Can you "uparmor" a level III AR500 armor plate with a floor tile?

Can a floor tile "uparmor"

  • Yes.

    Votes: 6 50.0%

  • No, still penetrates.

    Votes: 6 50.0%
  • Total voters
    12
  • Poll closed .
A

Andrew Wiggin

New member
At this point, pretty much everybody knows that lightweight, high velocity .223 or 5.56mm can perforate Level III AR500 armor. Does placing a single floor tile in front of the plate transform it into a sort of hillbilly Level III+ plate? Can a tile "uparmor" the plate such that M193 doesn't penetrate? Care to make a prediction? Please don't watch the video before voting.

link to test
 
This has been tested before, but it's a great and effective test.

The tile is hard and fragile of course, but absorbs a lot of the energy for a single shot from handguns or rifles.

If you test it again, try wrapping the tile, or two tiles, with duct tape tightly to hold them together and see how many multiple hits you can get.

Some tests online show that you can epoxy them together sometimes with some thin material between to make actually decent armor. Of course, with plates under $100, it's not super cost effective nor nearly as good, but in a pinch with few materials one can make some decent single shot stopping armor.

Something to consider if you want to harden your house or various rooms from directions where you fear either outbound or inbound rounds (angles of attack/defense, kids rooms, you name it). Just do a decorative sandwiched later of tiles on the lower 1/2 of the wall.
 
Firstly putting information on the internet about making stuff like this about bullet proof things just seems questionable to me. You might have good intentions but not everyone out there does.
Secondly if it does stop a .223, what about a 300 mag? Heck for that matter a .30-30? No such thing as bullet proof armor. Tile can break like glass sometimes anyways.
Thirdly I'm only commenting in hopes others might not put any good answers out there and they see my reasoning. A google search would bring this thread up and anyone can see it.
Fourthly it's not all that firearm related so why is it here? And who the heck needs homemade armor? Either something is fishy or paranoid. People don't need to know how to make it or shoot through it.
 
Anything which a bullet hits before the armor is going to cause the bullet to loose energy. The question is how much?

Will a ceramic or porcelain floor tile do anything? I'd think it might to a mouse gun caliber, but to a rifle round? Probably not.

Edit: Surprised at the results. I'd would have liked to see further testing.
 
Firstly putting information on the internet about making stuff like this about bullet proof things just seems questionable to me. You might have good intentions but not everyone out there does.
Secondly if it does stop a .223, what about a 300 mag? Heck for that matter a .30-30? No such thing as bullet proof armor. Tile can break like glass sometimes anyways.
Thirdly I'm only commenting in hopes others might not put any good answers out there and they see my reasoning. A google search would bring this thread up and anyone can see it.
Fourthly it's not all that firearm related so why is it here? And who the heck needs homemade armor? Either something is fishy or paranoid. People don't need to know how to make it or shoot through it.
Click to expand...

?????

Oh my.

Well, a person can purchase legally body armor, and yes it is bullet PROOF up to certain calibers. I'm unaware of any wearable body armor that will stop a .300 win mag, so no, I doubt tile will stop it.

So suddenly people who want to have body armor are fishy or paranoid... :confused::eek: Um. No. One might say the same thing about gun ownership for self defense. How can you separate the two logical positions?
Either you believe in self defense or don't.

Also not sure how anyone can nefariously use this information about using tiles for armor? Is there a legit fear that folks are going to arm themselves with ceramic tiles and go on shooting sprees? These will stop single or maybe multiple strikes as one might find in a brief encounter, but surely not a sustained firefight...
 
So suddenly people who want to have body armor are fishy or paranoid... Um. No. One might say the same thing about gun ownership for self defense. How can you separate the two logical positions?
Either you believe in self defense or don't.
Click to expand...

Owning body armor IMHO serves no purpose for typical CCW scenarios.

When riots start in your neighborhood, you'll regret not purchasing any.
 
This is just my own personal opinion, so take it how you want.
I just have a hard time seeing where wearing body armor fits your typical self defense situations. I suppose if something goes bump in the night you can throw it on but if that's necessary then maybe you shouldn't investigate. Life isn't like the movies, and I own nothing I'm willing to risk my life over. I will check to make sure no one broke in of course but in the time it'd take to get the vest on I could've already checked on my entire house except maybe my kitchen. Sure having a vest might stop a bullet to the torso but anywhere else? Nope. Plus if you're wearing a vest and you're going to get shot, where will the criminal shoot? If he has any sense it won't be where the vest is. Before I'd go the best option why not make the house harder to break into? That would remove the threat easier.

