Thinking about getting some armor...

[Diamondback]

That and, the most important thing is deflecting a potential hit off centerline--IIRC, take it outside about the center third or so and with competent medical care the odds of survival go way up barring a lucky femoral or brachial artery hit.

 

[0GRE]

Ive been looking recently. The ar500 brand level 3+ lightweight seems prettt legit. A little closer to the weight of ceramic plates. They make it in multi bend(probably the wrong term) which is supoosed to fit more like esapi, you can get a thicker anti-spauling coating on them. And theyre right at $300 for front and back in that configuration. I think it was right around 15 or 16 lbs, which seems fine by me

I wear those 10x12 plates on-duty, however, I chose to forgo the extra coating and curvature on the back plate. The flat, thinner surface is more comfortable to sit/drive against for 10+ hours at a time. (I know it's a trade-off I'll pay for if the day comes when a nurse is picking frag out of the back of my scalp.) I left a review on AR500armor's website.

 

[nammac]

Nah I'd look more like this >.>

View attachment 392149

Dang, Kim Jung Un in a UN stormtrooper outfit...

 

[Mygrainman]

There was a feller that went by the handle Carbon45 that brought up some interesting body armor talking points a few years back. Wonder if he ever got all that figured out

 

[Argonaut]

I had one of each of these.......my kind of body armor

 

[AMProducts]

So I'm a little late to the thread, but I can throw in my .02:

At the moment I'm running a Lvl III front hard PE plate, and a IIIA soft plate rear. This is supposed to give me rifle protection (non AP) on the front, and pistol protection on the back up to .44mag. When you're getting into Lvl 4, it's a whole new animal and you're not buying just a plate. I know a lot of people make a big deal about "this is a level 4 plate...." you still need a LVL 2 backer in order to actually meet the "level 4" stat. In nearly all cases, if you want to run stand-alone rifle plates, you're looking at level 3, even if you have a level 4 plate, without the backer, the plate can shatter and you still die. The backer is specifically designed to capture fragments from the armor. This is what you see with like the IBA, or any of the military designs.

Carriers... there's tons on the market, I still like the RRV style carriers best. The BDS V-OPS carrier is still the one I'm using, it's comfortable but there's a few things I don't like about it. If you're looking for something other than the Shellback style designs (velcro flap cummerbund) Warrior Assault Systems (UK) makes a very competent system called the 901, I ordered one a few weeks ago after trying one a buddy had.

The plates I'm running are US made, but with chinese materials, I do testing for the company, so I'm biased about it, but they make the plates commonly sold by NCstar, VISM, and a few others. They do stop the bullets, however they do not meet NIJ certs as far as temporary cavity, as such they're available at very low cost. Buying armor that doesn't meet the absolute certification is a risk, I backed both of my plates with essentially a ballistic nylon backer, this was mainly to provide padding, and when this was done it made the plate a bit fatter, but it did pass the tests without adding a lot of weight.

I will say, you need to be a very savvy consumer when you're looking to buy armor, as there are a lot of serious snake-oil salesmen out there. If you're spending good money, make sure it's coming from an outfit who is listed on the "certified armor" list. If not, it's worth maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of what the certified plates go for.

In most cases, I would say go III up front and IIIa in the back, there are some excellent plates on the market made from UHMWPE (the way these are made, it's a solidified version of Spectra shield) crosslinked. These are relatively inexpensive, they're light, however at the moment, the real barrier to finding "certified" plates on the market is all the compliance costs. Which must be done at a NIST certified lab, and most be done on a per-lot basis. It is incredibly expensive for the testing regimes, I realize this keeps bad actors out of the market, but this is why a plate made of the same stuff you can make a plastic water bottle out of ends up costing $400.

Also, certified plates should be serialized, have a manufacture date, lot code, and either an inspection, or a disposal date. Unless you're really hot to throw a bunch of money at this problem, taking the time to educate yourself on the subject will pay huge dividends. For the most part, I wouldn't bother with the AR-500 plates unless you're completely desperate, they simply weigh too much.

 

[Diamondback]

And then you get to weird cases like my rels... who are fine with my guns, but when I mention how Puget Sound's going to Hell and that armor is becoming both affordable and prudent it's "no way will I have that stuff in my house."

