What you see above is an 8" x 10" Level IIIA hard plate that I have determined is effective at stopping multiple strikes from a handgun.



Unfortunately this is all I have for pics because I got a little to wrapped up in shooting it, but what you see is the four rounds of .380 I started with that were a combination of Hornady Critical Defense and Remington Golden Saber. The dirt may or may not be splash before I noticed I needed to adjust aim. Perhaps I need to work on taking ground level shots. But, that's neither here nor there.

The first pic is the back side of the plate after being shot. There was no penetration. This continued to prove out after I dumped an additional 10 rounds of 155 grain 9mm ball ammunition into it that chrono'ed at 1100 fps. A friends loads I was checking out at the same time as this test. There was some separation of the fiberglass layers where multiple strikes were made, and the rear of the plate bulged out some, but nothing penetrated.

As you can see from the ebay listing, it is economically priced. Affordable at almost any budget, I would think. I would have no problem recommending this as a viable option, as long as you are cognizant of its limitations. My 55 grain .223 blew right through it, for example, and as expected.