Special project: hardened titanium alloy extreme sniper rifle targets

[Mecha]

Is that good? ^^^

 

[Richard338]

Is that good? ^^^

In your OP you described it as a super powerful sniper rifle. It's certainly all of that. Beyond that, other details of the set up and the type of accuracy he's achieving are important. Should be fun hitting those plates.

 

[oldmanwilly]

In case somebody hasn't heard about the .375 CheyTac, because I definitely have...

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View attachment 2424149

Quite a long bullet. I gather it's preferred for extreme long range competitions. Neat.

 

[Mecha]

In your OP you described it as a super powerful sniper rifle. It's certainly all of that. Beyond that, other details of the set up and the type of accuracy he's achieving are important. Should be fun hitting those plates.

I don't know all of the details, mainly just that he's attempting to come up with a target that can eat a lot of these strong rounds without weighing a ton.

 

[Mecha]

Final results are in:

The level 2 treated plate was shot at 75 yards. Unlike the first plate that retained a softer core, the round knocked a solid plug right out of the backside:

Plate 3 unsurprisingly proved to be the most brittle, with the ti shattering out of the back in pieces:

Plates 2 and 3 were more similar to each other than plate 1 in treatment. The rifleman was surprised that plate 3 could be so brittle, yet not crack with the impact.


The final shot, just to see what would happen, was to shoot plate 1 again from a mere 25 yards away! Drum roll...

Destroyed.


Conclusion: With a more mild heat treatment that retains more of a tough core yet imparts a nice hard surface of decent thickness, the lvl 1 plate was the strongest target the rifleman has ever seen. If used at a reasonable distance, it does a good job of stopping the crazy sniper bullets, and shows a significant improvement over the plate in its stock form. The more through-hardened and brittle plates could not absorb the extreme impact and penetrative force without failing.

Just as with sword blades, a proper balance needs to be struck between toughness and hardness or the piece fails when pushed to the limit. And just as with the swords, there's no way to really know what will happen and what's possible until you test it out and find those limits! It was a good exercise and I learned some new things, which is always valuable to me.

Ultimately, the best armor plate that can be made out of titanium alloys would be of a forge-welded bimetallic construction, with a hardened surface layer over a tough back layer of an alloy that does not harden during the heat treatment process.

 

[Goose 7279]

Wow super special sniper rifle is right!, AR500 plates stand up to 50BMG routinely.

Holy shit!

Never heard this before do you have any data to back this up? I am genuinely interested. Maybe at some long distance or something .50 bmg was created to be able to routinely penetrate 1 inch Hardened steel at under 100 yards. Also anti material rounds can penetrate even more 1.5 -1.75 inches of hardened steel at 100 yards. Ultimately it doesn't really matter because the force your body would recieve from taking the round/ force from the bullet impacting plate would probably kill you liquefy your organs/break apart arteries and blood vessels.

 

[DocJD]

it doesn't really matter

Might matter for vehicle and other equipment armor ?

 

[Goose 7279]

Might matter for vehicle and other equipment armor ?

Yea it definitely would matter for equipment for sure I believe bulletproof glass has to be like 3 or 4 inches thick to stop .50 bmg and weighs something like 30lbs a square foot. My info might be a couple years old though.

 

[TitaniumBolo]

Never heard this before do you have any data to back this up? I am genuinely interested. Maybe at some long distance or something .50 bmg was created to be able to routinely penetrate 1 inch Hardened steel at under 100 yards. Also anti material rounds can penetrate even more 1.5 -1.75 inches of hardened steel at 100 yards. Ultimately it doesn't really matter because the force your body would recieve from taking the round/ force from the bullet impacting plate would probably kill you liquefy your organs/break apart arteries and blood vessels.

Same here, I don't think this is accurate at all. I've personally seen a video where some one with a 50BMG shot through not just one, but 2 AR500 level 3 plus rated plates back to back and it still had enough energy to completely shatter several cinder blocks behind them.

50BMG is no, joke, these things will go through 14 inch wide oak tree trunks, destroy engine blocks ect. Actually the gun that was used in the testing of these plates is rather crazy too, I would not be surprised in the slightest if a CheyTac round could go trough a AR500 armor plate or even two if it was close enough range.

