Can plastic body armor really stop bullets?

hey thanks for tuning in the twanging Bang ar500 armor the company made a name for themselves quite literally through the success of their budget body armor plates made of ar500 steel like this one right here they kept the name as they branched into lines of soft body armor as they branched in the lines of ceramic composite plates like this all the while they are offering law enforcement and military grade protection at prices that didn't require departmental budgets to be able to afford now they're getting in a plastic body armor or UHMWPE with the same plan of offering a premium grade product at a relatively affordable price they are 500 armor sent me a couple of the new plates to see what they're about the result was a video that I think is actually pretty interesting not just for what it says about these plates in particular but about polyethylene armor in general and that's what's coming up next on swaggin bang [Music] [Applause] this is a plate of plastic body armor which is understandably confusing at first because it says ar500 armor right on the front of it but a r500 armor is the name of the company that makes this plate that contains no ar500 steel at all instead it consists of laminated UHMWPE as the armor padded to protect the wearer from deformation injuries UHMWPE stands for ultra high molecular weight polyethylene which is a very hard version of the most common plastic found in consumer products all around us UHMWPE is so tough that it's been taking the place of Steel and applications like skid plates for off-road vehicles hull reinforcement for boats and even in braided cables it's also used as a surface for some artificial ice rinks because not only is it hard it's also slippery to make UHMWPE armor many thin sheets are heat laminated together under high pressure until resin matrices join together at the molecular level this creates one piece that maintains important characteristics of being made of many pieces from the side you can see the many layers of white UHMWPE laminated together backed by black padding when armor is hit the impact breaks the resin bonds delaminating the individual layers that make up the armor this disperses the energy of the bullet over a greater area and allows the armor to stop bullets with much greater velocity than the equivalent weight of steel even though this delamination helps to stop the bullet from penetrating the armor the UHMWPE can still dent any words hit with enough velocity that's why most UHMWPE armor is backed by heavy padding just like this one it's NIJ rating takes this into account certifying that deformation is within limits determined to be survivable in this case the NIJ rated this armor at level three which means it will stop m193 five five six mild steel 762 by 39 rounds and even six hits from m87 6-2 without failing penetrating rounds and these calibers can defeat UHMWPE however because they basically cut through the resin bond similar to how high-velocity rounds cut through the fibers of soft body armor at one point three inches deep the plates are thick compared to steel armor but they only weigh three point three pounds each and are positively buoyant because they're so thick the size have a satiny material on them to make it easier to slide these fat plates into armored carriers made in the US these UHMWPE plates have a 5-year nominal shelf life and our cover by a full manufacturer's warranty just looking at a plate of UHMWPE armor you can see it's built differently than either steel plate armor or ceramic plate armor like this first of all it doesn't have a pax con coating this coating on the outside looks like line-x because it kind of is is a small mitigating a fragment mitigating coating when a bullet hits the steel it busts apart in pieces and you don't want those pieces hitting you as aware so this coating is there to catch those pieces UHMWPE itself will catch those pieces so it doesn't need a coating on the outside for anti spall anti fragments instead you've got a tough nylon on the front and back side and then you have a very slick nylon on the side the reason it's slick on the side isn't for looks or comfort it's going inside your play carrier it's because you can see how thick this plate is it's the armor and padding the padding is bonded to the back of the armor permanently all together this makes it so fat that it's a little bit difficult shoving this into the pocket of a plate carrier and this smooth outside makes that easier that's why it's on the front edges and you don't see it on the bottom it's not needed there of course it is a lot thicker than this level 3 plus plate but you have to keep in mind it's not just the armor it's also the trauma pad behind it so the thickness isn't quite as different especially when you get to putting a trauma pad behind a plate of the ceramic composite and then when you figure the weight savings this is a seven and a half pound plate this is a seven point eight pound plate even their reduced coverage a LSC plate 5.5 pounds whereas you get full protection with UHMWPE for only 3.3 pounds and it's new surely buoyant scratch that last statement about neutral buoyancy because as you're about to see the plate actually floats I'm at the tactical bathtub to show you the difference between what would happen if you fell in the water with an AR 500 armored steel plate and with one of their UHMWPE plates you can see this is point it's not rated to be a PFD a personal flotation device I wouldn't count on this to float you and your loadout but there's going to be a pretty significant difference in your ability to stay on the surface of the water if you end up in water above your head wearing a plate carrier that has two of these in it versus the same plate carrier same loadout reach way down there with one of these which is heavy enough to sink both plates that's a feature that shouldn't be overlooked especially if you're in a water environment if you're going to be going on boats and things like that gosh I could imagine wearing a plate carrier like that you're just basically wearing an anchor this is a lot more expensive but you have to think about what all you're protecting and what risks you're taking when you wear body armor and this has a whole lot of advantages with regards to its buoyancy that you don't get with other armored materials this is the air 500 armor Veritas plate carrier and it's going to be a perfect demonstration of why this material used on the outside of the plate because even though this plate carrier is designed to hold these plates it's a bit