Ballistic Protection / Body Armor / Go into your Kitchen

[leadcounsel]

Good Morning, One of the best kept secrets about ballistic protection is HDPE. High Density Poly-Ethelene. You probably have some of this "...body armor..." at home and don't even realize it. Go into your kitchen and look for a white plastic cutting board. A 3/4 inch thick piece of HDPE will stop a 230 grain .45 ACP dead in it's tracks, is will only penetrate about 3/4 of the way thru.

I can just hear the hoots now, "...what a moron...".

If you purchase two sheets of 3/4 inch HDPE and Gorilla Glue a 1/4 inch sheet of Aluminum between them, you will be surprised, should you fire thru this with a chronograph on the far end. Your average .223 or .308 rifle round may get thru, but it is far from lethal.

HDPE is not light, but, it's lighter than a sheet of Boron-Carbide level 4A plate. And you can heat it in the over and mold it to fit about any contour.

Body armor is line NODS/NVG, it can be a game changer. Don't scrimp. The folks at "BulletProofMe" can assist you over the phone, and more often that not, over the phone will discuss military over runs in stock at substantial savings.

But if you are looking for a low cost, low weight, engine block saver. Look no further.

According to THIS Youtube video, while unconfirmed, the .40 S&W doesn't even slow down. So don't believe what you read, even by "Special Forces" Soldiers.

 

[7SFCW4]

Lead Counsel is absolutely correct, I am a complete and utter fraud. Read all my posts, my track record of assisting by dispensing utter BS is legendary (except for the Beef Jerky post, that was real, and it was April Fools Day). I did not post a picture from testing (though I would be glad to) because photo's, like video are so easily faked. I have no agenda, I don't have a financial interest in selling HDPE, I am just amazed with the results. What got me thinking about it, was watching US Army testing of HDPE. Those crazy guys at Nattick, what do they know?! Given the option of a full blown .45 gun shot wound or a few broken ribs, I personally will take the broken ribs.

Everyone here who reads things in these forums should take what they are reading with a grain of salt. Trust is earned over time. If you don't like or trust what I post, that is OK with me. Just move along, quietly and try to be polite.

Being polite, now there is a Survival Skill to cultivate. You can get a lot done by being polite. We fake soldiers, deployed in remote places with little or no support, now there is an easy job. Get on someones bad side, and well....there are way more of them than there are of you.

I think the Lakotah said it best, "...lead, follow or get out of the way...". But, try to be polite.

 

[7SFCW4]

Disclaimer: as always, take everything you read on the Internet with a grain of salt. Here are photo's (of course, pictures never lie) of a 7/8 in sheet of scrap HDPE. The sheet trapped a 230 grain USGI ball .45 acp round at ten feet, each and every time. The sample was cut to show the depth to which the copper jacketed round penetrated. Note, penetration was approx 50%. Like I said, I am no chemist, but I remain, very impressed.

55 grain .223 was only slowed down, as was 175 grain .308 (trust me, for rifle rounds, I rely on my boron carbide plates, and still, cover is extremely important.

 

[Jamie6.5]

If mobility isn't a problem, then there may be some viability to the idea of HDPE in this application.
But HDPE weighs roughly 60lbs/Cu ft. So an 18"x 24" chest protector 1 inch thick will weigh approximately 15lbs. Double that for front and back protection and you are up to 30 lbs. And it is essentially rigid at thicknesses above about 1/4".
As Chemist pointed out, if one could get a fiber out of stretched PE, and weave it into a usable form, you'd be better off.

A better option might be woven polypropylene bags, (like cat/dog food or cat litter comes in) in a multiple layers. Those bags are extremely strong, and with 10 or more layers they should do a respectable job of slowing down a projectile as malleable as lead.
It's lighter than HDPE and has a higher tensile strength. It is the stuff they make the fibers in strapping tape out of. And that stuff is STRONG! It is also very close to shatter-proof
http://www.bpf.co.uk/plastipedia/polymers/pp.aspx#fibre
The other advantage to PP in this application is that it glues better than PE, both to itself, and other materials.

But as far as stopping a bullet with something from my kitchen? I think I'd opt for a cast iron griddle or frying pan! ;-)

 

[7SFCW4]

Dog food bags?! Holy cow, I am on it. Is this the same plastic that bulk coffee comes in (going out on a limb here), I just filled up several five gallon containers and emptied a bunch of COSTCO coffee bean bags.

 

[Jamie6.5]

Dog food bags?! Holy cow, I am on it. Is this the same plastic that bulk coffee comes in (going out on a limb here), I just filled up several five gallon containers and emptied a bunch of COSTCO coffee bean bags.

These:
<broken link removed>

Stack about 15-20 of them up, place them over something pseudo-flexible like a life preserver and shoot it, and see how it performs.

 

[Stomper]

"Ghetto Armor"... I'm thinking a new brand name is about to be born!

 

[7SFCW4]

ghetto max, as in Max Max

 

[Jamie6.5]

"Ghetto Armor"... I'm thinking a new brand name is about to be born!

LOL,........ That sounds about right.
It reminds me of Clint Eastwood with the stove door (on a rope) under his serape.

 

[7SFCW4]

10x13 in Boron Carbide plates = 7.2 lbs each (14.4 lbs) + 11.5 "turtle" OTV vest. Good exercise

 

[Doc In UPlace]

This is entertaining if nothing else, particularly discerning where the serious leaves off and the spoof begins, So points in the creative category.

For actual real life, 12 hour days nobody is going to be walking around like a sandwich billboard wearing that stuff hanging off of them. You'd shoot yourself after a few hours of it just to end the folly.

As an alternative, for those in the Puget Sound area, our local police supply store LEEDS on 6th Ave in Tacoma frequently gets surplus Safariland Level II vests from the nearby prisons and other agencies. Perhaps there is a similar type store in Portland (?).

I got mine for about $150, IIRC, for the occasional idiot job I should not have accepted and need to stand out there anyway because I committed to the detail.

They are not the light, cool models that run $700-800 apiece but for short wearing intervals or in cooler weather they are tolerable and are good against the most common pistol rounds. For the price a definite bargain.

And nobody will be making sandwiches off your trauma plate.

 

[Stomper]

LMAO.... That's funny right thar!

 

[chemist]

PERSONALLY,
I'd choose phone books over cutting boards for static armor. Apartment complexes often have giant stacks of phone books out in the lobby that no one picked up, and they'd be grateful if you hauled 'em off.
Composites always work best, of course, so if you can marry your lamellar material (phone book, Kevlar) with a brittle, frangible surface layer (B4C, Al2O3), then you can gin up a genuine ballistic material suitable for embedding in car doors or wherever.

If weight is no issue - like in the house - steel offers the best combination of low cost and a thin layer.