Drilling ACH

[CrabsandFootball]

Has anyone drilled an armored ACH helmet?

Thought about buying new fancy bump helmet but I can retrofit my old issue helmet for a fraction of the cost and add rails and new wilcox shroud.

What I am worried about is drilling through the helment for the fasteners for a rail and shroud. Can this be done or will it destroy the armor integrity of the helmet?

 

[M4guru]

If you don’t already have a shroud Wilcox makes a single-hole that is great and shouldn’t require drilling. The common rails just use longer harness bolts so no drilling there either.

 

[CrabsandFootball]

Yea i saw that.

Was looking at this too and i guess they use harness mount?

Galvion BATLSKIN Front Mount

Hub Interface for BATLSKIN Up-Armor

tnvc.com

 

[M4guru]

Galvion is swinging for the fences, every other helmet company should be afraid. They've got some great stuff.

Yeah, it bolts up to the front harness holes and single-hole NVG mount. Pretty good upgrade to an ACH.

 

[j-dubya]

Drill it. RTV the holes and fasteners if you want to ensure it’s sealed.

 

[shoobe01]

It is mostly a pain to drill. Hard to keep it centered, kevlar requires good drills then dulls them, etc. I have heard from reliable sources that not-open-source testing indicated that more (small! as for 3/4 hole mounts) holes has no negative ballistic effects in actual live fire testing and post-impact review of helmets the Army gathers up but, why bother drilling more holes yourself, with so many good options?

I am currently running two things (two helmets), both with one-hole mounts.

• A Norotos shroud
• An old Revision (the Galvion thing above, they changed their name for mil stuff) mount thing.

I have (like, for hours and hours at a time, through brambles and everything, no problems) run these with bridge mounts holding a 14 and an inappropriately-large thermal. Rock solid. The Wilcox bridge screws loosen enough they need tightening after each night, but the shrouds just sit there and work.

Properly installed, a one-hole will work fine. The Batlskin stuff is super neat, so if you need more reassurance I'd get that before I'd drill spare holes. Also, the little bit of visor it adds is nice. Was the only good part of the PASGT and this brings it back.

I have one four hole shroud, on my Nightcap, because it doesn't have a rigid backplane, so needs all those bolts. But non-ballistic, also.

 

[sinister]

Use a quality carbide drill. You don't have to over-think it.