Tacticon Armament Level IIIA Rigid, UHMWPE

Hey everyone, welcome back to the range. My name is Matt, also known as the king of armor destruction in the armor wizard zap zap. We have an armor test today. Pro tip advice for the day, never skip a leg day. This particular rigid 3a panel is from Tacticon Armament. In full transparency, they provided me with a pair of these to demo with no strings attached. I actually traded them some of their Apex Falcon LVPOs to run this test. So if we do any armor testing for anyone in the future, I can actually hit the target that I'm aiming at. As I mentioned, this is a rigid level 3a panel. It is made out of 100% pure ultra high molecular weight polyethylene. It is multi curve. You can see those curves right there. Very, very sexy. This particular plate is 7.68 millimeters thick for those across the pond, or for us in freedom units, 0.303 inches. It weighs 1.164 pounds. Now here comes the spiel over here on my channel. We do our body armor completely different than almost anyone else on YouTube. I attempt to mimic the NIJ in as best as way possible out here in the woods. So this is pistol armor. We're going to shoot at approximately 10 to 15 feet. We also shoot at zero degrees because that is worst case scenario. We also try to maintain a two inch shot pattern on all of our armor testing because that is what the NIJ considers a fair hit assessment. Also, as well as keeping two inches from the edge, we have a giant clay briefcase filled with Roma Plastilina, number one clay donated by Siobhan. That acts as our compressible media that we can actually strap the body armor up against. And it's not just flying over here and flying over there. And what happens when you do that is the energy that's being impacted in that plate gets dispersed. So when we strap it to the clay briefcase, 100% of that energy transfer is going to happen. And I can't keep the clay to temperature out here. I've actually been heating it up all day, but it has to be 103 degrees. We're just going to get a representation of what back face looks like. So if we shoot this with something like 50 Action Express and we see a giant divot in the clay over 50 millimeters when it's cold, when it's at the NIJ spec, it could be more. We also use a chronograph, a Pro Chrono Pal Digital DLX, because we need to know the velocity of that particular round, if it is stopped and or if it penetrates. And finally, we put a spreadsheet here at the beginning and we kind of foreshadow all the threats that we're going to shoot at it. And at the end, we fill that out, double check our penetrations. And we also do a tear down, although with, you know, 100% pure polyethylene plates, there's not a lot to see inside as far as guts go. Another day, another dollar. We're back out today. I got rained out last time, so we're going to try to get this armor testing done. It's about 45 degrees today. We're going to start with our nine millimeter, the longest barrel length. This is a rigid panel. So based on my prior experience, I have an idea in my head of what this can and can't stop. So we've got our 16 inch barrel. We've got our Liberty Civil Defense. That's what a lot of people go to for the soft armor penetration round in nine millimeter. And then we have some of the L7A1. That's the really fast 124 grain. This is a Palomar State Armory ARV-9. We'll take the Liberty shots first. Hopefully the chronograph will read. We have seen 2,600 feet per second from this round before. This one should be on the right side of the plate. Got a velocity. All right. So then I'm going to walk these to the left this time. So this one will be right next to it on the same row. And then this one I'll place above it. And then the L7A1 will be on the third line. And hopefully it reads this one way over here. Now on to some of our copper wonders in nine millimeter. This one is a very popular option. Fort Scott Munitions 80 grain solid copper spun round. That is a nightmare for aramid and polyethylene. Rigid panels typically can stop it. And then this is our G9 Defense, the 77 grain law enforcement EMS first responder only. That one is also, in our testing before, done pretty darn good. We've got a four inch Glock 19. If they don't penetrate from this, we can always go up in barrel length. So this one should be right dead center with the plate on the fourth line. Pretty good velocity off that. This one I'll place directly below it. Nice. We'll take a shot with the Fort Scott Munitions from our 7.72 inch barrel. This is our CZ Scorpion Evo 3 S1 SBR. This is probably my favorite PCC. Loves to shoot it suppressed. Very nice little gun. This should be on the right side of the plate towards the bottom. I think our final shot on plate number one will be with our Fort Scott Munitions with the 16 inch. If that tells you anything. This should be on the left side of the plate. We have quite a few shots of nine millimeter on this plate. As I mentioned, this is a rigid polyethylene plate and the advantage to polyethylene is, generally speaking, you can get a lot of shots on a plate as long as you don't exceed it with any specialty threats. So our Liberty Civil Defense, shot number one, two, and three. Now this wasn't a fair hit. That's not two inches. That's only about an inch. So in an NIJ test, they wouldn't consider that. Our L7A1, or just like a duck all right in a row, number one, two, and three. Our G9 Defense, 77 grain from the Glock