 

[TitaniumBolo]

Initial results, round 1:

The raw stock plate was shot with the super sniper rifle.

Impact crater:

Backside of plate:

Not bad! From the rifleman:

"Fairly deep hole; no penetration out the back side and a crack...wasn't bad though, easily as strong as the best heat-treated steels I've tested, maybe even a little stronger."

He adds, "I've tested some of the strongest stuff around. AR 500, s30v, 1060 high carbon, L6."

Now, how about the hardened plates?

Level 1 plate initial result:

Impact crater:

Backside of plate:

From the rifleman:

"Crater was much more shallow. Deformation on the back much more mild. So far this level 1 heat treated alloy is the strongest stuff I've ever seen."

He then says that his theory is looking to be correct. It certainly made sense to me, so I've been very interested in the results of the test shots.

"1. The case hardening had a similar effect to differential heat treatment, reducing penetration while keeping toughness. 2. There is no cracking, which as I surmised, only happens to titanium when it goes through adiabatic shear in the grain boundaries due to the transformation of the crystal form, leading to the expansion of those boundaries and an inevitable crack. Without this weakness, this titanium alloy is stronger than any steel, at least against ballistics."

Well...titanium can certainly be made to be brittle. In fact it's really easy to make it too brittle.

Both of us are quite interested to see what happens to the hardest of the plates. I suspect it could shatter, but you know. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

More to come.

This is truly spectacular! How much would you charge for a level one plate of say 10x10 inches or so? I had a titanium Bolo made many eons ago, and I know it's strong stuff, but people would always tell me steel is better, but I think if this proves anything it's that Titanium can be just as strong as steel, if not more so if it's heat treated right!

 

[Richard338]

I agree about the power of BMG. My friend bought one at the same time as I got my 338LM and we shot both of them a bunch. It's completely outside the range of regular rifle cartridges in every way. For reloading, it needs a special press. It takes about 230 grains of powder vs 92 for my favorite 338 load. The case barely fits in a car. Like any cartridge the terminal ballistics depend a lot on the bullet. We shot a lot of 750 grain Amax and they penetrate pretty well from sheer power, but we also tested some API with tungsten core and at 100 yards we didn't come up with any backing that would stop them.

 

[TitaniumBolo]

I agree about the power of BMG. My friend bought one at the same time as I got my 338LM and we shot both of them a bunch. It's completely outside the range of regular rifle cartridges in every way. For reloading, it needs a special press. It takes about 230 grains of powder vs 92 for my favorite 338 load. The case barely fits in a car. Like any cartridge the terminal ballistics depend a lot on the bullet. We shot a lot of 750 grain Amax and they penetrate pretty well from sheer power, but we also tested some API with tungsten core and at 100 yards we didn't come up with any backing that would stop them.
View attachment 2436927

That's pretty wild you got to see one used up close and personal. I wonder if two of these titanium plates here could stop it, might make a good experiment if Madscience forge would be down for it!

If not that then I have no clue, because these things don't even have a rating, they're so far above and beyond a level 3plus or level 4 rating which top out at like 308s and AP 30-06 I think. The rifle tested on these plates is also a good bit above any of these ratings too.

 

[Mecha]

Same here, I don't think this is accurate at all. I've personally seen a video where some one with a 50BMG shot through not just one, but 2 AR500 level 3 plus rated plates back to back and it still had enough energy to completely shatter several cinder blocks behind them.

50BMG is no, joke, these things will go through 14 inch wide oak tree trunks, destroy engine blocks ect. Actually the gun that was used in the testing of these plates is rather crazy too, I would not be surprised in the slightest if a CheyTac round could go trough a AR500 armor plate or even two if it was close enough range.

The fellow who did this test says the CheyTac stuff he shoots goes right through AR500 plates like butter.

This is truly spectacular! How much would you charge for a level one plate of say 10x10 inches or so? I had a titanium Bolo made many eons ago, and I know it's strong stuff, but people would always tell me steel is better, but I think if this proves anything it's that Titanium can be just as strong as steel, if not more so if it's heat treated right!

