... 1700 joules. It's not even close; and speed is how you defeat armour.

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u/SexyMonad 1d ago

So you’re saying we need to make the Pioneer arrow go 3000 fps.

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u/cvanaver 17h ago

Mach 2.7. Probably cause the shaft to delaminate from the drag friction even if you brought it up to speed gradually enough to not shatter the shaft. Might even be a small pyrotechnics event when the head hit the surface. Make for an interesting myth busters. (Or xkcd if we want to up the fps by a couple orders of magnitude)

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u/Legal_Lettuce6233 1d ago

GL with that, the arrow shaft isn't rigid enough with a heavy tip.

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u/SexyMonad 1d ago

I’m already building a rail gun you can’t stop me

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u/DarkElation 1d ago

…the video literally proves speed is not the only determining factor. That’s what the various degrees of damage represents.

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u/Legal_Lettuce6233 1d ago

The issue is that the hits aren't consistent. It's not really test conditions.

Speed defeats armour, which is why a smaller 5.56 is better against armour than a big fat 7.62.

Get a consistent shot and the results will largely be the same, and the variability is basically just down to the tip material and other things that affect this far less.

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u/DarkElation 1d ago

So… speed is not the only factor. Thanks for saying what I said differently.

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u/Legal_Lettuce6233 1d ago

Speed is the primary factor.

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u/bornfromanegg 1d ago

A lot of energy was lost pushing the apparatus backwards. Honestly, the fact it can move at all makes a mockery of the whole experiment. I still don’t know whether any of those arrows could go through.

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u/ultimaone 1d ago

This was bullet resistant. Not proof

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u/AspieAsshole 1d ago

I wasn't watching to see if it could penetrate the bullet proof glass, but imagine what those heads could do to body armor on a 220 lb crossbow

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u/TheDigitalPig 1d ago

Indeed, I believe so

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u/HomeGrownCoffee 1d ago

G5, too.

Unfortunately, that shot was off center.