The kick in your hand when firing is about what smacks into your target. Now the pain and destruction it causes is a different matter. But knockdown power isn’t really what takes a person down. Pain, blood loss, losing consciousness, inability to move properly, that is what does it.
“The kick in your hand when firing is about what smacks into your target”
Precisely. And that 45 acp recoil is orders of magnitude less that a baseball bat full-on to the chest. The bat just doesnt penetrate.
People have been conditioned by decades of hit movies featuring the cop shot and falling unconscious. Wr all think he’s dead. Then SURPRISE, our hero wakes up and shows he was wearing a vest!!
You tube is full of guys shooting theirself in the chest with a 45 to demo a vest.
The impact without penetration is minor.