Our WILDEST Warranty Claim.

• January 17, 2025
• By Jared Daub

Our WILDEST Warranty Claim.

Sometimes you just have your mind blown. This story was one of those moments. This certainly is Our WILDEST Warranty Claim I have ever navigated. And the crazier part? We STILL don’t really know what happened to this plate.

Whats the scoop?

The product in question is our 1/2″ AR550 Reduced C Zone Target Plate. This system is also known as our Mini A-DAP system. It is THE most popular system we have offered since 2015. Additionally, this is one of the strongest target systems in the world. The target plate can be purchased in either 3/8″ OR 1/2″ AR550. The material we use for these plates is Swedish armor, and it is second to none. The 3/8″ Plates feature a TEN YEAR warranty, the 1/2″ Plates a LIFETIME warranty. So when this customer emailed and said they had a warranty claim, we took them seriously. It is SO RARE for one of these plates to fail. So we got to work with the customer to figure this out.

What is our warranty process like?

We keep it simple. We ask our customers to supply, at minimum, a photo of the target plate and the ammunition that was used. Further, we ask them to disclose the distances they were engaging the targets. Often, we ask that they send us the plate for inspection. By that point, though, we almost always have a replacement headed their way. The only time we do not immediately send a replacement is in the event we feel it is fraud. We also don’t cover intentional destruction of the target plates. The fact is, they will last your entire life IF you follow our use requirements.

But, things happen, and if the customer is reasonable and their request is reasonable, we simply say “yes”. Such was the case in this situation. We got a plate headed their way quickly, and we asked them to ship this one back to us for testing.

Our immediate feedback:

Here is the information we were given from the customer:

• They had been shooting 7mm-08 and 300 Winchester magnum
• The closest distance they had ever used the 300 WM was 110 yards
• They were shooting on Public Land
• They had also been engaging at MUCH further distances than 110 yards

They suspected that their 300WM had punched this hole through the plate. Here’s the deal: I’ve shot 300 WM, no joke, at 10 yards on our steel during abuse tests. It won’t just “go through”. Plus, the hole looked WAY too big for a 300. I have only seen ONE round readily pass through our plates like this: The MK211 Raufoss 50BMG round. Even then we’ve been able to defeat those rounds in the past. SOME black tip AP 50BMG would go through occasionally as well, but, again, that was rare.

I asked the customer if he was SURE nobody in his group was shooting a 50BMG, he said 110% only 7mm-08 and 300WM. So I shot him an email back and said something kind of crazy…

Someone shot over you with a 50

I could tell the customer was blown away because they may have been almost “blown away” by a sharp shooter with a 50BMG. My guess was one of two things:

1.) The targets, at some point, were left out unattended and someone engaged this plate with a 50. Or:

2.) Someone shot OVER this customer with a 50BMG from the neighboring mountain / hill, and they didn’t realize it because they were shooting as well and focused on other targets.

When we got the plate back

Clearly you can see the hole that goes cleanly through this target plate. I measured the hole to be between .390 – .40″. This was not a 300WM, in my opinion, this was something much larger and much more potent. Why did I want to get the plate back? For two reasons:  First, I wanted to make sure the customer was taken care of. Second, I wanted to ensure that there was not a defect in the steel at the location of the hole, or in the rest of the plate. The best way to do that would be to take this plate and test it. We decided an abusive range day was in order.

The Test:

We decided to replicate a very similar test to what we did in our Armor Piercing VS Steel  Video and blog. While I did not currently have access to a 300WM for this range day, I did have the following abusive ammo: M855A1, M80A1, and M2 Armor Piercing. All of these rounds are more abusive than hunting loads from a 300WM. If this plate could defeat these rounds, we could confirm that the hole was not from a standard round, but something much more devastating. Further, my objective was to ensure that the rest of the plate was not soft. I knew that if I put 20-30 rounds of abusive ammo on this plate and it held up, there was not an issue of weakness in the steel plate. If there were soft spots, the Armor piercing ammunition would poke holes right through it. If the plate was up to our usual standard, it would pass with flying colors.

The Results:

Unsurprisingly, NONE of the ammo penetrated the plate. Even the rounds RIGHT near the hole did not cause significant damage to the plate. Again, this solidified the fact that this was NOT about the plate having a soft spot. This target plate was impacted by something big, heavy, and nasty.

What does this all show you?

I hope this shows you a few things:

1.) We stand by our products. If we make a mistake, we will own it. Heck, we just own situations like this, even though we did nothing incorrect, just to take care of our customers.

2.) Our target plates are backed by a warranty that we actually stand behind. When failures occur during proper use, we simply replace.

3.) Our system was engineered to be the best of the best. Our A-DAP systems are safe, high performance, AR550 steel target systems that will last nearly all shooters their entire lifetime.

If you want to shop a Reduced C Zone A-DAP system, shop HERE.