Hillbilly body armor test

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chopinbloc

chopinbloc

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In a thread on another gun forum, a user showed us that floor tiles could be used to stop rifle rounds. I decided to test whether it was possible to make homemade "body armor" that would actually work. I'm pleasantly surprised by the results.

I used three PEI grade V porcelain floor tiles with a coat of Herculiner on the front and between tiles and a thick coat (about a quarter inch) on the back to capture fragments. I placed a paper grocery bag behind (to see if anything came through) and shot it at about twenty feet with .223, 7.62x39mm, and .40 S&W. Unfortunately, I didn't know the close range POI on my AK as well as on my AR so I had to shoot it three times with the AK to get a hit where I wanted. The reason is that the first shot was too close to both edges and caused the whole corner to bend back into the paper. I don't *think* the bullet made it through but I couldn't be sure until the third shot.

Afterward, I shot it with an additional ten rounds of .40 and not a single round made it through.

This stuff did quite a bit better than I expected.


Video of test

 
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Looks like it could be a method to harden particular areas of a structure.
Most new home construction in AZ is sticks and stucco. Line the areas beside doors and below windows under the stucco during construction.

For block construction, line the back side of the block before applying interior furring and insulation.

Probably would fail under continued assault, but for an immediate temporary protection it would probably work fine.

Just a thought.

Poper
 
What would be cool to see is the use of porcelain mosaic tiles that are 1" square that are attached to a mesh sheet and do the same thing (alternating the grout lines with the other sheets) but allow it to remain slightly flexible (maybe source some type of rubberized compound, in lieu of the herculiner) if one could achieve the same stopping power in something that could be molded into body armor. I would think the added benefit of smaller tiles is that when the bullet hits it would possibly not break the surrounding tiles which would remain intact. It also seems that the smaller tiles would have a slight give that would slow the bullet, rather than all the inertia getting absorbed by what the armor is attached to. These are all just my observations and thoughts. Hmmm....I might have to run to home depot this weekend.

m-hex-mg-2T.jpg
 
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I would think the best way to make it flexible would be to use the same design as overlapping plate mail armor. Make up 2"x3" plates, 3 tiles thick with a piece of leather between two of the tiles and extending from the top. Using the leather, sew the plates to a vest in rows so that the rows overlap and you have at least 1 plate thickness everywhere.

The thing would be a bit heavy though.
 
What happens if the stuff does end up getting in your body?
 
That is outstanding performance. So how much did this project cost to build? And, as asked above, whats the weight??
 
Three tiles weigh about 12 lbs without the bed liner but for the next iteration, I plan to use only two tiles, less bed liner, and cut them to 10"x12" "shooter's cut."

That's an interesting idea with the mosaic tiles. I don't expect that you could get a lot of flexibility but you could form a curved plate pretty easily.
 
Seems to me the mosaic tiles would be like hiding from a BB gun behind a chain link fence.

Lots of cracks there for a bullet to slip through at any point there is a crack.

rc
 
Didn't we recently establish that two layers of stainless onieda cookware makes the best body armor? (J/k :p )

Let's try a hybrid approach: tile bedlinered to the high-nickle sandwich-steel stainless pot bottom. Encapsulated ceramic plate backed by a metal plate ought to stop a single hit from small rifle rounds.

If it does, cut it 10x12, radius the corners slightly, and put it in a cheap 600 denier paintball plate carrier.

Now... where would you wear it?
 
Thanks for the post buddy. Now they're going to require background checks when purchasing more than 4 sheets of bathroom tile.
 
I`d like to see somebody all decked out in that get-up waiting for a 50 cal, Ap round to end there existance. There are times when folks have way to much spare time on their hands.
 
Always fun to test this stuff, but I'll stick to purpose-built armor for my protection. I went with AR500Armor's contoured set up. Carrier, front, back and side contoured plates for $345 shipped, they proved it to stop multiple direct hits of M855.

http://www.ar500armor.com/index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=165

It's a little heavier than ceramic, and it's not true level IV (NIJ L IV rated to AP 7.62 NATO); More like L III+. But it's a lot less expensive, and the plates are not compromised after a hit like ceramics are.

Makes sense for those of us who want to have such protection available, but are unlikely to actually need it and thus unwilling to spend $1,000+
 
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