No, ceramic rifle plate are made of boron carbide, it's basically a diamond, it will probably be around for thousands of years. Kevlar and other soft armor however does degrade with time.

You bring up a good point. I wonder how many PC owners have never worn theirs beyond strolling around the house. Or how many potential owners have tried strapping some 10 lb weights on front & back before doing anything strenuous.

I will fully admit that having gotten my PIG + ceramics just in the past couple of months, I have not yet had the chance to train with it. But I'm trying to find ways to exercise with the carrier on to build up some familiarity and stamina for carrying the extra load. I will say that I have worn it going on walks with the wife and felt very conspicuous with it under a jacket.

I have a set of Midwest ceramic plates I got for $200, and thought they were the best value possible for the $.

I also have a set of PP level IV plates, and a level III vest with a set of steel plates. They were donated, so not sure if the are III+ or ICW IV.

Best Job Ever?

I wore 65 pounds of armor and gear for days at a time. 20 pounds would have been a blessing.

The weight alone made it an easy choice for me to go ceramic. Level IV Ceradyne's, MSA Para Soft inserts and a LMAC and still right at 10lbs... No brainer.

I think all of this was covered by someone in another thread. (I can't remember who covered it.)

The NIJ05 standard is less expensive because it does not require constant re-testing. NIJ06 placed more frequent sample testing requirements on manufacturers and thus, when you are buying an 06 plate, a decent chunk of the price you are paying goes towards that. It's a significant artificial cost that should not be there. Once certified, a plate's composition is not allowed to change, so a manufacturer is essentially required to "re-certify" an NIJ06 plate every six months (or twelve for ISO companies), despite the fact that the plate cannot be changed!

I left the industry just before NIJ06 was released but I can tell you that a lot of companies were not happy about the way it went down. A select group of the big manufacturers were consulted by the NIJ in writing the standards and that collaboration made many smaller and mid-sized companies feel that it was an attempt to make life more difficult on them. (It's worth nothing that a "small" or "mid-sized" company could easily be grossing $50M a year).

Personally, I still feel that the NIJ06 standard was poorly done. They asked for input from everyone but in reality, they only considered what the big boys with the deepest pockets had to say. The changes almost all were about making things more expensive and difficult, while ballistic evaluation didn't change in any meaningful way at all. Backface deformation tolerances, the number of shots, the type of bullets; none of that changed.

I gave my two cents on what would make for better standards and I'm sure my letter promptly went into the trash. Of course, we were somewhere in the "mid-size" company range.

Longer than your lifetime in most cases, depending on what the backing material is.



If you hit it with a hammer or drop it and the strike-face lands on a hard object then yes. Remember, the strike face was designed to stop a bullet. It's not a tea cup. Most are 10MM thick.

While mostly correct, ceramic strike faces can be made from Alumina Oxide, Silicon Carbide, or Boron Carbide. In that order, they are least expensive / heaviest to most expensive / lightest. A hot pressed boron carbide strike face is typically 10-15x the cost of an alumina oxide strike face, with a savings of about 1.4 lb per unit on a typical torso plate.

Then you have purity to consider, which generally ranges from 90%-98%. Anything below 94% is getting into the "barely good enough" range. 96% or higher purity is very good but obviously costs more. 98% is about as high as it goes.

And yeah, any of those will last thousands of years while certain backing materials will last maybe 5-10 years, depending on what it is. Some of the fiberglass laminates can last a lot longer than that, if stored properly. I don't know the exact shelf life of phenolic resin fabrics but it's a long damned time. The pH content of the resin can have an effect but even then, you're talking about a long shelf life than the human life span.

If you want the lightest possible level IV plate, it's not a secret composition. It's just really, really expensive. It's entirely possible to build a 3.65 pound, 0.6" thick level IV plate with existing technologies (ask me how I know!). It will just cost you several thousand dollars for a set.

Oh please do tell!

In all seriousness do any companies out there make a 3.65lb lvl 4 ceramic plate? I would gladly spend several thousand for a set of those plates, if it were a size large of course

 

Thats only a level 3 plate, plus its only sold in one size, 10x12, which is equivalent to a size medium in mil. plate sizes.

You could probably still find someone to custom produce such a plate but my guess is that you would be looking at around $1500-$2000 a plate (and that may be low). Depending on what you define as "large" size, you would be looking at a higher weight range.

Surprised no one's brought up polyethylene plates yet.

We really need a tacked thread with info about plates/armor.

"Armor FAQ"

Anyone have any thoughts on these? I'm not exactly sure what level III+ means.

I love DKX plates. Thick as heck but super light.

