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Plate Carriers, Armor and Spalling
- Thread starter xtry51
- Start date
just need to add that cekim ran the hora dolor with his carrier and plates. 'cause he's a badass. haters gonna hate, badasses gonna run through the snow, get bloody, and be in full battle rattle.
First off I need to thank Boris for his previous documentations, because this shit takes a lot of time and he's way better at it than I am. You can tell that because I didn't have to reserve the first 10 posts for a complete and humorous tale of body armor development since 4,000 BC.
We have three plates tested and all three were failures. I associate all three with inadequate tolerance of low temps. It was 10°F during this test and the plates had been outside all night in the back of my truck. All three contained little of the spall. You'll note I shot all plates towards the top. This is intentional. There was about 18-20 inches of snow at the range and it was windy as all hell. I have to bury the boxes half way in the snow just to prevent them from blowing over. Let's take a look:
Victim #1 S1N2T - Silicone Adhered, 1 Layer Neoprene, 2 layers Gorilla Tape
Plate Pics:
Here you can see some molten lead (gray splotches) on the inside. That would be a bad day for any exposed skin, like your face. The upside is that this plate showed a small victory/success. Boris' idea of bonding the neoprene to the plate clearly did work using the silicone. I *might* entertain doing a hybrid plate on the next test using a bonded neoprene base layer with a layered jean covering. That will be completely dependent upon how easy it is to scrape off this plate.
At this point I was not necessarily surprised. My previous tests showed significant damage to the lower layer of neoprene, so I just figured one layer was a no-go.
Let's look at the box:
Next up we have what I had all my eggs in a basket on working based on the previous test. Well, I was about to be severely disappointed.
The plate LS2N2T - LeakSeal 2 Layers Neoprene and 2 Layers Gorilla Tape:
Enjoy my gorilla feet, I was too lazy to crop these pics.
This to me is the most telling picture of the whole test. Recall in my previous post for the first test with two layers that only a tiny entrance hole was visible for each shot. There was no tearing of the tape or "explosion" as seen here. I attribute all of this to the cold weather. The tape was noticeably less pliable to the touch and the neoprene had lost its "sponginess".
Again, really bad molten lead marks, and tons of spall.
Close Up of the Hole:
And behold the carnage:
Debris in Box
At this point I had admitted defeat, but shot plate 3 anyway. Results were "better" in that the bullet exited mostly intact straight up at your head, thus making death more abrupt and saving you the wonderful life of blindness and maiming by hot liquid lead seen in the previous tests.
Presented with little commentary:
Here you can see the nice holes left by the large departing bullet fragments. Awesome![[angry]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/008.gif "Angry [angry]")
So basically neoprene is great if you only plan on getting shot when it's 60°F or warmer outside. Otherwise you're just lugging around an extra pound for nothing. Next test will be with layers of jeans split into two groups, one layer of tape over each. I'll try to conduct it before it gets too warm, like sometime in the next 2 weeks to get relevant data. The current plates will be stripped down and recycled.
We have three plates tested and all three were failures. I associate all three with inadequate tolerance of low temps. It was 10°F during this test and the plates had been outside all night in the back of my truck. All three contained little of the spall. You'll note I shot all plates towards the top. This is intentional. There was about 18-20 inches of snow at the range and it was windy as all hell. I have to bury the boxes half way in the snow just to prevent them from blowing over. Let's take a look:
Victim #1 S1N2T - Silicone Adhered, 1 Layer Neoprene, 2 layers Gorilla Tape
Plate Pics:
Here you can see some molten lead (gray splotches) on the inside. That would be a bad day for any exposed skin, like your face. The upside is that this plate showed a small victory/success. Boris' idea of bonding the neoprene to the plate clearly did work using the silicone. I *might* entertain doing a hybrid plate on the next test using a bonded neoprene base layer with a layered jean covering. That will be completely dependent upon how easy it is to scrape off this plate.
At this point I was not necessarily surprised. My previous tests showed significant damage to the lower layer of neoprene, so I just figured one layer was a no-go.
Let's look at the box:
Next up we have what I had all my eggs in a basket on working based on the previous test. Well, I was about to be severely disappointed.
The plate LS2N2T - LeakSeal 2 Layers Neoprene and 2 Layers Gorilla Tape:
Enjoy my gorilla feet, I was too lazy to crop these pics.
This to me is the most telling picture of the whole test. Recall in my previous post for the first test with two layers that only a tiny entrance hole was visible for each shot. There was no tearing of the tape or "explosion" as seen here. I attribute all of this to the cold weather. The tape was noticeably less pliable to the touch and the neoprene had lost its "sponginess".
