Has anyone had a chance to test these plates? I have heard rumors that they are just relabeled Ceradyne Defender UG sapi plates but would like to get more info on them.

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/sapi-level-3-plate

here are the plates, link left cold

Thanks

I do believe that "rumor" was started by a user who frequents this forums and ultimately bought at least one. Hopefully he will chime in.

I'm not sure I would trust a company that spells their city wrong on a plate label. SaMford NC?  Never heard of it.  ZIP is for Sanford.
CHRIS

"you had one job......"

Anyone else have any experience on these plates? My hunch is that they were bought wholesale from a big name plate manufacturer and then relabeled as PPM. Or if someone wants to buy one for me I can shoot it for you

I just randomly stumbled across this thread. I assume I'm the one toki is talking about. The plates do in fact appear to be rebranded UG III's. I cant say 100% that that's the case but looking at the plates I have relative to the Ceradyne's, everything looks the same right down to the type face, spacing, coating, lettering, thickness, cut, shape, etc. It's my understanding that it's not super common for smaller manufacturers to do ceramics in house do to the difficulties involved. I tried contacting Ceradyne directly to get more info but got no response. The seller, stillwood performance, appears to have purchased PPM's old warehouse/factory when they lost that lawsuit a while back and as I understand it went under. He has been selling all of the stuff he got in the buy and seems to have started doing some limited runs of stuff under his own company's name, but it may just be slapping a label on the left overs. Who knows. He didnt seem super knowledgeable on the plates though. Initially he listed them as stand alone, but not long after I mentioned the similarities to the Ceradynes to him, which are not standalone as I understand it, he changed the listing. At one point he claimed they were at least partially made in house, but using extra dyneema to reach standalone with out backers. But the testing pics that were posted in the listings initially suggested some limited spalling consistent with that of an ICW plate. Those pics dont seem to have been included on the later auctions.

My guess is that PPM bought these from Ceradyne to sell under their own brand, something that is fairly common, but they either didnt sell for whatever reason or the typographical error on the label meant that they got shelved instead of going out. When the company went under this seller bought the place and now he is selling the old stock and he doesnt really know much about it. I havent tested them as I only bought one set, but I'd definitely like to see them tested.  As i said I cant be absolutely sure, but if I had to put money on it though I'd say these are rebranded UG III's and I'd expected them to preform like them (or any other SAPI spec ICW plate for that matter).

YMMV.

ETA:

For comparison here are the Ceradyne Defender UG III's (which IIIRC were issued as SAPI spec plates to the .mil in the early to mid 2000s as well)




Here are my PPM SAPI's

https://www.flickr.com/photos/31253522@N08/8680615849/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/31253522@N08/8680615049/

I bought a set of them a few years back (the prices have gone up 35 bucks since then). I too believe they are Cerodyne plates (you can just make out the US on one of my plates when you hold it just right.)