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Posted: 9/1/2010 10:19:14 PM EDT
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Ok this may be a stupid idea but I was thinking. If you had a plate carrier but no plates... would it be worth putting a plate size book in the carrier? Like a textbook. I know it probably wouldn't do much against a 30 cal but it might do pretty well against pistol calibers.
What do you think? Stupid idea? Its late, i'm tired and I might not be thinking clearly :) |
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Ok this may be a stupid idea but I was thinking. If you had a plate carrier but no plates... would it be worth putting a plate size book in the carrier? Like a textbook. I know it probably wouldn't do much against a 30 cal but it might do pretty well against pistol calibers. What do you think? Stupid idea? Its late, i'm tired and I might not be thinking clearly :) F*ck no. 
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According to Micheal Weston from Burn Notice, you can line your car doors with phone books and make it bulletproof. I'm rolling with several area code's worth!!! I liked when he was in prison and knew the gang was gonna shank him and the guy he was protecting. They used hard covers and ripped the pages out them taped the hard covers over their midsection to become stab resistant. theory seemed sound to me. 
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Quoted:
According to Micheal Weston from Burn Notice, you can line your car doors with phone books and make it bulletproof. I'm rolling with several area code's worth!!! I liked when he was in prison and knew the gang was gonna shank him and the guy he was protecting. They used hard covers and ripped the pages out them taped the hard covers over their midsection to become stab resistant. theory seemed sound to me. Who knows, maybe improvised armor works better against improvised weapons? Someone go grind a point on a toothbrush, and see how well a book cover stops it. Someone needs to play devil's advocate, right? |
Only pistol bullet I have ever seen stopped by one hardcover book was a reloaded(no idea what powder charge) 110grain .38spl LRN. Not the most impressive load.  I was able to wiggle the bullet that was sticking out the back out of the book. Book was about 400/450 pages IIRC. Not a great idea OP.
I also would not have bought a plate carrier if I was not going to get plates for it either...some won't fit right. |
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A thick book cover is going to maybe deflect a knife. A 400 to 600 page book might stop a .22. You would be better off getting 1/2" steel plates cut to fit and bent in concave radius. This... or visit the EE and speak to the nice guy over there selling "scrap" pieces of kevlar. |
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A standard size textbook will stop about 7 .45 caliber hollow points placed in different areas of the book or at least in my case it did. At one point I had pictures of it but I have no clue where they are. I do, however, have all the mushroomed bullets still in my truck. That said I would not advise using a textbook as "body armor".
ETA: This was due to the rounds being hollow points and the slow velocity of the .45 round. I wouldn't count on much else to stop in a book. |
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Quoted: Didn't the Mythbusters did a show on this? Mythbusters did the 'Burn Notice' car up-armored with phonebooks thing... A car door with 1 layer of phonebooks would stop 9mm, 45, et-al... Essentially, the calibers the bad guys in Burn Notice were shooting... A car-door plus 1 layer of phonebooks was insufficient against shotgun and rifle fire... The *car door* was also shown to be a critical part of the 'formula', as without the door it took 2-3x as many books to stop the round... They then made a jeep cherokee up-armored with books (to an absurd level - over 1000lbs of paper, many inches thick, and proceeded to see exactly what it took to hit the simulated 'occupants'... Their blow-up people 'lived' through 5.56, 7.62x51, 12ga slugs... But a mix of .416, 50BMG, and 338 got 'em.... |
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Back in community college after taking a relatively useless and completely unnecessary math course; rather than sell the book at the end of the quarter i took it to the farm set it on a chair and dumped a mag of .45 ball into it in a fit of happiness.
Wasnt exactly the best ammo but it stopped every one of them. I still have the bullets i pulled out of the book in a box someplace. |
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Okay, I am going to take this up a level. How about if you soaked or impregnated the book in a resin material or epoxy? I am not proposing this as a serious idea, but the duck tape gave me an idea or two. It is not so much as "is paper good as armor," but now to "can paper be made to be good armor?" Mythbusters played with common materials, but they did little combining. After all, Mythbusters managed to make a pretty tough boat out of what was basically water-soaked and frozen newspaper. What if epoxy-soaked the newspaper instead?
