Guide to armor

[Nocturnalis Discipulo]

The armor industry has a lot of snake oil and is difficult to know what products are trustworthy. I thought a reference thread on armor and price/performance would be helpful to anyone reconsidering the utility.

I know that we have experts on here, hopefully they will to chime in.

Looking at price and threats stopped https://rmadefense.com/product/level...nij-07-tested/ seems like the best value that I see a set ranging from$520-$720

-It stops M80, M193, and M855
-SAPI cut in various sizes
-Is nearly half the weight of Hesco 4401's

Are these good plates? Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Not sure if this is the correct forum for this, and hoping it will turn into a more general armor guide after i get my answers

[Default.mp3]

Recommendations will be highly dependent on what exactly you're trying to accomplish. For example, while these plates are probably just fine for overt shoothouse/looter defense/looting use, they are quite thick, which makes them a poor fit for low-vis applications, and can force you to sacrifice coverage for better range of motion. You can of course get thinner plates that can defeat the same threats, but they will cost more, or you can give up threat coverage to keep price down.

The threats it can defeat makes sense; M80 is fairly easy to deal with, the ceramic component handles the M855, while the UHMWPE defeats most everything else.

General rules of thumb to remember:

• UHMWPE is defeated by M855, and is usually thick, lightweight, and can take a lot of hits from the threats it can manage
• Steel is defeated by M193 at high velocities (generally >3100 FPS, IIRC, for your typical AR500 plate), and is usually thin, heavy, can take a lot of hits from the threats it can manage, and has spall concerns
• NIJ Level III only means defeating 6 hits by M80 ball, and does not confer any protection against any other rounds, hence why there are many Level III plates out there that are defeated by M193 or M855
• NIJ Level IV only means defeating 1 hit by APM2 .30-06, which is an outdated AP round, and thus a plate can be NIJ Level IV, but fail to meet Level III, due to lack of multihit

Honestly, armor isn't that opaque, IMO, it's just figuring out these generalities and applying them consistently.

[Nephrology]

As someone who casually has played with the idea of buying armor for reasons, I am curious myself.

[Stephanie B]

I've thought about maybe getting some body armor, but between having to go from zero knowledge and then needing something shaped to accommodate having breasts, it all seemed like too much squeeze for the juice.

[Nocturnalis Discipulo]

I meant to add https://store.atarmor.com/Hesco_L210..._p/hs-l210.htm as another option that loses .308 but slims down.

I am mostly concerned with shoothouse/looters, but lighter and thinner is never a bad thing. I don't forsee needing to wear hard armor concealed, and if money is no issue then https://store.atarmor.com/AT_Armor_S...at-stop-bz.htm seems like close to ideal.

Mostly thinking that having a decent amount of guns, ammo, food, and water stored that if it is in the budget armor makes sense. At $600-$700 I can budget much easier than ~$2,000.

Armor is likely to remain somewhat opaque until at least NIJ.07 comes out. It's frustrating when trying to research that you are essentially just trusting a company's word (III+/special threat). Unless I am missing something that STOPBZ plate looks phenomenal, however I don't see any testing data on it or the L210. Maybe I'm missing it and obviously Hesco is different than AR500 armor, but knowing if a product is good seems difficult.

@Stephanie B RMA is supposed to be releasing a Woman's cut hard armor, seems that Covid has messed up their finalizing the sizing.

ETA: Women's cut armor

[Erick Gelhaus]

With armor, 1st, always get a copy of the NIJ test certs. What lab tested the panel, plate, etc to the standard? Oh yeah, the standards.

Until the new standards come online, relevant rifle rated testing is a bit unusual. III+ Special Threat varies an awful lot because it isn't a real cert. But the real certs don't address common rounds currently.

While @DocGKR is an armor SME, there is a general rule - Out of Weight, Performance, and Cost, you can get two of the three? Which two?

[Yung]

I've thought about maybe getting some body armor, but between having to go from zero knowledge and then needing something shaped to accommodate having breasts, it all seemed like too much squeeze for the juice.

In LouAnn Hamblin's most recent appearance on CCR, she briefly mentioned Survival Armor, and the late Roxanne Folsom's contributions to it, as she was a seamstress by trade before she got into PPE.

Starting at 42:43 with a prompt by Chuck Haggard.
https://youtu.be/P_Yzt9aBNTg

https://www.policeone.com/police-pro...2HBhGIJTAzRxf/

https://survivalarmor.com/products/c.../female-armor/

[rcbusmc24]

I just recently picked up a set of the HESCO L210's from OP Tactical. At $174 per plate they seemed to be a good value for replacing the ceredyne level 3's with backers I had in my JPC so I could lighten that particular carrier up.... They are a special threat plate that will stop M193 and M855 along with all the common AK rounds, they don't do battle rifle rounds, .308, .30-06, 7.62x54r..... but I'm good with that due to them being stand alone and only weighing 5.5 lbs each, while not the lightest they are at good cross point price / weight / coverage wise for my personal use. My ceredyne's moved over to my Mayflower, which is set up heavier. I figure my biggest threat here in Jacksonville NC, next to the Marine Corps base is drunk LCpls on the road, after that it's pistol rounds and "liberated" M855 from off the base.... So I wanted a plate that would stop that... For work I still have to use the USMC issued armor and carrier, which is a boat anchor compared to my personal stuff.

[paperman]

Also make sure if the plates are rated stand alone or need backers.
If you don’t mind a little extra thickness backers are a great idea.

I wanted to hedge my bets so I have multiple options and vests
Lvl 4 stand alone ceramic for best protection
Lvl 3+ steel with backers for training, multi hit, and long lasting
Lvl 3a concealable vest & backers & backpack armor

Thinking about saving up for some lvl 3 UHMWPE for the weight savings.


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[Jason M]

Some of DocGKR's thoughts were posted in this thread: https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....-for-LEO/page2

Some of the information here may apply to your needs.