I dont think anyone makes a lvl 4 polymer plate. Feel free to correct me if im wrong, i would love to have a NIJ certified level 4 plate that floats until then ill stick with ceramic.

It would require a massive breakthrough in PE and aramid technologies to make a level IV PE plate.

I read somewhere that polyethylene plates weren't as good protection as ceramic when it came to 5.56

Since Target Man's steel armor came up, how about his Level IV Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic plates, anyone check them out? Says they're Level IV under the latest (.06) NIJ.

Link?

[ETA] Never mind, I found it. At almost $400 for something described as "lab certified", and heavier than the low cost NIJ plates mentioned in this thread, I'm not sure what the appeal could possibly be.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_2_541/237578_Level_IV_Armor_in_stock_.html

 

What would you say the shelf life (assuming little to no use is) for plates that use standard Dyneema or Spectra laminates as backers as many plates seem to these days? I was under the impression that even with the less durable material the problem was wear, specifically heat, light, and moisture, and that most ballistic materials had effectively indefinite shelf lifes when not in active use assuming proper storage.

-eta-

Too much work. Maybe later in the weekend.

IIRC, Spectra and Dyneema had a pre-processing shelf-life of 10 years. That's probably a conservative estimate by the manufacturer. After processing, I don't know if the shelf-life goes up or down but what I do know is this:

Heat is bad for UHMWPE but not quite the enemy that people seem to think. If your PE components are exposed long-term to high temps, they will degrade faster.

UV rays (light) are the mortal enemy of PEs. They will break the materials down faster than you would believe. We're talking a few months of continuous exposure (which is based on first hand testing). The material will begin to yellow and get brittle, which is a clear indication that the molecules are breaking down and it is losing ballistic quality.

The good news is that neither heat nor UV rays are really a big deal, with proper construction and storage.

The heat isn't really a worry unless you're talking about very unusual circumstances.

If the mfg'er has put a quality liner around the PE materials, you'll be fine with regard to UV rays. Plural component polyureas (similar to bed liners, preferably those that contain a UV stabilizer) or cordura nylon can protect the PEs from light for a while, although nylons are also susceptible to light and will begin to fade and get brittle as they degrade. A PU liner that is not UV stabilized will also degrade if exposed to continuous UV rays.  

Water is generally not a threat to PEs, although it's a major threat to Kevlar. If a processed PE like Spectra or Dyneema is soaked in water, the outer edges may bloat very slightly. I cannot say that I have tested the ballistic qualities of edges in that condition but I know that after allowing the material to dry, it returns to perfectly normal functionality. Kevlar can become very vulnerable to penetration when wet. There are some coated versions that are less susceptible to water but it's very difficult for the end-user to determine which variety of Kevlar has been used in a product.

Glasses and other fibers are another consideration. There is a wide variety of glass used in armor systems, ranging from basic fiberglass to pre-preg phenolic resin eGlass systems (very common), all the way up to bleeding edge technologies such as nanotube laced thixotropic resins on carbon fiber interweaves. Of course, the last one is about $1000 a square foot right now, just to produce, and requires about $10M worth of equipment, not to mention riggers, employees with select skills, engineers, and so on. But that's another topic.

Pre-preg eGlass has a shelf life measured in days until it has been processed. Once processed, it can probably last at least a century before you have to worry. No glass that I know of has vulnerabilities to water or heat (unless we're talking hundreds or perhaps a thousand or more degrees) but once again, UV is the killer. Although slower than the destruction of PE, it will still break down glass fairly fast... I would say it could render exposed glass unsafe in about 1-2 years, but that's just a rough guess. Carbon Fiber has no vulnerabilities that I know of but the resin used to bond it is still susceptible to UV rays, so most folks do not use CF, since it really doesn't add much to a product.

So if you have a plate that is made with a PE component and has a proper liner, you're good for at least a decade with even the most casual storage precautions. Probably longer. Ceramic and glass will last longer than any of us will.

So wear is not really a threat to most armor. Exposure to light, water (salt water is worse), and heat can be. Stored in your dark, dry, cool place, nearly all armor products should remain functional for a long time.

TL;DR version: Don't try to give your armor a sun tan after it goes swimming.

LOL. THIS^

So I have deduced that...

Steel Plates = Cheaper but extremely heavy.

Heavy = Slower

Slower = Chances of getting "Lit the F*@# Up" exponentially higher.

"Lit the F*@# Up" = Last thoughts, "I should have gone with Ceramics"

Thanks for getting me off the fence, Ceramics FTW!

Midwest Industries is not the manufacturer -  Highcom is.

Here is a start for plates:

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_10/416601_.html&page=1

Hope this helps
AT