How "drop resistant" are these? Never understood how something that can stop a .308 can fail if you drop it on the gun room floor by accident.
Last edited by IanON; 06-03-2020 at 04:58 PM.
To be hard enough in order to stop an armour piercing round, it necessarily has to be brittle. It is a basic principle of physics.
Most NIJ Level 4 plates are made of ceramic. Aluminum Oxide or Silicon Carbine ceramics engineered for this application can have Brinell hardnesses in the same range as glass. Tends not to pass drop tests.
IN order to score a multi hit rating most plates, rather than have a single ceramic plate, are actually made of a series of small hexagonal ceramic tiles that are bonded together to ensure no gaps between tiles. That way the tiles act as a solid mass when impacted, but any damage done to a single tile will not spread to adjacent tiles. Dropping the plates repeatedly risks cracking both the individual tiles, as well as the bond holding the tiles together.
Its not that the plate won't survive the drop. The plate will survive the drop just the same as a .308 hit. What we are talking about is surviving a drop AND surviving a .308. These plants aren't made of unobtanium. They have a shelf life and subjected to repeated abuse they will, just the same as anything else. Most plates well exceed the NIJ specs, but there is no way to demonstrably prove it. And since the only way to conclusive evaluate the damage to a plate after the drop is to xray it, the diagnostic typically costs more than the plates are worth. SO its just as easy for the manufacturer to say don't drop it, and be done.
Your life. Your plate. Drop it as many times as you want to.
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods. HL Mencken. 1919.
Many thanks for connecting the dots.
thank you for the pics. i already ordered a set but its nice to see, that is alot less backface than i have seen from some other plates ive seen on the gun youtubes. will you be stocking these full time or is this a once its gone its gone thing?
edit: do the plates have any information printed on them for when i forget the ratings in a couple years time like i did with my steel plates?
Last edited by white_knight; 06-03-2020 at 06:40 PM.