Again, really bad molten lead marks, and tons of spall.
Close Up of the Hole:
And behold the carnage:
Debris in Box
At this point I had admitted defeat, but shot plate 3 anyway. Results were "better" in that the bullet exited mostly intact straight up at your head, thus making death more abrupt and saving you the wonderful life of blindness and maiming by hot liquid lead seen in the previous tests.
Presented with little commentary:
Here you can see the nice holes left by the large departing bullet fragments. Awesome
So basically neoprene is great if you only plan on getting shot when it's 60°F or warmer outside. Otherwise you're just lugging around an extra pound for nothing. Next test will be with layers of jeans split into two groups, one layer of tape over each. I'll try to conduct it before it gets too warm, like sometime in the next 2 weeks to get relevant data. The current plates will be stripped down and recycled.
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Boghog1
NES Member
quick question, looks like the plates are leaned into the box and the spall is an inch or so forward from the back of the box, does anyone have a mannequin where we could see the spall is actually hitting on a person, if my suspicions are correct most should be bouncing back at around a 60 degree angle.
Nope, but I do have a giant pile of old jeans waiting to be recycled. Maybe I can sneak something in next weekend. I'll try to tape up some plates this weekend.
I got sidetracked by my .308 reloading.
I got sidetracked by my .308 reloading.
GunGrey
Banned
![[wink]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/002.gif "Wink [wink]")
Too small.
There was a day when I was 190 with a 32" waist and a lean running/cycling machine. Those days are long gone behind three kids. I've been hitting the gym though regularly since Christmas and of course am still carrying a little extra... You know for SHTF starvation survival![[laugh]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/012.gif "Laugh [laugh]")
I'm 243 right now, but my doc says healthy as a yearling horse. I'm 15lbs away from benching sets of my weight, BP was 122/68 last month's checkup and all the other numbers were in right ranges ![[smile]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/001.gif "Smile [smile]")
For a while i just let myself be genetically lucky, but I'm not gonna let it go to shit as I get older.
That said the 32s and 34s are never gonna happen again. I just don't have the inclination to lean down that much, I'd rather eat a little pride with the 38s and have some weight to throw around as my boys get older and try picking fights.
There was a day when I was 190 with a 32" waist and a lean running/cycling machine. Those days are long gone behind three kids. I've been hitting the gym though regularly since Christmas and of course am still carrying a little extra... You know for SHTF starvation survival
I'm 243 right now, but my doc says healthy as a yearling horse. I'm 15lbs away from benching sets of my weight, BP was 122/68 last month's checkup and all the other numbers were in right ranges For a while i just let myself be genetically lucky, but I'm not gonna let it go to shit as I get older.That said the 32s and 34s are never gonna happen again. I just don't have the inclination to lean down that much, I'd rather eat a little pride with the 38s and have some weight to throw around as my boys get older and try picking fights.
Bumping this thread to see if there's anything new to report ![[grin]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/041.gif "Grin [grin]")
but also to report some of my own testing.
There's some Rhino Armor brand "Spall Blockers" for sale on eBay, and I bought some to test it out. Supposedly, these are 6 layers of kevlar inside a "ballistic" nylon sheath and sewn shut. The idea is you just put them in front of your plates, and they will capture the spall. Well, not so much. Lots of spall escaped and it looked like a bad day. Also it looked like only 4 layers of Kevlar. Now, granted I only taped it on each edge to the plate and basically all of the spall escaped that way, but the blocker was basically destroyed after only 1 hit of xm855.
Just a heads up to anyone who might see these on eBay. I will be returning the undamaged panels for a refund.
but also to report some of my own testing.There's some Rhino Armor brand "Spall Blockers" for sale on eBay, and I bought some to test it out. Supposedly, these are 6 layers of kevlar inside a "ballistic" nylon sheath and sewn shut. The idea is you just put them in front of your plates, and they will capture the spall. Well, not so much. Lots of spall escaped and it looked like a bad day. Also it looked like only 4 layers of Kevlar. Now, granted I only taped it on each edge to the plate and basically all of the spall escaped that way, but the blocker was basically destroyed after only 1 hit of xm855.
Just a heads up to anyone who might see these on eBay. I will be returning the undamaged panels for a refund.
Today was a 100% success and a crap ton of fun. Thanks to Atilla for keeping me company and for the coffee.
Plate tested was a standard steel .220" 12"x10" corner notched and formed plate Level III rated. Plate was again shot at 50 yards with M855 from my 16" AR. Layering was created from one pair of old Levi jeans.