Unfortunately I don't have the the equipment to make something like that right now, but have plans to make body armor plates of a much different design, once I have the time* to do it.
*money

 

[TitaniumBolo]

The fellow who did this test says the CheyTac stuff he shoots goes right through AR500 plates like butter.



Unfortunately I don't have the the equipment to make something like that right now, but have plans to make body armor plates of a much different design, once I have the time* to do it.
*money

Doesn't surprise me, CheyTac rounds fall somewhere between a Lapua magnum and a 50BMG, and the bullets them selves are extra long and narrow which make them especially adept at penetration because the force is concentrated more in the center and the bullet takes much longer to flatten out on hard surfaces.

Wow! Titanium body armor, almost sounds like science fiction, that ought to be really cool once you make it, I'm sure if it's even 80% of the strength of what the better performing plates were here it'll be amazing against typical threats encountered in the field.

 

[Rockwelledge75]

That's pretty wild you got to see one used up close and personal. I wonder if two of these titanium plates here could stop it, might make a good experiment if Madscience forge would be down for it!

If not that then I have no clue, because these things don't even have a rating, they're so far above and beyond a level 3plus or level 4 rating which top out at like 308s and AP 30-06 I think. The rifle tested on these plates is also a good bit above any of these ratings too.

There's videos on Youtube that show both a 1 inch titanium plate and a 1 inch AR500 plate can stop a 50cal. In reality, in both cases I think these plates were more like 1 and 1/8 to 1 and 1/4 inch, but the riflemen doing the testing claimed one inch so who knows for sure, I'm just going off what it appeared to be from observation when they showed the camera up close.

 

[TitaniumBolo]

There's videos on Youtube that show both a 1 inch titanium plate and a 1 inch AR500 plate can stop a 50cal. In reality, in both cases I think these plates were more like 1 and 1/8 to 1 and 1/4 inch, but the riflemen doing the testing claimed one inch so who knows for sure, I'm just going off what it appeared to be from observation when they showed the camera up close.

Wait, does that mean titanium and ar500 steel are the same strength?

 

[Rockwelledge75]

Wait, does that mean titanium and ar500 steel are the same strength?

I think that's a far more complicated answer than it might appear to be on the surface, but I'll try to answer it the best I can.

At the thickness they were tested the alloy of titanium that was used is as strong as heat treated Ar500, keep in mind Ar500 steel always comes heat treated, it's not like other steel that comes in an annealed conditioned and then you have to heat treat it your self, so Ar500 is always maxed out to the best it can be for it's intended purpose. Something else to consider, at least to the best of my understanding, is that generally speaking steel gets exponentially stronger the thicker it gets, which also means it gets exponentially weaker the thinner it gets, where as with titanium it's not like that, and is much more linear in it's strength progression. With this in mind it's pretty easy to see how .6 inches of titanium would be stronger than .6 inches of Ar500.

I'd also imagine if you chose an alloy of titanium that could be heat treated very well to higher strength/ hardness levels like which was shown in this thread, that that alloy would be stronger at an inch thick than an inch of Ar500, it might even be as strong or slightly stronger than an inch of Ar500 at only .8 inches thick.

It's all very complex, and I'm just hobby metallurgist, but that's the best I can describe it. It used to be where it was pretty clear cut which was stronger between titanium and steel way back in the day, like in the 80s and early 90s, without a doubt the strongest titanium alloys were stronger than any steel at the time, but today steel metallurgy has progressed a great deal where as titanium has sort of stalled out, it still holds it's own for the most part, but the strongest steels today will be the same or greater strength than titanium broadly speaking. Of course titanium will still be stronger than any steel pound for pound even today.

 

[Mecha]

I think that's a far more complicated answer than it might appear to be on the surface, but I'll try to answer it the best I can.

At the thickness they were tested the alloy of titanium that was used is as strong as heat treated Ar500, keep in mind Ar500 steel always comes heat treated, it's not like other steel that comes in an annealed conditioned and then you have to heat treat it your self, so Ar500 is always maxed out to the best it can be for it's intended purpose. Something else to consider, at least to the best of my understanding, is that generally speaking steel gets exponentially stronger the thicker it gets, which also means it gets exponentially weaker the thinner it gets, where as with titanium it's not like that, and is much more linear in it's strength progression. With this in mind it's pretty easy to see how .6 inches of titanium would be stronger than .6 inches of Ar500.

