Thanks for these updates, super informative and interested, love your videos (as a Tarkov player lol)
I have a bit of info to add, perhaps it is relevant.
In April 2021, I tried to order some gear (plate carrier, belt) from Orange Tactical Gear (a small Chinese tactical gear company, some PLA/PAP units use their stuff), I chatted with the sales representative a bit since I asked if it is possible to change the size of the mag pouches to fit a original G36 mag. A bit after I've placed my order, he told me that he could not sell them to me and refunded me as "it is too difficult to get them overseas". Apparently there was a pretty big crackdown on shipping military gears to overseas buyers after a few incidents, the person did not say much but mentioned something about NVGs being sold to US buyers and it caused quite a stir.
I assume you got your plates/gear/helmets from China recently, which is pretty interesting given that there appears to be a bit of crack down on this last year.
On your note about the weird performance of the second identical PLA plate, could it be possible you got "defect products" from the original manufacture? I am by no means familiar with military production processes, but my parents knew folks who operate factories that produce other goods in China (fashion items like cloth and bags for European luxury brands), apparently sometimes some people from these factories secretly sell products that did not make the QA/QC process to interested buyers for a discount. The items are still made to the same quality but suffer from minor defects that are not suitable to go to proper buyers and are rejected and sent back to the factory, but folks who work at factory will try to secretly sell these out to a few people to make some quick gain.
Do you you think it is possible that the plates you got are OEM plates but are defected and did not pass the QA/QC process? Perhaps that can explain the inconsistent performance and how you are able to get these things even after last year's crack down?
I was about to suggest this exact possibility, really does sound like a case of factory seconds. Especially if the performance is inconsistent.
Ok, returning from more sleuthing! I got with other armor testing friends and discussed what could be happening.
I did do the proper twist/tap test and I peeled back some of the ceramic to check for any damage before shooting and didn't see any. I also saw consistent damage and spiderweb cracking along the impacts, nothing to suggest defects.
The reality is this: the plates are simply not manufactured to resist .30 cal rounds from a 20 inch barrel at 15 feet. The polyethylene backer is simply too low quality, and the ceramic is too thin compared to Russian and American plates that also use poly backers. I saw this same effect on the American IHPS helmet, where the round is stopped but the deformation is fatal because of weak/insufficient polyethylene.
I was wrong in my earlier post today, my bad! Even Norinco subsidiary Silicon (strike face marked) plates fail to stop a lot of this stuff according to other testers (Buffmanrange).
However, to be a broken record here, this plate is unlike those commercial plates in that it has a monolithic ceramic body. There are no Chinese export plates that have monolithic ceramic, not militech, not those weird tacticalxmen plates, not the strike face plates, nobody! It would be great if yall could prove me wrong on this fact!
Because I can't find any Chinese commercial plate with the monolithic ceramic, this must be a military plate. However this commercial vs military argument is still bizarre, because the PLA and PAP use commercial plates in addition. (The English "strike face" marked plates!) Those commercial plates have been extensively tested in the US.
The visually identical Alu Oxide (again strike face marked) Norinco subsidiary plates that you can see tested in this video () deform quite a bit less then the SiC plates under the same .30 cal rounds, however the deformation is still quite bad for the NIJ level 4 3006 AP threat.
After my inspection and examination of these mystery "military" plates I am confident that they are simply weaker than western and Russian plates. They're still good enough to get the job done and protect in typical wartime engagements, but other plates stop the same rounds with no deformation under the same strenuous test while being lighter.
I still have to retest with M855A1 next week. I'm pretty confident they'll be able to stop military 556 with acceptable limits. But the fact is I shouldn't have to use 556 on them. Its like sinking to a new low, they're just flat out mediocre plates.
Throwing out another theory here… could these be for paramilitary use (border guards, PAP, etc.)? Since civilian firearms ownership and armed crime in China is extremely low, perhaps this is a “budget” model?
