What's the general consensus on the coatings applied to AR500?

I know some places make a big deal out of their special blends of shit, and I've also seen some guys selling AR500 plates that had no coatings at all (and were rusting). The rust kinda scared me.

A coat of Rustoleum should take
care of that, but the heavy built up
coating is highly recommended by
a friend of mine who has done a
lot of testing on the AR500 plates.

Also, if the rust makes you nervous,
getting shot at probably won't do
your blood pressure any good
either.

John

Thanks for the info.

I'm mostly just neckbearding this. I always wanted armor "just because", but the legality was questionable in MA. Now that I can get that in TX, and congress wants to ban it, I'm looking at my options.

Me too.

So if I'm going to buy it, I am
getting curved plates & the
heavy coating.

Good Luck!

John

I got some AR500 Armor before they offered the thick spall protection. Of the various videos I've seen of thick and thin coatings, I'd definitely go with the thick. It really seems to either capture the spall or direct it away from the body. To make up for the lack of spall protection on my plates, I wrapped a few layers of denim around them from old jeans pant legs. I've never seen any testing on denim wrapped plates, but I figure it's better than nothing.

It seems like all of the tests people do consists of shooting the plates without a carrier. I'd be interested to see what happens when the plates are shot inside a carrier.

Assuming spall of plates has similar energy to the fragments I see coming off steel targets at pistol matches then it might not even penetrate the carrier.

I know a fella who shot uncoated steel plates within a carrier to see what would happen.  According to him, the spall was contained by the carrier.

Still, I would paint or line my plates just to provide rust resistance.

Steel plates need a coating that is bonded to the surface of the plate.  What has appeared to be the most effective is the bed liner type of material at least .375 thick.  As for any vest / carrier capturing the fragmentation is pure bull crap.  The bullet fragments are traveling at several thousand feet per second and are extremely sharp.  Cordura Nylon is not designed to capture this type of projectile.  There are plenty of ultra high speed video of bullets striking steel plates.  Watch them and watch how the fragmentation of the bullets flow along the surface of the plate.  Steel plates are inexpensive, the coating ups the price considerably often more than the plates themselves.  If I were to use steel plates I would run .375 thick properly applied commercial bed liner.  Something to think about.

Now that you mention it, I have seen some vids of people shooting armor within a carrier, but probably less than vids just shooting a stand alone plate. I always cringe when I see someone shooting armor inside a carrier because to me, even the lower end carriers are expensive, but we at least get to see some real world results. The results are that carriers DO NOT capture spalling and fragments. That's why I added the extra layers of denim. Not that I know that'll work either without testing, but again, it's better than nothing. I'll try to find some links to vids that show how much the carriers get messed up.


Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNiJk_QA6Fc

The linked vid was one I'd never seen before, but by the end they had spall damage to the carrier. They note that the mannequin had no damage, but the mannequin didn't have arms. They were testing AR500 Armor with the thicker spall protection (which mine doesn't have) and the results to the carrier seemed mild to some of the other vids I've seen (sorry no links right now) with the much thinner coating.