ETA: Of course, now I am wondering if I can order my own kevlar and carbon fiber sheets and resin impregnate myself my own armor. Kinda scary, thinking of DIY armor, but some people build guns, some build nylon gear.... I am wondering if this might actually be cost effective, just for myself and my loved ones, not as a buisness. The more I think of it, the more I think it could actually be done. I am not saying it will meet national standards, but has to be better than phone books! And I am betting it may cost less than a full set of plates and kelvar panels, as well. |
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According to Micheal Weston from Burn Notice, you can line your car doors with phone books and make it bulletproof. I'm rolling with several area code's worth!!! I liked when he was in prison and knew the gang was gonna shank him and the guy he was protecting. They used hard covers and ripped the pages out them taped the hard covers over their midsection to become stab resistant. theory seemed sound to me. That actually does work and I've done it at Gryphon Group in Melbourne, FL. You are of course using multiple layers and if you want to conceal it you're going to need to remove door paneling. Big phone books work better than thick hard cover books because of the air and many directions the lead will take once it hits the glass/sheet metal/frame. Also rugs, particularly thick runners work well. We stood at distances of 5 to 7 meters and used a .45. .40, 5.56mm and 7.62. Obviously the higher powered big rounds did more damage to the material but it took four rounds of the.45 to actually start penetrating the phone book and it never went through the rubber matting and thick carpet roll. You could realistically do this to a beat up vehicle and have reasonable success of survival until you can bail out and get a new vehicle or find a hidey hole. |
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According to Micheal Weston from Burn Notice, you can line your car doors with phone books and make it bulletproof. I'm rolling with several area code's worth!!! You have to duck tape all around the phone book making it super tight (get the air out) you will find 1 phonebook can stop a 9mm |
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Quoted: Quoted: According to Micheal Weston from Burn Notice, you can line your car doors with phone books and make it bulletproof. I'm rolling with several area code's worth!! You have to duck tape all around the phone book making it super tight (get the air out) you will find 1 phonebook can stop a 9mm An LA phonebook or a Pickens, SC phonebook? |
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Okay, I am going to take this up a level. How about if you soaked or impregnated the book in a resin material or epoxy? I am not proposing this as a serious idea, but the duck tape gave me an idea or two. It is not so much as "is paper good as armor," but now to "can paper be made to be good armor?" Mythbusters played with common materials, but they did little combining. After all, Mythbusters managed to make a pretty tough boat out of what was basically water-soaked and frozen newspaper. What if epoxy-soaked the newspaper instead? ETA: Of course, now I am wondering if I can order my own kevlar and carbon fiber sheets and resin impregnate myself my own armor. Kinda scary, thinking of DIY armor, but some people build guns, some build nylon gear.... I am wondering if this might actually be cost effective, just for myself and my loved ones, not as a buisness. The more I think of it, the more I think it could actually be done. I am not saying it will meet national standards, but has to be better than phone books! And I am betting it may cost less than a full set of plates and kelvar panels, as well. There are lots of industrial sources for kevlar & CF. Have fun... just please don't be your own test dummy/ 
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Okay, I am going to take this up a level. How about if you soaked or impregnated the book in a resin material or epoxy? I am not proposing this as a serious idea, but the duck tape gave me an idea or two. It is not so much as "is paper good as armor," but now to "can paper be made to be good armor?" Mythbusters played with common materials, but they did little combining. After all, Mythbusters managed to make a pretty tough boat out of what was basically water-soaked and frozen newspaper. What if epoxy-soaked the newspaper instead? ETA: Of course, now I am wondering if I can order my own kevlar and carbon fiber sheets and resin impregnate myself my own armor. Kinda scary, thinking of DIY armor, but some people build guns, some build nylon gear.... I am wondering if this might actually be cost effective, just for myself and my loved ones, not as a buisness. The more I think of it, the more I think it could actually be done. I am not saying it will meet national standards, but has to be better than phone books! And I am betting it may cost less than a full set of plates and kelvar panels, as well. There are lots of industrial sources for kevlar & CF. Have fun... just please don't be your own test dummy/ Oh, no. There will be no live-action testing of paper-based armor. Going to take me a while to get some models put together, but it will be to satisfy academic curiosity only. Now, if I am going to make my own hardened kevlar/carbon fiber plates, they may make it into a plate carrier for personal use, but only after serious testing. Won't be a Level IV plate, but I am curious if the level of protection it does afford is cost effective. |
