[Double Naught Spy]

Let's see, yes, there are some pistol rounds that will penetrate soft body armor. The number of such rounds decreases as vest level of protection rises. There are not a lot that will penetrate IIIA vests, but FN 5.7 and the Tok, certainly will.

Has the potential for BGs wearing vests influenced ammo and firearm selection? Not for the concealed carry pistol, but in the home with a .223 rifle.

Jelly also asked about rifles and shotguns. I have ALWAYS believed that for close-range defense (home protection, etc,), NOTHING was better than a Remington 870 loaded with 12 gauge 00 buckshot. I wonder, however, how that changes in the “vest scenario”?

00 Buck isn't going to penetrate a ballistic vest. Een IIA will stop it.

Presuming that those targets are too hard to hit, I'll keep putting them COM - with the idea that someone absorbing between 5 to 8 impacts of 250 to 450 ft-lbs over the sternum & ribs will get the hint that I don't play well with others.

This assumes, of course, that you are going to manage to hit the guy 5-8 times COM, a very big assumption. Whether or not you hit him at all, he will get the hint that you don't play well with others. The shooting alone signifies that as noted by Jolly Roger.

In regard to the 250-450 lbs of impact, it isn't near as bad as you might think. Ballistic vests are designed to 'catch' incoming rounds in their weave. This has a couple of effects. First is that energy is bled off by the vest weave's catch, pulling fibers and stretching the weave. Additionally and in combination, the weave spreads out the energy. So, while you may get 450 lbs of impact via a bullet's diameter that will transfer energy at the same width at skin level and then spread out in the body. With a ballistic vest, the energy impacting the skin isn't the size of the caliber, but much larger, as much as a baseball sized area for something like a .45 acp and a IIIA vest, many times the area of the .45 acp round. Being spread out, less damage is done to the wearer.

The same holds here for hits on target...

I really don't know any bg who can stand getting hit COM 25 times with a .45 ACP and still want to be bad.

What makes you think you are going to be able to hit the bad guy 25 times COM? Just curious, just how many bad guys do you know and have information on in regard to their ability to absort such impacts?

You can discount any handgun round defeating a decent ballistic vest. The majority of them protect against rounds up to & including 44 mag. Some even have a breast plate that supposedly protects against some rifle rounds.

As noted, some handguns will penetrate. As for the plates that supposedly protect again some rifle rounds, they most certainly do and will do so over the vast majority of small arms shooting standard ammo types other than AP.