If I asked you to trust a Chinese-made 3A plate to save your life, would you? Of course you wouldn’t—you’re not an idiot, right? I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. You wouldn’t go on Wish/Temu/Alibaba and order an $18 piece of Chinese body armor and expect it to stop bullets, right?
But what if?
Every time I make an assumption I also think “what if.” I “what if-fed” myself so hard I ended up spending that $18 and ordering the damn thing. I just had to know if an $18 piece of “body” armor would work. The plate arrived surprisingly quickly and looked nice.
We got a SAPI-style cut, and while it’s a 3A plate, it’s got a solid shape rather than a soft and flexible armor design. It’s perfectly suited for plate carriers. The plate does make the Level 3A claim on the back. It’s worth noting that I don’t believe China adheres to NIJ standards, so the 3A title is likely just for decoration.
With that said, a 3A plate should stop most common pistol rounds up to a .44 Magnum. I don’t expect this plate to stop anything, but there is only one way to find out. I didn’t have a .44 Magnum, so I grabbed a CZ P09 Nocturne, a Ruger GP 100 in .357 Magnum, and a 12-gauge Mossberg 590.
Testing Chinese Body Armor
The NIJ has very rigorous testing standards that are tightly controlled. I don’t have a lab, a controlled environment, or even tight standards. Hell, I don’t even have loose standards. I have a berm, some guns, and a burning curiosity, my doc says, will go away with antibiotics.
Here’s the plan: put the plate on the berm, shoot it with 9mm. If it stops the round, I will shoot it with .357, and then 12 gauge. My expectations are that the 9mm sails right through it. I’m shooting from approximately seven yards with basic 115-grain FMJs.
I put the red dot on target, I squeezed the trigger, and the plate jumped and wiggled off the berm at impact. I snatched it up, and while it had a massive dent in the plate, nothing penetrated. There is backface deformation, but no penetration. Call me impressed.
Let’s see if it can stop a .357 Magnum, specifically a 150-grain .357 moving at about 1,200 feet per second.
It turns out it can. In fact, it can stop seven of them. In a row. Holy crap. At this point, the plate is deformed, but still had no penetrations. I still have four rounds of 9mm in my CZ, so I let the plate have it. It soaked them all up.
Next, I unleashed three rounds of 00 buckshot, and finally, the rear of the plate is starting to open. I can’t confirm penetration, but from front to back, the plate is falling apart. I’d say it’s retired.
What Does This Mean?
Is Chinese armor good to go? Hell no. First, my testing isn’t in a lab or done to any standard. The plate is against a sand berm and moves when shot. It would react a bit differently pressed against your body, to be sure. How different?
I don’t know, ask the dwarven armorsmiths.
Let’s be clear, just because it stopped some rounds in my backyard doesn’t mean it’ll stop rounds from getting stuck in your chest. I honestly expected this article to end with the first 9mm shot fired, and we could all have a laugh. I didn’t think it’d soak up five 9mms, seven .357s, and three shotgun rounds.
It’s certainly curious, but even if it could save your life, there is a reason the NIJ does batch testing. I might have gotten a good, well-made plate, but that doesn’t mean the next dozen will work. Please don’t use Chinese body armor for anything other than a target.
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