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Quoted: Quoted: According to Micheal Weston from Burn Notice, you can line your car doors with phone books and make it bulletproof. I'm rolling with several area code's worth!!! I liked when he was in prison and knew the gang was gonna shank him and the guy he was protecting. They used hard covers and ripped the pages out them taped the hard covers over their midsection to become stab resistant. theory seemed sound to me. It's not meant to stop a rambo knife, but rather a sharpened tooth-brush or other improvised stabbing weapon... Makes some sense... |
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Quoted: ETA: Of course, now I am wondering if I can order my own kevlar and carbon fiber sheets and resin impregnate myself my own armor. Kinda scary, thinking of DIY armor, but some people build guns, some build nylon gear.... I am wondering if this might actually be cost effective, just for myself and my loved ones, not as a buisness. The more I think of it, the more I think it could actually be done. I am not saying it will meet national standards, but has to be better than phone books! And I am betting it may cost less than a full set of plates and kelvar panels, as well. Kevlar cloth/sheet/etc is available for use in aircraft repair.... Making stuff with it, is essentially identical to fiberglass, except the kevlar cloth or laminate sheets require slightly more care when cutting, to avoid messing up the strength of the material... Can't promise you any armor-plating qualities, but it does make fairly strong cowlings, and honeycomb or laminate-foam panels.... |
| You would be better off with an HDPE cutting board sized or cut to fit. They actually will stop many pistol rounds and if you can find thicker say 1 to 1 1/2 inch they may even stop many rifle rounds. There is a guy on ebay who sells 12" square pieces of HDPE rated at level IIIA for around $20 a piece. |
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You would be better off with an HDPE cutting board sized or cut to fit. They actually will stop many pistol rounds and if you can find thicker say 1 to 1 1/2 inch they may even stop many rifle rounds. There is a guy on ebay who sells 12" square pieces of HDPE rated at level IIIA for around $20 a piece. That is very interesting, and why the mass mind here can sometime work wonders. Thanks, I will look into that. Going to be a bit of testing in my future. When I don't have to balance work and school anymore. |
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Kevlar cloth/sheet/etc is available for use in aircraft repair.... Making stuff with it, is essentially identical to fiberglass, except the kevlar cloth or laminate sheets require slightly more care when cutting, to avoid messing up the strength of the material... Can't promise you any armor-plating qualities, but it does make fairly strong cowlings, and honeycomb or laminate-foam panels.... Wear a respirator and eyepro as well - CF can lead to a particularly nasty version of something akin to black lung. 
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Kevlar cloth/sheet/etc is available for use in aircraft repair.... Making stuff with it, is essentially identical to fiberglass, except the kevlar cloth or laminate sheets require slightly more care when cutting, to avoid messing up the strength of the material... Can't promise you any armor-plating qualities, but it does make fairly strong cowlings, and honeycomb or laminate-foam panels.... Wear a respirator and eyepro as well - CF can lead to a particularly nasty version of something akin to black lung. A bit of early research is showing a difference in kevlar (and CF) weaves between aircraft, watercraft, and automobiles and the weave used in armor. Between that and trying to maximize use of the possible materials, it does not currently look cost effective to try to cut your own BALCS style armor. Whether or not you could use it do base a plate system on remains to be seen. I have quite a few experiments planned now; I need to find a range that is going to let me play (I promise to clean up all my trash!!!) with this stuff. I do not plan or want this to become any kind of "Box-o-Truth" level of testing. I am just satisfying my own curiosity. |
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