You simply don’t forget the sound of a high-power rifle round echoing through an indoor range. Or the moment right after when silence hangs in the air and everyone leans in scanning the helmet, to see it stop 5 rounds.
We were there for it. At the Parma Armory Shooting Center in Ohio, where Team Wendy gathered to run a live shoot of their new RIFLETECH™ ballistic helmet. This was a pressure-tested reality check with live fire and a lot of trust in the design.
It was also one of those days you remember. As their agency partner, we’ve seen the slides, reviewed the specs and joined the calls. But being there, near the shooters and watching the crew do what they do … that’s a different experience.
Shane Foster is Team Wendy’s Product Specialist Manager and a guy who’s seen more protective gear than 99.99% of the human population. Start to finish, he had the look of someone who’s seen the helmet take hit after hit—and still feels what’s at stake every time.
Around him were engineers, professional shooters and a production crew. Everyone locked in as rounds were fired from just a few meters away in escalating threat levels: from 9mm (shroud), .40 caliber (left side) and 10mm (right side) pistol shots to full rifle rounds like 5.56 (M193; back of helmet) and .308 (M80 Ball; top of helmet). Just a head form in the line of fire, and the cameras never stopped rolling. One helmet and whatever came next.
Every time the helmet stopped the round with no pass-through, you felt it in the room: the high-fives and the smiles, it was pure pride from people who dared to take the hard path.
The final shot was the true test—and one no rifle-rated helmet has ever taken live on film; a direct strike from a .308 (M80 Ball) round fired from an AR10 Variant at just 40 feet, producing a staggering 2,450 ft-lbs of impact energy.
It hit, and RIFLETECH™ performed beautifully. Backface deformation? Some, certainly, but no penetration. Meaning, this wearer would have the chance to go home at the end of their shift. And at that moment, you saw the impact not just on the helmet, but across every face in the room.
Getting out there with our clients reminds us what the message is really made of. It’s easy to get caught in the cadence of tasks and timelines. But when you stand on the range, and you realize this helmet doesn’t just stop a bullet but gives someone a second chance, that’s when you remember what we’re really sharing isn’t a product story but a human one.
And the people who make that happen? They’ve stayed late, worked weekends, obsessed over mind-numbing details and revised things no one will ever think about, all so that someone else’s worst day doesn’t have to be their last.
That’s the marketing most people never get to see. Beyond the polish, it’s about standing behind your product or, in this case, putting it in harm’s way.
Because we talk to the people behind the scenes. We watch the helmets take the hits. And we know what it looks like when a team that cares so deeply sees it all come together.
And from our view, that’s the real win. Watch the RIFLETECH™ helmet shoot video.
# # # Guest blog by Akhia
No categories