Cutting the Jean Legs off into two sections after folding in half:
I only used the legs for this test. Pants are 34x32s and the legs just happen to be the correct width. I used the center section from the above pic (both legs) as the base layer and started taping. Corners first, then at a 45° angle with gorilla tape:
Next the lower section (again both legs) was placed on top and tape was applied at 90° from the base layer:
Layering completed. Front View:
Back View:
Whole process took me less than 15 minutes, which included getting all the stuff out and taking pictures. The plate was now placed outside to sit overnight so it would be as cold as possible. Temp got down to ~20F at my house overnight. When we setup at the range the temp was about 28F, ground was slightly frozen. This was important as my last test showed how much temperature can effect results.
Pegged the plate center mast with 3 hits within 1.5", no spall exits visible. Hit it with two more shots and got two tiny tears on front face so we stopped. Very impressive. Total group size ~3".
Here's the face after getting hit. Shots and spall marked.
Close ups of the four sides. No spall exit or tears:
Now we start peeling off the outer layer:
Outer layer removed with plate off to side, bullet entries marked in gold. Rest are spall marks and most are dimples, not tears. Note minimal damage/tearing to jeans:
A few small fragments found. Most of these were steel core fragments, not much lead or jacket:
Layers separated, no real damage here. No sizeable fragments:
Moving on and starting on the inner layer. By the way, taking this gorilla tape off sucks donkey balls. I did zero surface prep when putting this together and the stuff still adhered so well I had to peel it off one strip at a time. The rhino liner stuff on back of plate is from the previous test:
And we finally see where the party happened. All three layed out and impacts marked on plate in gold. Significant damage to interior, but it still looks like we could have thrown a few more shots at it and contained most of the spall:
Close Up of Inner Layer:
Some larger fragements. Mostly jacket:
Just the plate face, non-marked hits are from previous tests.
Closeup of hits with sharpie for scale. Why a sharpie? Because it's 10:30pm and I'm too lazy to go find a coin. Deal with it:
Conclusions:
This is what I'm going to wrap all my plates in. It's low cost, low time overhead, doesn't add significant weight and clearly gets the job done. I think the results of this test coupled with my previous ones speak for themselves and there's no need for a long explanation here.
Bonus material:
While at the range I took two more plates, a standard (same as above) and an older heavy which is the same size, but thicker at .390". This makes it really earn the "heavy" nickname. Both of these plates are also only reated "Level III."
Plates were shot with a mix of .308 (M80) ball fired from a Springfield M1A, steel core 7.62x54R fired from a M44 carbine, 7.62x39 HP fired from a Russian SKS and 12ga 1oz Rifled Slugger Remington 3" shells from a Benelli SuperNova. All at 50 yards, all at bare plates for effect.
Why include the inferior 12ga slugs? Because 'Merica, that's why. Do we really need a good reason to shot a shotgun at random things? **** no. 'Merica. If I had a Solothurn, I'd have brought that and used it.
Atilla and I unloaded and these were the results.
Heavy plate showed basically zero damage. I mean literally almost nothing. Very tiny dimples from the .308 and the rest basically just removed a little paint and most of the sticker. There was zero overall plate deformation even after including a .308, 54R and 1oz slug (in that order) in the exact same location. I'm almost convinced you could hit this thing with a 50BMG and not go through. If someone has a 50 we can use, I will let them toss a few rounds at it.
The thinner regular plate came away with a few war wounds but still impressively stopped everything we threw at it. To my surprise the M80 ammo was the real winner here causing far more damage than the 54R.
Close up of a few hits with sharpie for scale.
Back of plate showing dents caused by the three .308 M80 hits. Needless to say I would not want to be wearing a plate and get hit by that. Cracked ribs and some gasping would probably be a guarantee among other blunt force trauma.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to sling them out here.
Plate tested was a standard steel .220" 12"x10" corner notched and formed plate Level III rated. Plate was again shot at 50 yards with M855 from my 16" AR. Layering was created from one pair of old Levi jeans.
Cutting the Jean Legs off into two sections after folding in half:
I only used the legs for this test. Pants are 34x32s and the legs just happen to be the correct width. I used the center section from the above pic (both legs) as the base layer and started taping. Corners first, then at a 45° angle with gorilla tape:
Next the lower section (again both legs) was placed on top and tape was applied at 90° from the base layer:
Layering completed. Front View:
Back View:
Whole process took me less than 15 minutes, which included getting all the stuff out and taking pictures. The plate was now placed outside to sit overnight so it would be as cold as possible. Temp got down to ~20F at my house overnight. When we setup at the range the temp was about 28F, ground was slightly frozen. This was important as my last test showed how much temperature can effect results.
