Instead of steel, a new material may be the future of armored plates for self-defense. If I have to move to Waianae, Ima going to have the construction company install sheets of this behind the drywall.

https://news.mit.edu/2022/polymer-lightweight-material-2d-0202

The new substance is the result of a feat thought to be impossible: polymerizing a material in two dimensions.

Yes fellow gun enthusiast, that would make perfect sense because that is where the poor people on Oahu live according to my extensive internet research. 

You're better off building out of fully grouted masonry. 

Polymer strengths, at least in that article is a much different context than resistance against bullets.   

You're better off building out of fully grouted masonry. 

Polymer strengths, at least in that article is a much different context than resistance against bullets.

Article does mention 4-6x stronger than bullet proof glass, but in what context?  Someone trying to break it by bending or impact from a head?  I can see the cost being huge especially since it would be very new still. I'm gonna guess that they're 10 years at the earliest before it hits the civilian market.

Then gotta keep in mind hardness vs. frailness. Like AR600 steel,  In general it's a very hard steel on the hardness scale, but once hit with a head, it's fragile and cracks. Which is why we see AR550 steel.

Honestly body armor has become a bit stagnant. While research for newer materials to tackle modern threats (which is also kinda stagnating) continues, I don’t see the viability to move away from the current ceramic armor technology.

Maybe at the least government contracted armor companies and researchers in those companies will expand on the ceramic armor tech. There’s plenty of research finding how how to improve the construction of the ceramic plates such as the arrangement of the UHMWPE sheets, monolithic vs mosaic ceramic cores,…etc. but I don’t think we’ll see much from the armor industry for a while.
The slowly growing fad is the flexible rifle armor. Stealth Armor Systems makes a good one and it can be custom shaped but even the designer says that it has its limitations on what threats it can handle.


Some certain companies have coined titanium armor but really it’s no different from steel plates, that being the result of spalling and ricochet and excessively heavy. You can exclude that from being an option. Rumor is that there has been a casualty with the steel or titanium Velocity Systems ULV plates, and those who are using that armor system have been issued ceramic versions of the ULV as a result. Anything that’s performs similarly to steel and titanium where they redirect the mass of the projectile, is not worth it.