AR500 Armor UHMWPE Level III 3.3lb Armor Plate Test & Review

welcome back everybody today we're going over these plates that you see in my hand right here and that are in the plate carrier that I'm wearing right here these are from AR 500 armor they are a level 3 plate and they're a polyethylene plate and these things here I had never actually handled one in person until I just got these in a couple weeks ago and you know you read online that says right on there that they are 3.3 pounds and you kind of don't really have a reference for what that's like but tell you what you put these things in a carrier versus some level 4 plates which is that good I did this plate carrier here is what I've been using for a while you guys are probably seen on the channel and I previously had level 4 ceramic plates in there those are about 8 pounds of piece and they're the exact same size so these are a 10 by 12 inch plate the exact same size in terms of height and width and this carrier was lightened by 10 pounds that is significant anybody who's ever carried around our my reward armor for any length of time will tell you 10 pounds is huge and there's definitely a significant difference in terms of your fatigue your back pain and neck pain etc when wearing these versus something over for so level 3 versus level 4 for those that don't know essentially level 3 is rated to stop rifle rounds we'll put the actual numbers up here on your screen and level 4 is ready to stop island piercing rifle rounds so these ones are not ready to stop armor piercing so if you guys have seen some other tests online you may see that sometimes 855 goes through it whereas in general and 193 will not regardless of the actual barrel length and that's odd so if you kind of look around versus other types of armor particularly steel armor the 193 because it's going much faster than 855 tends to be the armor killer in that category but with these plates it's not really the case and one of the reasons for that is kind of how they work so I guess I said it's all you have to leave and then it's all bonded together and heated together to create one piece that we have here then on the back they actually put some padding that's built into that that makes it a little bit thicker so I believe the plates here are 1.3 inches but the reason they put that padding is because if you get multiple hits in one area on these plates while it will stop it versus ceramic so I'm going all over the place with ceramic plates say if you shoot 7.62 by 5:1 sometimes depending on the angle of a hit an area of up to 3 inches can be damaged because the ceramic actually cracks and that's part of how it's designed that's how it works it can compromise it for subsequent shots with these that's not the case however subsequent shots can cause increased back face deformation with this type of material so that's why they have the increased padding on their it is level 3 without any sort of trauma pad or you know soft armor as well so it's a standalone level pre plate but we're going to test it with a bunch of different rounds today and kind of go over what we think of it overall but let's just get into the testing we had the plate downrange 15 feet from where I'm sitting so it's basically gonna be muzzle velocity at the impact we have some 123 grain Red Army standard here and a 16 inch a k as you guys just saw in the slow motion there we came in right here top right quadrant on it and we did have a little bit of back face deformation on it but not bad if that was on your chest you'd be just fine you'd probably have a little bit of a bruise but you'd be going on to fight another day for sure same distance everything else is the same we have some federal m193 out of a 16 inch barrel this is the Colt 1640 and we'll see how she does we have the impact on the left side of the plate and as you guys can see there's sac base deformation it's probably right about the same amount that we had there with the 7.62 by 39 of course 7.62 by 39 is a much heavier round 123 grain 124 green so more than double what we're getting here at the 55 Greiner but that one's going much much faster and holding together just fine you'd be doing okay if you took those rounds next up we have some 62-grain m855 from federal 5 5 6 round again on a 16 inch barrel truth be told this is probably gonna be the hardest test for the plates today like I said it doesn't stop armor-piercing rounds and while 855 isn't exactly armor-piercing it tends to behave like it particularly at this distance with these velocities I'm gonna give it well let me stop you guys stop the video right now let us know down below if you think it's gonna go through I'm gonna say my guests about a 75% chance it'll go through but we'll find out as you guys probably already know from the slow motion that one did go through we had penetration right there in the middle had a little bit of deformation went to means that was slowing the bullet down but it just pushed through that said I'll be interested to see how it does a little bit further distance out of the 16 inch barrel so I'm gonna set this down range I don't know the distance yet I'll determine that as we go down there and kind of assess the conditions it's really really swampy out in the field today but we'll go out pretty far at least as far as I can get out and we'll see what it'll do at distance same ammo guys you guys can see the green tip 8 5 5 targets downrange at 100 yards I'm not the kind of pictures bipod up a little bit it's a rolling terrain that probably doesn't show on camera but get up just try it and not hit the dirt that's not normal way advice go check it out I'm not sure how parent it was with that target cam but we did get penetration out there at a hundred yards what's interesting about this is I've seen tests of very similar plates it's not these actual plates where folks have shot eight five oh five out of a fourteen and a half inch barrel and not had penetration so I kind of thought I don't um yours it's not gonna penetrate but you'll see the exit holes on both the 15-foot one and then 100-yard one are very very different I'd be willing to bet if you went out like I don't know twenty thirty more yards on that one it wouldn't make it through it's it's more torn than we are here with the fifteen foot one this one kind of pushed through and punched through a little bit quicker you can definitely tell that there's way more deformation because the bullet again is dragging that material through but yeah said and the intro of these are rated to stop rifle rounds not armor penetrating reference and while 855 isn't technically armor penetrating it does have some