This Test Shows How Bullet Resistant Tires Can Be

Getting nan correct group of tires is an important portion of what goes into building an armored vehicle, and companies for illustration Hutchinson and Tyron tin beryllium an fantabulous spot to get those run-flats. But person you ever wondered really a regular unit tyre would guidelines up to nan effect of a bullet? After all, nan emblematic tyre is made, in part, of actual alloy belts, and definite kinds of alloy are utilized for bulletproofing. Plus, immoderate companies, specified arsenic Nokian and Goodyear, characteristic aramid fibers successful their tyre sidewalls for other support if there's a puncture. And that worldly — sometimes known by the waste and acquisition sanction Kevlar — is commonly utilized successful bulletproof armor.

Well, we've sewage bully news. Though for immoderate overseas logic Consumer Reports doesn't see slug guidance erstwhile analyzing, for instance, CR's apical motortruck and SUV tyre picks for 2026, Parker Smith of nan Yee Yee Life YouTube transmission precocious took up nan challenge. He brought 5 new, unmounted 37-inch Nitto Mud Grappler tires and type firearms retired to nan shooting range, stood nan tires up successful a azygous row, tread-to-tread, and sewage to work. 

Smith's trial was to sprout astatine nan beforehand treadface of nan first tyre and spot really acold nan slug would get into nan treadfaces of nan tires down nan No. 1 position. So nan perfect way would beryllium into nan extracurricular tread facing nan gun, done nan full first wall of nan tire, past into nan wrong portion of nan rear wall, done nan treads facing straight other nan gun, and into nan adjacent tyre — an improbable real-world scenario, but still absorbing to watch.

The results whitethorn astonishment you, arsenic they surely didn't look to beryllium what Smith expected, particularly looking astatine nan introduction holes. Even pinch nan biggest caliber guns — meaning those pinch nan widest-diameter bullets — nan introduction points were rather small. Smith put this down to nan expertise of nan heavy rubber to adjacent complete nan holes aft nan bullets get through. In fact, nan rubber was truthful heavy that, mixed pinch nan alloy belts beneath, it stopped a slug from a .22-caliber pistol from breaking done to nan wrong of nan first tire.

Moving up to his Glock pistol, Smith was capable to put a 9mm information pinch a full-metal overgarment wholly done nan first tyre and past nan first treadface of nan second. Yet size didn't ever look to matter here, arsenic a .45-caliber Browning handgun, pinch an moreover wider bore than nan Glock, sewage its slug stuck successful nan 2nd tire's first treadface without penetrating it. The communicative was overmuch nan aforesaid pinch a .44 Magnum. That said, nan past and largest handgun tested, a gas-operated semi-automatic Desert Eagle loaded pinch .50-caliber bullets, made it past nan first 2 tires earlier lodging successful nan beforehand treadface of nan third.

To hit that mark, Smith had to edifice to an battle firearm firing 5.56mm green-tip rounds engineered pinch typical "penetrator" alloy cores — 1 of which embedded itself successful nan wrong backmost wall of nan 3rd tire, meaning it fundamentally pierced nan treads of 2¾ tires. Now, you're decidedly invited to (safely) effort this yourself, but please don't beryllium for illustration nan Des Moines bull who drove disconnected pinch a firearm connected his roof.