Open source armor project

A

Andrew Wiggin

New member
Help me design homemade armor that is cheap and practical. Every few years, the leftist control freaks float the idea of an armor ban but if we can demonstrate that someone can build something just as effective, if a bit less comfortable with $20 of supplies from Home Depot, it takes a lot of the wind out of their sails. I'd like to hear your ideas on what we can do to make a lighter, cheaper, better plate.


This should help 'splain.
 
One design I've seen used sheets of fiberglass layered together which then had epoxy poured on it and left to harden. The whole thing was then wrapped in something thick and heavy like leather or denim and then duct taped all the way around. Hillbilly for sure :D

There's also Gecko45's original mall ninja thread, preserved somewhere for all eternity, detailing his designs.

I think one major factor that home made body armor from steel plates doesn't address is spalling/fragmentation.
 
I tried using fiberglass in one version a while back but maybe it wasn't enough.

As for the fragmentation, bed liner does a pretty good job stopping it, but it doesn't look like it would be all that dangerous. Painful, but not likely to be life threatening.


Fragmentation test
 
Porcelain tiles (about $1-2 at Home depot) laminated together offer better single shot protection than Kevlar. You-tube has videos of a stack of porcelain about an inch thick defeating .308, .223 (check you-tube videos for "homemade body armor")

Porcelain is considered harder and stronger than ceramic tile.

Ive seen them just wrapped in duct tape, but a proper epoxy between layers and a few layers of nylon or Kevlar over it all for spall protection....well thats some decent DIY armor.

Keep in mind, the highest rated ceramic rifle plates available (level IV) are about .75 inches thick, and weigh about 7 pounds each. 7 pounds of porcelain tile stops a HECK OF A LOT of rifle bullet!

Remember, its not just the material you use, its the order you put them in. A hard outer surface can be designed to fragment or deform projectiles to lessen their penetration into further layers. Hard, layered to soft, layered to hard, etc. Think of it like rebar in concrete- support brittle with flexible

A tile cutter can be used to clip the corners for a "shooters cut" or to help your homemade plate fit in standard plate carriers.
 
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Yes. That's the central idea. That's what I used for my original hillbilly body armor. We're looking to reduce weight and cost by layering the floor tiles with other materials.
 
Strips of heavy duty cargo straps, layered in a shingle type or dragon scale type arrangement. Covered in rhino lining.

Not harbor freight cargo straps, real ones. Even some real crane rigging straps
 
Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but I remember a guy on the guntalk radio show who invented a small compact bullet trap made out of shredded pieces of steel/spring steel.

The design was to instantly fragment the bullet into many smaller lighter pieces and decrease the mass so it would be stopped easier. This guys patent was really good and evidently they use his system in submarines. Maybe that gives you some ideas? Especially if someone else knows more about what I'm talking about...?
 
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