In this study, a series of ballistic experiments have been performed to investigate the protection mechanism of some inert reactive cassettes against shaped charge jet. Three kinds of material were tested as a core material of the inert cassettes, i.e. one of rubber materials, a high modulus and high strength composite material used for ballistic protection and a mixture of energetic materials. Parameters such as deformation of the cassettes, occurrence time of jet distortion, leading jet length and residual penetration depth were investigated from the experiments and they were compared to each other quantitatively according to the jet incidence angles. The results show that the increment of cassette deformation caused jet distortion to occur early and jet distortion brought decrease of the length of leading jet. Then the decrease of the length of leading jet accompanied the decrease of residual penetration depth.