Level IV Ceramic Armor, or Level III Steel Armor: Which is Better?

By Bob Owens | 8:22 PM | October 14, 2015

This is the new video from Demolition Ranch showing how ceramic body armor performs against common 5.56 and 7.62×39 Russian rounds.

Now, compare how those Level IV ceramic plates held up with less than a dozen rounds fired into them, against the performance of a Level III plate that held off 88 of 90 M855 rounds.

The ceramic armor is lighter, but it is more expensive, more fragile, and less durable that AR500 steel.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be sticking with my steel rifle plates.

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com. Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun. He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.