I'd also imagine if you chose an alloy of titanium that could be heat treated very well to higher strength/ hardness levels like which was shown in this thread, that that alloy would be stronger at an inch thick than an inch of Ar500, it might even be as strong or slightly stronger than an inch of Ar500 at only .8 inches thick.

It's all very complex, and I'm just hobby metallurgist, but that's the best I can describe it. It used to be where it was pretty clear cut which was stronger between titanium and steel way back in the day, like in the 80s and early 90s, without a doubt the strongest titanium alloys were stronger than any steel at the time, but today steel metallurgy has progressed a great deal where as titanium has sort of stalled out, it still holds it's own for the most part, but the strongest steels today will be the same or greater strength than titanium broadly speaking. Of course titanium will still be stronger than any steel pound for pound even today.

Yes, all that, and it is a nuanced thing.

When it comes to armor, new ceramics and other materials advanced beyond where titanium ever got, largely because of the cascading expenses and difficulties of working with ti alloys. Where ti remains indispensable is the aerospace industry, and to a lesser extent, chemical and medical industries. Those industries are no longer really pushing advancement in the field of titanium metallurgy, but rather using what's tried and true.

Virtually everything else you see made out of titanium is a spinoff made possible due to the gargantuan expense in research and development pushed by the aerospace industry in the past, with most items being simple ones made of 6al4v, the "mild steel" of titanium, or Grade 2 pure ti, the "iron" of titanium.

 

[Rockwelledge75]

Yes, all that, and it is a nuanced thing.

When it comes to armor, new ceramics and other materials advanced beyond where titanium ever got, largely because of the cascading expenses and difficulties of working with ti alloys. Where ti remains indispensable is the aerospace industry, and to a lesser extent, chemical and medical industries. Those industries are no longer really pushing advancement in the field of titanium metallurgy, but rather using what's tried and true.

Virtually everything else you see made out of titanium is a spinoff made possible due to the gargantuan expense in research and development pushed by the aerospace industry in the past, with most items being simple ones made of 6al4v, the "mild steel" of titanium, or Grade 2 pure ti, the "iron" of titanium.

Yea very nuanced, like for example what exactly do you mean by strength? in terms of impact strength titanium holds it's own with the best impact resistant steals, maybe even slightly outperforms them. but in terms of tensile strength, something that's rarely if ever talked about for swords or armor because it's just not that relevant for the purpose, the strongest steels today will easily be 40 if not 50% stronger than the strongest commercially available Ti alloys. Then again, Ti alloys almost always have better ultimate bearing strength, sometimes even a lot better, once again not something talked about much in these circles, but for the purpose of structural engineering, both tensile and ultimate bearing strength are very important.

So it's all very complex, there is no strait forward answer to which is stronger between titanium or steel or even a certain titanium alloy and a certain steel alloy, there's just to many variables and it all comes down to the intended purpose.

 

[Mecha]

Yea very nuanced, like for example what exactly do you mean by strength? in terms of impact strength titanium holds it's own with the best impact resistant steals, maybe even slightly outperforms them. but in terms of tensile strength, something that's rarely if ever talked about for swords or armor because it's just not that relevant for the purpose, the strongest steels today will easily be 40 if not 50% stronger than the strongest commercially available Ti alloys. Then again, Ti alloys almost always have better ultimate bearing strength, sometimes even a lot better, once again not something talked about much in these circles, but for the purpose of structural engineering, both tensile and ultimate bearing strength are very important.

So it's all very complex, there is no strait forward answer to which is stronger between titanium or steel or even a certain titanium alloy and a certain steel alloy, there's just to many variables and it all comes down to the intended purpose.

One of they keys to unlocking the world of titanium is to accept that it doesn't really directly compare to steel, any more than copper-based alloys do. The orbiting worlds of alloys surrounding base metals are as different from each as alien star systems. Iron, copper, titanium, nickel, etc.

The main thing for me is that titanium alloys can make an excellent sword!