Pegged the plate center mast with 3 hits within 1.5", no spall exits visible. Hit it with two more shots and got two tiny tears on front face so we stopped. Very impressive. Total group size ~3".
Here's the face after getting hit. Shots and spall marked.
Close ups of the four sides. No spall exit or tears:
Now we start peeling off the outer layer:
Outer layer removed with plate off to side, bullet entries marked in gold. Rest are spall marks and most are dimples, not tears. Note minimal damage/tearing to jeans:
A few small fragments found. Most of these were steel core fragments, not much lead or jacket:
Layers separated, no real damage here. No sizeable fragments:
Moving on and starting on the inner layer. By the way, taking this gorilla tape off sucks donkey balls. I did zero surface prep when putting this together and the stuff still adhered so well I had to peel it off one strip at a time. The rhino liner stuff on back of plate is from the previous test:
And we finally see where the party happened. All three layed out and impacts marked on plate in gold. Significant damage to interior, but it still looks like we could have thrown a few more shots at it and contained most of the spall:
Close Up of Inner Layer:
Some larger fragements. Mostly jacket:
Just the plate face, non-marked hits are from previous tests.
Closeup of hits with sharpie for scale. Why a sharpie? Because it's 10:30pm and I'm too lazy to go find a coin. Deal with it:
Conclusions:
This is what I'm going to wrap all my plates in. It's low cost, low time overhead, doesn't add significant weight and clearly gets the job done. I think the results of this test coupled with my previous ones speak for themselves and there's no need for a long explanation here.
Bonus material:
While at the range I took two more plates, a standard (same as above) and an older heavy which is the same size, but thicker at .390". This makes it really earn the "heavy" nickname. Both of these plates are also only reated "Level III."
Plates were shot with a mix of .308 (M80) ball fired from a Springfield M1A, steel core 7.62x54R fired from a M44 carbine, 7.62x39 HP fired from a Russian SKS and 12ga 1oz Rifled Slugger Remington 3" shells from a Benelli SuperNova. All at 50 yards, all at bare plates for effect.
Why include the inferior 12ga slugs? Because 'Merica, that's why. Do we really need a good reason to shot a shotgun at random things? **** no. 'Merica. If I had a Solothurn, I'd have brought that and used it.
Atilla and I unloaded and these were the results.
Heavy plate showed basically zero damage. I mean literally almost nothing. Very tiny dimples from the .308 and the rest basically just removed a little paint and most of the sticker. There was zero overall plate deformation even after including a .308, 54R and 1oz slug (in that order) in the exact same location. I'm almost convinced you could hit this thing with a 50BMG and not go through. If someone has a 50 we can use, I will let them toss a few rounds at it.
The thinner regular plate came away with a few war wounds but still impressively stopped everything we threw at it. To my surprise the M80 ammo was the real winner here causing far more damage than the 54R.
Close up of a few hits with sharpie for scale.
Back of plate showing dents caused by the three .308 M80 hits. Needless to say I would not want to be wearing a plate and get hit by that. Cracked ribs and some gasping would probably be a guarantee among other blunt force trauma.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to sling them out here.
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That is awesome. Thank you so much for doing the research. This is going to be a lot lighter (and more effective!) than the neoprene and soforth. I've got some jeans left over still from when I was 30 lbs heavier that I can cut up.
Hey, easy there. My jeans were from when I was 30lbs LIGHTER
Also, I'm still using these plates in spare carriers. I'm even more confident after these tests about their abilities.
Hey, easy there. My jeans were from when I was 30lbs LIGHTER
So it doesn't look like you did any overlap of the denim with the edge of the plates?I shot at 2 of my 6x6" side panels partly to test out that Rhino Armor Spall Blocker (which was total bullshit and I've sent the remaining unshot panels back to the seller for a refund) and partly to confirm that the steel I bought is in fact armor plate. It gave me some peace of mind, anyway. XM855 put a slight dimple on the backside. I think they'll withstand many hits.
I did not overlap the jeans over the edge of the plates. If you have jeans that are wide enough to do that I would. Or you can cut the legs open, but that would mean 1-2 pairs of jeans per plate.
The way I'm doing it now is minimal work and 2 pairs of pants do 3 plates.
The way I'm doing it now is minimal work and 2 pairs of pants do 3 plates.
You mean you're not going to save the short shorts? Atilla didn't take them home?
![[rofl]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/013.gif "ROFL [rofl]")