of those properties it was designed for penetration if you guys haven't watched forgotten weapons video on the round go check it out but that is one of the things that was designed for but what I'm gonna do here try to show the multi hit capability of this plate so we have some m193 loaded up here in this guy so again it's coming out pretty fast we're gonna put it back at 15 yards put a few rounds in it and then maybe follow it up with some a K rounds and then check that out once again m193 15 feet and we're gonna see how it does here versus this barrage alright and then throwing it back once again we have that Red Army standard stuff every standard I suppose huh hey k ah killed it let me go set it up and we'll shoot a couple more times [Music] [Music] [Music] back on it with the 8k let's go check it out [Music] interesting results there for sure you guys can see on the front there we have a ton of hits on there I think we have 113 hits on there and then we did have one of those I think it was an aka round passed through from what I was what I saw rather when I was shooting the you guys probably know better than me with slow motion that you guys saw at this point but I'm pretty sure that was a a K round went through and looking at the front you can kind of see why you guys see one two three right there three rounds right there at about an inch so just stacking them on top of each other and it went through however it's thought most of oment again to the 855 it's not ready to stop but I just wanted to test it anyway to see how it would do there's a couple other properties of a place when I get over I get into rather I should say before we close the video out though we have a fresh plate up so hopefully it'll Ellis trait things I'm about to say a little better than the one that's already shot up some features about it is that it has this silky sort of nylon material at the tops and then both sides it's not on the bottom and the reason for that is to slide it into a play curve gives it a little bit of lubricity because again these are thicker than your standard plates so it's gonna be snug in a lot of different carriers these are actually NIJ certified so if you look around on the market you'll see a lot of polyethylene plates that will say meets NIJ standards that's different than actually being NIJ certified so err 500 armor sent these in for official testing by the book by the NIJ and they got the certification so that is good and again they are rated for rifle rounds not armor piercing rifle rounds these are made in the United States and they will say if you go to the website that it has a shelf life or warranty for five years now I I question that however in the past there's been some types of body armor materials that have been found over time to really break down quite quickly there was a soft body armor that was used a lot in the late 80s and early 90s I can't take the name off top of my head I will roll it in here on the bottom of your screen though what they found was after about depending on the use about three to six years that stopped producing the NIJ certification that it promised the reason was a lot of officers were like folding up their plates are rather their bulletproof vests rolling him in a trunk rolling them in bags leaving them in hot trunks those sorts of things and it was breaking them that material know that material doesn't exist anymore but because of that the NIJ is very hesitant to give long term ratings without actual long-term use and like I said these haven't been around really forever certainly not as long as ceramic plates have been and just as an example of that up until a couple years ago err 500 steel plates regardless of manufacturer were only rated for five years and even now I think they're all rated for 20 years which is honest Ed's SB s there's no way a steel plate is gonna degrade over 20 years in terms of both stopping properties so just keep that in mind one thing to always keep in mind with any type of product of course it's gonna be cost generally speaking your level 3 polyethylene plates are going to be more expensive than your level 4 ceramic plates right now these ones over at era 500 are about $260 a plate and the level 4 is a little bit cheaper over there that said as you the user you always have to balance what you want what you expect and what you need for what you plan on doing just basic real quick statistics you're more likely to be killed with a hammer than you are with a rifle and that's the relief of any caliber we're using any ammunition using something that has armor-piercing properties is even less than that so in terms of running into the ability or other the need to stop m855 it's not high however it's possible but it's not again it's not very likely for most folks and the big thing again is gonna be the cost and then the weight for somebody who professionally wore body armor for many years I will tell you that weight really really matters if you're gonna use it for it any number or other any length of time so again if you're a professional and you guys were armored it's gonna be up to you guys to decide or even if you're you know home defender and you want to wear armor me personally I would be perfectly comfortable using this for any type of threat that I expect to run into as a civilian to possibly run into as a civilian if somebody comes up me with a 5 5 out of a 16 inch barrel I'm good with it but if they got like an AR pissed it'll stop it so that's pretty much it guys we have any questions about the plates or anything else that we talked about here on the channel you can always post down below in the comments section you guys if you have a question that you actually need to be answered the best place to reach me is over at my facebook page because over there I respond to all comments and questions I get in my inbox however sometimes takes me a couple days I will get to you though fear not so that's pretty much it guys if you're looking for these plates to pick them up we'll also put a link down below in the description thanks as always for watching if you're not subscribed go ahead and hit that subscribe button even if you are subscribed and you didn't click the notification bell go ahead and click that as well because YouTube these days sometimes isn't showing my videos to my subscribers so it is what it is anyway thanks for watching we'll see you the next video [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Mrgunsngear Channel

Views: 62,859

Rating: 4.9581819 out of 5

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Id: q6CmTbpvG3w

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 12 2019