was right there. Then the Fort Scott Munitions from the Glock was there. Then we stepped up to the 7.72 inch barrel there and 16 there. In reality, we probably could put one, two, maybe three more shots on this plate. Place those bets in the comments below as I hit myself on the straps. Uh-oh, raggy. We have a penetration from that non-fair hit Liberty Civil Defense and our G9. But in the past, our Fort Scott Munitions load from barrels longer than four inches have penetrated some types of polyethylene, and it stopped from the 16 inch. Very, very impressive so far. We'll have to tear these plates down when we're done and get a look at them, but they are pure polyethylene, so there's not a lot to write home about. Now onto some specialty threats. This particular caliber often gets quoted as having all kinds of armor penetration abilities, and we'll see what it's going to do today when we compare it to some modern calibers. This is 7.62 by 25 millimeter. We have our little M57 Yugo right here. We have a surplus Chinese 85 grain bi-metal jacket. We have a PPU late something surplus lead core, and then we have a subsonic Chinese round, although I don't have a suppressor, so that's not going to be too cool. We'll take these three shots on the plate. We'll take the subsonic shot last because I don't remember where these hit. Actually, I may not be able to take that shot. I may have to, sorry, I'll have to hand load that one because it's too long. We'll take the lead core surplus first, then the bi-metal shot second. So I'm going to try to aim right dead center of the plate because I don't know if this is going to hit high or low. That shot low, so now our surplus. And now for our Chinese subsonic. I don't know why I keep putting it in the magazine because it's too long for the magazine. This will be on the left side of the plate. It is subsonic. And now on to a PDW cartridge in 4.6 by 30 millimeter HK. This is our CMMG-46 Banshee. We have some Fiocchi 40 grain full metal jacket. These should be going around 1,900 feet per second out of this eight inch barrel. This is one of the two very common loads that are available in the United States. This should be the upper left of the plate on the first row. And you know it would help if I actually chambered around and didn't hit the magazine release. And then I'll place this one right next to it. I think I got a velocity off one and maybe an air off another. And now on to my favorite caliber. We've got our 5.7 by 20 millimeter. I have our Pomerol State Armory Rock. This is a 5.2 inch barrel. The JK Armament rimfire kit on there. We have four rounds, two subsonics and two super nasty sonics. We have the Fiocchi 62 grain full metal jacket and we have factory SB193. This current revision is a 60 grain full metal jacket, lead core, bi-metal jacket though, tracks and magnet. That has really cool soft armor penetrating capabilities. Then we have Vanguard Outfitters Black Dragon Fang. It's 34 grain solid copper moving pretty darn fast. Then we have Elite Ammunition's S4M. That is the SS198LF bullet, but it's going 2,400 feet per second. We'll take that shot last. The Vanguard third SB193 second, then the Hornady full metal or Fiocchi full metal jacket first. This should be on the left side of the plate, 9.52. Now our factory SB193. Now our Black Dragon Fang, almost about 2,000 feet per second. Then our S4M, 24.33. I figured we'd increase the barrel length on our 5.7. We'll take one more shot of our S4M. Now obviously there are different 5.7 rounds that could easily penetrate this plate like SS190, but that's kind of a moot point because we know it's going to go through and the cost of ammunition I'd rather not waste it. This should be in the lower right hand corner or left hand corner, 2,700 feet per second. We can't forget our 300 blackout friends. I have some 220 grain TMJs from Calway Ballistics. I like to use this just kind of like for extra back face and to show that for the most part, most 300 blackout subs don't have a chance of penetrating any soft armor unless you go into any of our specialty stuff with a steel core. Now when you get into supersonics though, those generally would exceed the velocity rating of most of these panels. Just have a 10 and a half inch pistol kit here with a JK armament rifle kit. I have Tacticons Apex Falcon 1-6 up here. So this should be above the black dragon thing. Nice. Let's go check that plate. All right, our 4.6 shot number one and two right here. Our surplus PPU lead core 7.62x25 was right there. And then like a Doom Cough, my offset, I forgot for our 300 blackout. So that is right there. That's like a half inch from it. And the same with shot number one was literally like a half inch from our black dragon fang. So with the 300 blackout penetrate, we won't consider those. Then our Hornady or our Fiocchi with the Hornady FMJ-57 was here. Our factory SB193 was here. The subsonic Chinese 7.62x25 was here. Our S4M from the ROC was right here. Then our S4M from the 16 inch was here. And our surplus Chinese full metal jacket supersonic 7.62x25 was there. Place those bets in the comments below. Uh-oh, Raggy. We had penetrations from the SB193, the Chinese subsonic. And I do believe our black dragon fang. It looks like I see some material back there. We will pull that apart and confirm that on our teardown. Very impressive so far. We're on to plate number three and we stepped up to our big boy, our Magnum