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The subject of flechettes came up on another forum. A member from there and I conducted some informal tests; they were NOT, I say again, NOT impressive.
At a distance of 15 yards the pattern spread across 2 shooting lanes, wall to wall. About a 6-foot diameter spread. That translates to about 28 square foot to be covered by 20 flechettes. Right about now, I think you can see problem No. 1.
Problem No.2 is that none of the flechettes penetrated any significant distance into a protective vest. None, zip, nada, effectively penetrated.
We moved forward to 7-yards and tried it again. Two flechettes penetrated deeply enough into the plywood backing that they stuck +/- 1/4 to 3/8 penetration. A few darts struck the protective best; of those that struck one or two buried themselves up to the fins, no further. That's about 3/4 to 1 inch penetration, somewhat short of the 12-14 inches minimum recommended penetration to be effective. We found the majority of the darts laying on the floor in front of the improvised target having struck sideways and bounced off.
I'll give one more illustration from our testing.....
A 22 short from a rifle was fired as a control; it penetrated deeper than the most effective flechetted when fired into a telephone book.
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