SUUUUUURE... nothing says "love" like demanding your own son take a bullet for you. *snort*

 

[Argonaut]

We had state of the art Kevlar/ceramic armor on our helicopters, off course we wore flac vests a lot, tested many types of bullet resistant products and material. The ceramic (plate) stuff worked for one shot.......the second would not even slow down. Flac vest material worked good for pieces of artillery shell from a little distance but a bullet would sail right through it. I know technology has moved on but I don't believe there is anything other than steel type armor plate that will resist full caliber ball ammunition beyond the first couple of rounds. Lots of hype (by companies and salesmen) but little proof beyond some scripted video. We never found a non ceramic material that would stop a 44 Mag, smaller pistol caliber protection was viable. When FN wanted to build a pistol capeable of penetrating armor, they invented a small version of the 5.56 and it seems to work well. How do you suppose that compares to a real ball ammo 5.56X45 round. The cops have good results with there plates but the most common threat is something like a 9mm, 38 or maby a shotgun........they have no confidence in resisting any full caliber rifle or caliber designed for defeating armor. Like most new and improved products.......they are promoted and designed for the manufacturer to profit. There have been few real (major) advances since the introduction of Kevlar and energy distributing ceramic armor. The interesting exception is the sxplosive reactive armor used today on real armored vehicles.....probably a little counter productive if used in personal armor.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Theres this guy on ebay selling 3A soft kevlar armor panels for pretty dang cheap, like $48 for a 10x12 panel either rectangle or shooters cut ..some of the reviews did say that they received what amounted to remanufactured panels cut from old police vest materials and sloppily sewn up but they are clearly marked "THREAT LEVEL IIIA" and a couple of the reviews states that the armor did not stop a .44 magnum at all.
Combined with the statement that its old kevlar vest stuff cut up into new panels.. it got me thinking.... kevlar degrades and have an expiration date for its threat level, right? So its all about three things affecting the kevlar materials... UV exposure, heat and moisture (sweat being main cause of degradation).
If the material really has been worn on a daily basis on a sweaty body, and stored in the trunk of a police car during extreme weather (extreme heat and extreme cold) then there is no reason to believe it will be effective for the stated threat level anymore. Maybe as a backer to thin ceramic level III armor or titanium armor, but at that point one might as well as get the VISM soft armor and put it behind hard armor.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Another thing. If you are not hopped up on stuff like PCP, one hit from a rifle round to your ceramic armor or steel armor is still gonna hurt a lot and put you down on the ground (crumple down, not flying backwards like the movies lol), so the "multi hits from rifles" thing is not relevant in the overall scheme of things. Pistols sure, look at the North Hollywood robbery for an example.

I do not know that I can reliably trust UHMWPE soft armor to be any better than aramid/kevlar.... but hard plates from that, maybe.

 

[Argonaut]

Another thing. If you are not hopped up on stuff like PCP, one hit from a rifle round to your ceramic armor or steel armor is still gonna hurt a lot and put you down on the ground (crumple down, not flying backwards like the movies lol), so the "multi hits from rifles" thing is not relevant in the overall scheme of things. Pistols sure, look at the North Hollywood robbery for an example.

I do not know that I can reliably trust UHMWPE soft armor to be any better than aramid/kevlar.... but hard plates from that, maybe.

The Hollywood bank example is one we are all familiar with. The backstory off course, the cops had to go to a local gun store to get AR15's to finish the deal. I am not a huge proponent of the 5.56 in general use.....it is a great sporting and coyote caliber......but it is very effective in social work like defeating body armor.

 

[mkwerx]

As for taking rifle rounds while sober - dude did not seem worse for wear. He took .45s, 9s, 5.56 green tips and even a .308 to the back from like 5 yards. It did not knock him over, there was zero backface deformation. For getting shot that many times the dude was rock solid. Confident in his armor for sure.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Dude. Its like the difference between getting sucker punched in the abdomen, and telling a person to punch you on purpose.

 

[mkwerx]

Dude. Its like the difference between getting sucker punched in the abdomen, and telling a person to punch you on purpose.

Except telling someone to punch you - they are less likely to hit full force. The bullets on the otherhand don't care - they still hit with the same force. Expecting to get hit or not.