caliber's maximum back face. We've got 44 Magnum. This is a 240 grain jacketed soft point from Magtech. We've got our six inch desert eagle. This has the porting on the end of the barrel. So I think we lose a little bit of velocity. I don't think this is going to go through. I don't even think for 44 Magnum, I think I need a 16 inch to get the velocity the NIJ calls for. So that's why we've got the 50AE. This should hit about two inches high. Right on the money. And our second shot. Nice. And now for the big five. Oh, this is our 50 action express from desert eagle. We've got a 300 grain spear gold dot and a 300 grain jacketed soft point from IMI. We'll take the jacketed soft point shot second and our spear gold dot first. In some of our past testing, the spear gold dot actually penetrated some rigid panels on non-fair hits. Pretty good velocity off that. All right. And now our jacketed soft point. That guy down there is hurting. Four easy shots on this plate. 44 mag number one, two, desert eagle or 50AE shots number one and two. You can guess no pass throughs. Now this clay is cold. We heated it up for about two hours before we did our test, but it needs to be about 100 degrees to accurately represent back face. I imagine these two 50AE shots would be quite a ways in there. We'll do a teardown here in a second, but there's quite the dimple there, but it stopped it. And being pretty darn thin, that is pretty darn amazing. Now for everyone's favorite part, the teardown. This one will go pretty quick because this plate is 100% through and through polyethylene. This was plate number one. It does appear to be pressed because these layers are hard to separate. I can't thumb through it like a book, although we put a lot of shots on it. So that does make it come apart. Our confirmed only penetrations were the G977 green and our two rounds of Liberty Civil Defense. That one's definitely not a fair hit. And I wonder if on this one, we're two inches from there, but I wonder if we need to be a little farther apart, but that was going 2,600 feet per second out of a 16 inch real world, probably out of a pistol. This would stop it all day. No problem. Panel number two, our only penetrations were SB193, the subsonic 5.7, our subsonic 7.62 by 25 millimeter Chinese, and our Black Dragon Bang also penetrated. You can see how well that plate held together. And then plate number three was the heavy hitters, the 44 mag and the 58E. And for the most part, most of these don't even make it very far into our material. They just have a lot of energy to disperse. Very, very nice. Overall, fairly good constructed plate. Here is a couple of our recovered Fort Scott munitions rounds. Pretty much smash that tip down. And that's what slows down in the polyethylene. I don't know about you all, but I continue to be impressed with our ultra high molecular weight polyethylene materials, especially in our rigid formats, such as this level three APE plate from Tacticon Armament. We stopped a lot of obscure threats today, even some that have a lot of internet lore behind them, specifically our 7.62 by 25 millimeter full metal jacket. I think its performance against body armor comes from our old school body armor, where we're using aramid fibers, AKA Kevlar, the yellow stuff, which is known to be susceptible to being defeated by bullets that exceed a certain velocity threshold. We even stocked our Fort Scott munitions 80 grain solid copper spun round all the way out to our 16 inch barrel. Our Liberty Civil Defense was stocked one out of those three times from our 16 inch, although the likelihood of anyone using that in a 16 inch load is probably pretty slim. I like that Tacticon appears to be pressing this plate because it helps keep it rigid, especially when we shoot some of our Magnum threats like .44 Magnum and .50 Action Express at it. Now the clay that I use out here is the same clay that the NIJ uses, but I can't keep it up to that temperature. So you as the consumer should always go back to the manufacturer and ask for official bat base numbers when you're looking at some of those larger threats like .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum. I'll have to try to find the white paper or research paper that I read a while ago that basically said that, you know, if the round is stopped and the blunt force trauma is, you know, not excessive, you know, not 50 BMG, the likelihood of you actually, you know, dying from that are pretty darn slim. With all that being said, it's time for me to get the heck out of here. But at the end of all my videos, I take a moment to thank all those who helped make these possible. Number one is my Patreon and Subscribestar fans. I have a link tree in the description below with various different ways to support me, affiliate links, or contact me. I have an affiliate link for Magpul. I picked up these Patrol 2.0 gloves. Let me know what your guys' thoughts are on these, if you have any long-term use on them, how they hold up. They don't appear to be marked in the USA. I think they're made in Vietnam, so I'll have to see how long these last. Number two is Tacticon Armament. Again, in full transparency, sent us those level 3A plates to destroy with no strings attached. And of course, number three is you all for watching. Until next time, I'll catch you at the range. I like that Tacticon appears to be pressing this plate because that helps keep our rigidity. Rigidity.