I hear a lot of talk about how many guns, what caliber, soap making, how to build a lean-to, close quarter combat, etc, but I haven't really seen anything on the topic of body armor.

As I am personally in a very secure location at this time, I really have no reason to wear bullet resistant armor but supposing you are part of the general populace and there is civil unrest or whatever-- perhaps you would be foolish to stock up on 6 assault rifles but not a have a single piece of armor. Further, I would say its prudent to own a tourniquet or two, a gas mask, dressing for wounds, tampons (they can save your life!), anesthetic, empty sand bags (if you need that your probably screwed).

As far as armor, a simple police vest should be good when dealing with 9mm-- but if you seriously plan to engage an enemy with an assault rifle (which all s*i* has broken loose anyways...so I don't see this ever really being practical)-- I mean if you buy an assault rifle, I think you should also buy some real armor and kevlar. If you can justify an AR-15 for self defense, I think you owe it to yourself to be logical and buy the appropriate defenses for dealing with equal opposition force weaponry.

Has anyone bought any of this stuff? Any dragonskin owners?

Just curious.

Very good point

This is where the difference between US and UK/EU survival emerges...in the US there are almost as many privately held guns as people so ballistic grade armour would be a far higher priority

In the UK the biggest threat I can imagine will be from bladed or bowed weapons when civilians 'go feral' so requiring a lower level of protection, making it all the easier to fashion your own.

I've been looking at commonly available household items such as HDPE (high density polyetheleyne) chopping boards...as this material is a thermoplastic (IE: can be heated and reshaped/moulded) it could feasibly be heated under a grill to soften and then moulded to fit the body-area requiring protection

I've tried to split one of these by chopping with a two-handed overhead swing with my razor-sharp chinese cleaver and it only makes a small cut and has no discernable effect in the board's integrity so I'm assuming that it would resist penetration by an xbow bolt at 180lb+ draw at killing-range

Are there any full-size xbow owners that would like to test this idea out for me? U2U me if you can help

Originally posted by citizen smith
I've been looking at commonly available household items such as HDPE (high density polyetheleyne) chopping boards...as this material is a thermoplastic (IE: can be heated and reshaped/moulded) it could feasibly be heated under a grill to soften and then moulded to fit the body-area requiring protection

An excellent lead into personal body armor research. I hadn't given this topic much thought at all, to be honest, and on first examination HDPE appears to be quite an interesting material.

Great idea for a thread in the Survival genre. I'll be following this with interest.

I had posted my findings on home made body armor (which came by accident, I was making a costume) on a different site, due to possible liability issues should someone try it out.

Kydex Plastic (Big black or blue plastic barrels is a common use of it) of 3/8" - 1/2" thickness will repel (they litterally bounce off) 9mm, .40, and .45 rounds along with .22. Rifle rounds other than .22 cut through it like butter. With shotguns, the pellets will imbed themselves into the plastic, but no penetration, I tried this with target loads and #6 shot. I have not seen the effects of 00 Buck and/or slugs on it.

I could be mistaken (and I probably am) but maybe an arrow might actually penetrate some types of armor due to the different ballistic characteristics of an arrow over a bullet?

Heck I'm no expert I'm asking you more knowledgable folks out there

Originally posted by citizen smith
In the UK the biggest threat I can imagine will be from bladed or bowed weapons when civilians 'go feral' so requiring a lower level of protection, making it all the easier to fashion your own.

FYI, a compound bow will send a typical arrow sailing through the same vest that will stop a 5.56 or 7.62 NATO.

Just in case you were thinking about having your buddies fire arrows at you.

Originally posted by AGENT_T
Why do I get the feeling if I try to shoot my plastic chopping board it will ricochet off and go through the back window and hit the cat?

