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Old 03-21-2019, 9:53 AM
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Certainly. A truncated timeline is below:

Early 2000's: AR-500 (Abrasion Resistant, 500 BHN) steel, a trade name owned by SSAB of Sweden, starts to see use in personal body armor, as it is relatively inexpensive, thin, and durable, and will stop many common rifle threats.

2007: Myself and Doctor Gary Roberts ("DocGKR") independently, inadvertently, and nearly simultaneously discover that AR500, in thicknesses commonly utilized for rifle plates, is susceptible to shear plug failure when impacted by hypervelocity rifle ammunition (specifically, M193 ball @ 3000 fps or higher). To be fair, AR500 was never intended for use as personal armor (it is designed to resist highly abrasive environments, where its high toughness and relatively high hardness are optimized). And much of what was called "AR500" was not sourced from SSAB.

2007-2014: Testing, evaluation, and further research leads myself and a couple others ("Doc" at the sadly now-defunct Maingun Surplus) to develop and bring to market a new generation of rifle plates utilizing "HHS" (High Hardness Steel*), with Brinell Hardness readings between 700 and 1100 (very high numbers). Specifically, Armox, and Armox Advance (trade names for extremely high quality armor steels manufactured by the Swedish company SSAB). These steels were required in order to stop M193 @ 3100+ fps.

2014: The first commercially available HHS/Armox Advance rifle plate is released by Maingun, the Patriot 2. It became the first on the market to reliably stop M193 @ 3100 FPS, and was also thinner than comparable legacy AR500 plates.

2015: Maingun releases the first curved HHS plate. Several other manufacturers start releasing HHS plates.

2016: A couple of manufacturers, in their haste to get HHS plates to market, compromise the material, or possibly utilize substandard material (at this time, SSAB is the BEST HHS in the world).

2017: Maingun goes out of business, but will always have the distinction of being the vanguard of new steel rifle plate tech. Doc deserves all of our thanks.

2019: Several manufacturers offer HHS plates (distinguished by a "level III+" notation). From my T&E, Chase Tactical AR1000** is the top of the heap currently.

Disclosure: I am not affiliated with any of the above mentioned companies.

*Interestingly, HHS is very similar in microstructure to ceramic, and exhibits failure modes more closely resembling ceramic than steel (brittle fracture rather than ductile/shear failure).

**It should be noted that the term "AR1000" is not accurate, as the AR series of steels does not go above AR600.

So at this time, AR500 steel should be relegated to testing and target use, and NOT for lifesaving purposes. Spend the bit of extra cash and get good HHS plates.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrjonesUSA View Post
Can you elaborate a bit on this?

I was quite surprised to read this comment as AR500 seems to be the standard / default armor plate.

What has supplanted AR500? AR650 / AR1000?
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Last edited by d-r; 03-21-2019 at 10:04 AM..
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