Bullet Resistant Plastic?

[meaty-btz]

Plastic Armor IS a thing. The US Army has actually made an entire APC hull out of plastic armor and it indeed can repel light armor piercing attacks. In fact it can take over 10 point blank hits by AP .50 in an single location.

Pretty impressive stuff. Modern plastics are amazing.

[Victor Cachat]

Still waiting for transparent aluminum.
Looks like it might be a bit expensive:

http://phys.org/news167925273.html

[Bansh88]

A friend of a friend worked for a armored truck company. The bank pick up type trucks.
He gave us a piece of glass to shoot at. about 3" thick. Rifle (.223, 5.45 and 7.62x39) went right through it but didn't break it.

[meaty-btz]

Still waiting for transparent aluminum.
Looks like it might be a bit expensive:
http://phys.org/news167925273.html

Technically, we've had transparent aluminum for a long time. It is called Sapphire and synthetic sapphires have been used to create low distortion view ports for extreme temp and pressure equipment in labs for quite some time.

[Irv]

Acrylic is clear and Polycarbonate has a light blueish tint. Look at the sides of the cut.

[SocomM4]

Its probably PETG ,Petg and polycarb are not the same. Petg is a great durable material , easier and cheaper to fabricate with, easy to machine bend and glue.. Not quite as clear or hard as polycarb tho. There are pieces of drop at my shop that are 3 inches thick. Often thought about the windows in my future bunker.

[SocomM4]

It's saturday, I'm at work and I'm making a Petg clear formed holster for my sig 226.

[TacticalThug]

Shhooottt iiiit! Then a range report

[jyo]

Yeah, lets take it out and test drive it---if you're near L.A., I have a great outdoor, private range to test it on...

[DoddRod]

Technically, we've had transparent substances that include aluminum as part of their chemical formula for a long time. It is called Sapphire and synthetic sapphires have been used to create low distortion view ports for extreme temp and pressure equipment in labs for quite some time.

Fixed it

[bernieb90]

I have a sheet of some kind of acrylic and I am curious about it. It's 4'X4' and 1.5" thick. I'm wondering what sort of bullet resistance this type could have. I know I'm not giving many specifics, but someone here might be a plastics expert. I'll try and find the label tomorrow.

Here's what the edge looks like:

I machine both acrylic, and polycarbonate, and to me it looks like polycarbonate. Acrylic has a light gray appearance when cut while the polycarbonate has the darker gray look. The easy way to tell is to hit the corner with a piece of metal. The acrylic will chip, and the polycarbonate will dent.

I had a similar piece of ploycarbonate composed of two .500" layers on the inside with two 1/16" layers on the outside for a total of 1-1/8" thick. It easily stopped all handgun rounds, but .308 went through like it wasn't even there. Consider it a level IIIA type body armor level of protection equivalent.

[sealocan]

I can not help with the plastic identification but someone mentioned that the ultimate cheap bulletproofing materials are radial tires, the modern type, with a metal threads going criss crossed through them, stacked several layers on top of each other would slow down or stop bullets. I'm not sure what calibers they were implying.
I don't know if this has been tested on anywhere or on " the box of truth"

but if it's true you can get used tires cheaply (you won't need them to have much of a rubber tread left.) and their round shape would help them cover / mold to a human's round body, arms and legs.

just a thought, if anyone ever has the time to test it out safely please let me know how it goes.

[stix213]

Shhooottt iiiit! Then a range report

Guys.... If he was going to shoot it he did it by now. Thread is from the Bush years....

[edgerly779]

It is not cheaper to glue 3 pieces together. FUD. It looks like ballistic acrylic used for bullet resitant windows as in check cashing places. It is actually polycarbonate but the trade name is ballistic acrylic. I have some at the shop[.

[dominic]

Holy resurrected thread from 2006 batman! The OP hasn't posted since 2011 and last signed on over a year ago.