It probably will...but in the interests of shed-science, and your capacity for destroying things *coff* ..boomerang..*coff* it should be attempted

edit to add legal disclaimer for vetinary bills, broken windows, and..er..anything else that can be 'blamed-and-claimed' hehehe

[edit on 4-3-2009 by citizen smith]

I neglected to mention this in my previous post, assuming most people would stick to gun armor-- but yes, for the record, there are vast differences between armor to protect from sharp objects and bullets. In fact, you would find, you can rather easily penetrate many bullet proof vests with a knife. Likewise, sharps resistent material often allows bullets to pass like butter. While there has been a lot of talk of creating a real multipurpose armor, I have yet to hear of a good one. (Though Kevlar is apparently effective of pretty much anything to an extent)

Whats the fascination with homemade remedies? There is tons of commericial armors that are tried and true.

Originally posted by ragman

Whats the fascination with homemade remedies? There is tons of commericial armors that are tried and true.

I believe that it fulfills a guys need to tinker and invent. Anything is possible with the proper application of WD-40 and Duct-Tape.

Plus, body armor is expensive, home made remedies can be effective, and lighter on the pocket book. Some of us here are self-proclaimed budget survivalists, who try to do everything we can to insure safty, but also have enough dough to have fun, because if you don't spend the time that you can living life to the fullest you can, then what is worth fighting for in a SitX?

Just my $.02

Bathroom wall tile (the kind that comes linked together in 1'x1' sheets) will stop most pistol rounds. I was thinking if you could re-work whatever it is that links the tiles together so that they would overlap, you'd have a low protection level dragon-skin type armor. Of course you would still need a kevlar vest to catch the fragments and some padding to absorb the shock. Another idea I had was to use stiff-but-flexible (almost springy) type of plastic instead of padding to manage the impact forces. Instead of absorbing the shock it would spread it out so it wouldn't be as much force in one spot.

Originally posted by DropInABucket
because if you don't spend the time that you can living life to the fullest you can, then what is worth fighting for in a SitX?

Just my $.02

Best advice ever!


Most hard plastics will stop knifes if they are thick enough. Wouldn't try home made ballistic armor. It takes very complicated and advanced manufacturing methods to created a single vest. I believe this can only be done effectively at an industrial level. Needles to say it's better to have no armor than one that won't work.
In that situation my body armor is called solid cover and dense concealment.

I have been looking into body armor recently but am uncertain as to exactly how effective it would be in a "worse case" scenario. From what I can tell, it is not extremely comfortable so most people would not be just willing to wear it around everyday unless there was an imminent threat. It can be very hot in the Summer. That being said, it might also save your life should things get really that bad. The armor generally costs from $400 to $1,000 depending on the level of protection (Level II, Level III, etc.). Level II is good for most handgun defense.

Generally, if you can afford it, I would think that body armor would not be a bad investment right now. Hopefully we will never need it. But too bad if we find out it would have been "nice to have" when it is no longer available.

I still have my "old" met vest (covert), its rated as Level 2 and constructed of kevlar and chain mail. Therefore offers defence against handgun and sharps. Can be worn for 8hrs, gets a bit sweaty but no probs running about etc in it.

Never could work out why UK police forces opted for overt armour. Just shoot em in the head or conkers. Least with the covert armour the suspect will probably aim centre mass.

Im not condoning shooting a wooden top in the dangly bits

Rgds

Originally posted by citizen smith
Very good point

This is where the difference between US and UK/EU survival emerges...in the US there are almost as many privately held guns as people so ballistic grade armour would be a far higher priority

In the UK the biggest threat I can imagine will be from bladed or bowed weapons when civilians 'go feral' so requiring a lower level of protection, making it all the easier to fashion your own.

I've been looking at commonly available household items such as HDPE (high density polyetheleyne) chopping boards...as this material is a thermoplastic (IE: can be heated and reshaped/moulded) it could feasibly be heated under a grill to soften and then moulded to fit the body-area requiring protection

I've tried to split one of these by chopping with a two-handed overhead swing with my razor-sharp chinese cleaver and it only makes a small cut and has no discernable effect in the board's integrity so I'm assuming that it would resist penetration by an xbow bolt at 180lb+ draw at killing-range

Are there any full-size xbow owners that would like to test this idea out for me? U2U me if you can help

Smiffy why not just buy yourself a set of knife or bullet resistant armour, its readily available to the UK public?