This is just me, I know not all of us are in a situation like mine. A riot here is not probable, I'd venture to say not possible. I don't live in town but I do have close neighbors but there's no way. There's several towns nearby and villages but the nearest city big enough for a riot is an hour away and there's several in that hour radius. Here break ins and violent crimes do exist but it's almost always over drugs/money. Murder is extremely rare in here, even in the bigger cities. The bigger cities might have a handful a year. The rest of it around here might one for a handful of years. Except the major cities (to some of you they wouldn't be big) it's over a significant other or drugs/money. There was a guy I went to school with killed over some big time drug stuff a couple of years ago. The break-ins are druggies out of drugs. They want quick to grab valuables and prescription drugs. They are almost always unarmed, a druggie with a gun is rare to see. People here deer hunt so when season comes in they borrow something or buy something cheap. I worked construction and I was around druggies a bit. One guy got a Rossi .410 to hunt deer with using slugs. Most will borrow their relatives pos that no one even wants to try. I know of people that have hunted with a muzzle loader with missing sights that was borrowed. So anyways, a druggie with a gun is rare. A $100 gun is $100 in drugs. They won't keep anything valuable around here. Violent unarmed breakins are rare too but has happened. One happened an hour from here in a smallish town. Two guys from this area went there and beat an old man for prescription pills.
The original question was about .223 and putting tile in body armor. I'll venture to say maybe it'll stop 7.62x25 better, possibly .223 but that's not a chance I'd take if I was trusting the armor. You're gonna need some serious stuff to stop a decent rifle. At that point you should just have a panic room.
 
The results were, indeed, surprising.
Guess I'd better hang on to some of that extra floor tile that was replaced.
And hope no body shoots twice.
 
This was just a proof of concept. I'm not advocating anything trust a homemade solution over real body armor of they have a choice, but my other tests have demonstrated that a light coat of bed liner is enough to hold tile together for multiple shots.
 
A long time ago, maybe ten years ago a a shop, a customer in line at the counter had a 9mm go off in his pocket.

The bullet stuck the ceramic floor and only did slight cosmetic damage to the tile.... No crack or crater.
Of course this was glued to cement
 
Watched the video now. Surprised at the results anyway....

To the poster that commented about posting this: is there a law against body armor? I ask an honest question to which I don't know the answer. But I assume that the OPs activity is legit.

People test penetration of different things all the time
 
A few really oppressive locales restrict the possession of body armor. A few more places make it illegaler to commit a crime while wearing armor.
 
Nothing illegal to my knowledge but I just think this information could fall into the wrong hands. Maybe I'm the paranoid one. So far nothing really has been said anyways. I'm no armor expert but I do get bored and think about random things. There's lots of things you can use to have makeshift armor. Or ways to make armor. Ways to make secure buildings too. But at the end of the day there is no bullet proof. There's some sort of bullet will go through anything. So if a piddly .223 can't go through something, because the average criminal has one anyways, doesn't mean it's bullet proof.
 
Zero expertise in this area, but I have been told Italian floor tile is much more difficult to break than Mexican tile. I know just about everything I have dropped on our Italian tile flooring for over seven years now has shattered and not even a single tile scratched as of yet.

I don't plan on taking any pot shots at it. :)
 
Ever watched anyone cutting tile? I don't know the name of them but they use some sort of wet saw usually. When I did construction the tile guys would usually have their saw setup in the garage which is where we had our metal brake usually. I've seen it crack and shatter. I'm not suggesting a better alternative but there's stuff out there.
 
As someone who has cut and laid a lot of tile in my house, entry, 3 baths, big shower, I can tell you there is quality tile that is tough, and there is cheap tile that is brittle. You do need to cut it with a wet saw, it will grind down a dry blade in a few strokes.

I would think two or three layers of good tile taped up together would be an improvement over the thickness of your shirt, and would certainly augment Kevlar armor, but I would want real body armor. Go out and spend the money if you think you need it.

I think it's like putting sandbags on your tank, it helps to reduce the energy of the hit, but you really, really, need the armor on the tank.
 
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