of effort getting them all the way in and if the material on the size weren't that slick it would be a whole lot harder getting the plate seated correctly but now that it is you can see front plate back plate are both in place you could also see that obviously the entire interior volume of each of those pockets are taken up with the plate but I got it in there and it's seated exactly the way it needs to be however I am NOT going to shoot with this plate carrier because I like it too much and so now we're gonna see how that fabric comes into play in removing the plate so I could put it in this cheap econ door plate carrier instead I've already shot this blasted the buckle off in a previous test but this is the plate carrier that we're gonna strap on the rubber dummy and then nail it with some 308 I'm shooting this plate not to prove that this armor works the NIJ has already done that I'm just shooting this so I can show you how this armor works perfect shot after checking out the armor it did great it's multi-hit rated so I'm gonna put a few more into it and see what we end up with all right let's cut this open and see what we got first thing to note is nothing is coming out the back side of the plate carrier that's what we would expect looks like one of those neck massages or back massagers there's absolutely almost like tennis ball-sized lumps one two three there's probably that's like the start of a fourth one that was the first hit second hit third hit fourth hit but it's well padded so that that might hurt when you got hit but you can see it barely bothered the rubber dummy so I'm sure that's completely survivable even at that range and here's the frontside first hit second hit third hit fourth hit let's get into this oh yeah look at that you can see how there's delamination you can see there's a little cracking that's how it's supposed to work and inside gosh I'm gonna have to figure out how to get a close-up of that the bullets are fully contained and each of the holes this one you can you can really see right there just that you can see the the back end of it and oh so here you can see from the side the many different layers of the UHMWPE that are laminated together with heat and pressure and on the backside that padding did its job it balls and nothing sharp is poking through or anything like that let's see we can't peel this padding off and get to the back of the armour part and there's the back side of the armor first shot second third fourth and I don't think there's any way I'm gonna be able to get into the armor to see those bullets so I'm not sure nope I can't believe I managed to do this had to take my jacket off this was a lot of work this took me about 20 minutes to split this open but here's the front here's the back and I actually used a hammer and a screwdriver and eventually got the handle of the screwdriver the handle of the hammer in between and I was twisting and using this to pry it open boy that was tough and a lot of bullet fragments the fragments weren't whole in here they were busted up and you can see the pockets in here where the bullet actually kind of melted from the heat the material and I'm gonna have to show the ground I'll get a video of the ground but there are pieces of bullet fragment all over and what's interesting is we know that it contained it because there were no fragments that were even in the plate carrier itself if there was any kind of fragmentation making it out the front side the we would have seen extra holes on the plate carrier and we would have seen pieces of it inside the plate carrier and that didn't happen so despite the fact that these rounds were fully fragmented inside of the armor they were fully contained and you can see that is a layer right there how thin that is that is a layer layer layer and at all delaminating this is what it was supposed to do the part of this is for me ripping it apart but you can see it's just all bonded together and if this looks like soft armor it is used in soft armor and some soft armor you can even use this to make steel the equivalent of steel cable UHMWPE cable which is lighter and stronger than steel and won't corrode this is used for a lot of different things and boy it sure as effective as body armor that's pretty cool I'm glad I was able to get that apart armor is always a trade-off between protection and maneuverability UHMWPE armor is as comfortable and light as you're going to get for now in armor that's going to be able to stop rifle rounds however you do give up the ability to stop penetrator rounds like m855 green tip which is actually a pretty common five five six round in this case there's also a bit of a trade-off between abuse ability and maneuverability if you're gonna buy armor to just sit in the back of your your truck or in the trunk of your car UHMWPE armor is going to take more care to prevent it from being damaged from bouncing around or having stuff bounce on top of it than steel armor though it's not nearly as fragile as ceramic composite armor however you age time wpe armor can be damaged through abuse through rough handling in ways that steel plate will just laugh off but you can't deny the increase in comfort and maneuverability it's really significant a lot of people when they put on a plate carrier with to these plates in it just cannot believe that they're wearing armor capable of stopping six hits from 308 Winchester at close range which is why a lot of people find the trade-offs to be worth it including price one plate of AR 500 armor UHMWPE armor is $320 MSRP though as always you can use the link in the video description and code 20 and bang to save up to 10% off of your order depending upon what you buy discount aside $320 is actually at the low end of the market for a plate of UHMWPE armor yet you're getting all the protection all the comfort of more expensive plates if you want to learn more about UHMWPE armor from ar500 armor comm be sure to click the link in the video description below be sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram you can see the links right here and be sure to click right here to subscribe so you can catch my next videos on Bose guns and other cool stuff I really appreciate you watching twang and bang I hope to see you next time

Channel: TWANGnBANG

Views: 461,045

Rating: 4.8798842 out of 5

Keywords: uhmwpe, ar500, body armor, level ii, level iii, bulletproof, plate carrier, dyneema, aramid, laminate, best body armor, best bulletproof vest, best armor, best protection, best 2018

Id: UsjOV7tcGRI

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 14 2017