 

[CamoDeafie]

I'm just saying he's standing, gritting his teeth, fully ready to get the hits he is expected, as opposed to someone just walking or running on patrol and not expecting to be hit from unknown directions.

 

[Argonaut]

Video "can't" be manupliated.........

 

[CamoDeafie]

@ 1:03

Granted, Interceptor Body armor soft plus plates but still.... he gets shot from unexpected direction, goes down, then gets up and take cover.

 

[AMProducts]

Another thing. If you are not hopped up on stuff like PCP, one hit from a rifle round to your ceramic armor or steel armor is still gonna hurt a lot and put you down on the ground (crumple down, not flying backwards like the movies lol), so the "multi hits from rifles" thing is not relevant in the overall scheme of things. Pistols sure, look at the North Hollywood robbery for an example.

I do not know that I can reliably trust UHMWPE soft armor to be any better than aramid/kevlar.... but hard plates from that, maybe.

The UHMWPE used in vests and plates is the same material that's woven into spectra, however the more modern method of manufacture involves essentially layering a large series of fibers that are not oriented and then autoclaving them until they cross link. For those of you out there who are into material science, this is a lot like taking multiple layers of say tyvek and then bonding them into a single large plate. Except the material is the UHMWPE rather than normal HD or LD Poly Ethylene.

There's a lot of goofballs out there making armor from LDPE or UHMWPE sheets and wondering why it doesn't work. It's because it's not made into a fiber first. If you're used to dealing with something like say kevlar, the equivalent process would be stacking a bunch of kevlar sheets, and then sewing all the layers together. However since this is being done on a molecular rather than mechanical level, it is orders of magnitude stronger than what you would get from kevlar. Spectra is also known for it's ability to stretch, this is what uses up the energy in the PE plates and allows it to capture a bullet rather than have it penetrate.

 

[CamoDeafie]

The UHMWPE used in vests and plates is the same material that's woven into spectra, however the more modern method of manufacture involves essentially layering a large series of fibers that are not oriented and then autoclaving them until they cross link. For those of you out there who are into material science, this is a lot like taking multiple layers of say tyvek and then bonding them into a single large plate. Except the material is the UHMWPE rather than normal HD or LD Poly Ethylene.

There's a lot of goofballs out there making armor from LDPE or UHMWPE sheets and wondering why it doesn't work. It's because it's not made into a fiber first. If you're used to dealing with something like say kevlar, the equivalent process would be stacking a bunch of kevlar sheets, and then sewing all the layers together. However since this is being done on a molecular rather than mechanical level, it is orders of magnitude stronger than what you would get from kevlar. Spectra is also known for it's ability to stretch, this is what uses up the energy in the PE plates and allows it to capture a bullet rather than have it penetrate.

Right; I may be ok with the hard armor made from Spectra fibers however I was referring to Spectra Shield and GoldFlex type of soft armor, which seems to have a similar reputation as Zylon... and claims by people that the soft armor failed after being exposed to temps above 180 degrees..

 

[AMProducts]

Right; I may be ok with the hard armor made from Spectra fibers however I was referring to Spectra Shield and GoldFlex type of soft armor, which seems to have a similar reputation as Zylon... and claims by people that the soft armor failed after being exposed to temps above 180 degrees..

Copy that, yea, it seems to be a reasonable approach. The soft plate I'm using is about as soft as a chunk of cardboard, I did buy some other panels of it and shoot those with .357 sig which it stopped handily at 5'. I definitely know that if I took a round while wearing these I would be hurting, but I'd be hurting much less than if it had penetrated. Spectra in-general is a decent material and can be used to create soft armor, however it's at it's best in hard and semi-hard form factors. In general, it doesn't seem there's much point in going for anything "soft" as in a Lvl 2, unless you're going to be wearing it in a LE setting (which means every day, and need something concealable).

For the most part, I've found the PE hard and semi-hard stuff to be comfortable enough for an every-day wear, but it's very conspicuous, and it's hard to go through life dressed up as swamp thing without a reason for it. I've taken to wearing armor whenever I'm running a class and most of the time I'm on a shooting range. I've had a few people at a few public ranges give me crap about it, to which I've responded "Do you really trust everyone here to be absolutely safe when you're constantly yelling at them for violating safety rules?" they usually STFU about it after that.