I have a friend who is planning buying armor, and effectiveness of said armor in stopping typical current issue Russian rifle bullets is definitely one selection criteria for him. I went looking, and while there appears to be a lot of misinformation out there regarding body armor in general, one thing where things seem to be even worse is when discussing armor's effectiveness in stopping Russian rounds.This forum being the mecca for high quality information, I was hoping you guys might be able to shed some more light on the topic?
Now obviously, most armor manufacturers in the West don't test their armor with Russian ammo, but how useful would tests with SS109/M855 and .30 caliber bullets be in estimating the armor's effectiveness? Would it be fair to say that due to Russian mentality of emphasizing penetration, ceramic plates are pretty much the only effective armor out there?
(My friend could of course buy Russian plates, which are tested against Russian ammunition, but from what I've read Russians have some quality control issues so he would be taking a risk of receiving a plate that won't perform as advertised. And there would be some logistical issues involved as well. Much easier to just get good quality western manufactured plates that are more likely to perform up to claimed standards.)