- If you're trying to kit up for the range or a really bad day, stick around. Because today, we're doing a
rigorous test of AR500 Armor complete with armor-piercing rounds. (smooth jazz music) (weapon popping) What is up guys, my name is
John with pewpewtactical.com, your definitive source for
gun reviews, gear guides and all things that go bang. AR500 Armor is probably
one of the most popular and also controversial companies in the body armor game today and for good reason. They offer relatively inexpensive
NIJ certified body armor at the expensive weight and potential fragmentation
damage on some models. Now just a heads up, we are
about to dive a little bit deep, just to clarify some body
armor terminology here, but you can skip to the
time code on the screen if you just want the raw results. For the unfamiliar, the NIJ stands for the
National Institute of Justice. It's a government organization that has set threat protection
levels for body armor that armor companies can choose
to submit their products to. Now you can peep the description below if you want to get into all
of the nerdy ballistic stats but essentially, threat level rating, depends on the velocity and the caliber of the projectile it's meant to stop. Level IIIA is soft armor. It's made of lightweight
and flexible woven fibers that should be able to
stop common nine mil all the way up to .44 Magnum and .357 SIG, but it is completely worthless
against any rifle cartridge. (material clicking) Level III is where you
start getting into harder and heavier plates, but you do gain protection from .308 full metal
jacket ball ammunition like this NATO M80. However, faster projectiles like M855 and M193 5.56 rounds, can still penetrate Level III plates, depending on distance and velocity. Next up, is Level III+, which should reliability stop both the M855 green tip penetrator rounds as well as the faster M193 cartridge. Unique to AR500 Armor is their
Level III+ Lightweight plate which does shed a few pounds, but like the normal III+
plate, can still be defeated by true armor piercing
.30 caliber cartridges. Lastly, Level IV plates are comprised of ceramic
composite materials, that should stop .30-aught-six
M2 armor piercing rounds as well as the M855 and M193 cartridges, at closer distances. AR500s Level IV plates are thicker but still, overall, lighter weight than their steel counterparts. AR500 also offers a myriad
of different plates cuts and sizes to ensure
optimal fit and coverage, depending on your body size and activity, including cuts that maximize
strong hand mobility, depending on hand dominance,
or swimmer-style plates that make the overhand motion of swimming, a tiny bit easier, though we still wouldn't recommend attempting to swim in steel body armor. Keep in mind that ballistics plates are only meant to cover your vitals, such as your heart, lungs and diaphragm. An easy and sexy way to ballpark this is to make sure that whatever
plate you're looking at, covers both nipples and reaches all the way
up to the jugular notch. To find your jugular notch,
trace upwards from your sternum and find the first soft
spot you run across. You'll know you found it when pressing on it makes you choke. For size comparison, a
standard 10 by 12 plate is approximately the same size as this Southeast Asian armored
alien egg sac fruit thing that the vast majority of you will probably never
encounter in real life. Much in the same way that you will likely not ever actually use your body armor. (metal clanging) While offering no ballistic protection, the trauma pad sits behind your plate when it's worn in a plate carrier, and it does help to disperse some of the kinetic energy
involved in catching a bullet with a piece of metal
that's worn on your dad bod. (whishing) - [Robot] Fatality. - In addition to all of the above jargon, you've also got options with regards to plate curvature, as well. The absolute cheapest body
armor is completely flat and I probably don't need to tell you that your body isn't. Curved plates are much more comfortable and are generally only
slightly more expensive than their flat counterparts. In our opinion, grabbing a curved plate if you intend on wearing
it for any length of time, is a must. Lastly, we've got plate coating. AR500 is essentially,
just very durable steel but unfortunately, steel can
spray nasty metal fragments directly into your body,
even if it catches a round. AR500 coats all of their
steel plates with PAXCON which is basically the
same as bed liner material. Plates can come in a variety
of different coating levels which we'll discuss a bit
more, in depth, later on. With all of that out of the way, here's the part where you get mad that we blew up a bunch of
perfectly good body armor in the desert instead of
sending it to you, or whatever. First up, the Level IIIA soft armor. As expected, both the
cheaper, but thicker, Rimelig and pricier Hybrid soft armor, stood up to nine millimeter ball and .357, from 10 yards, just fine. (revolver popping) (smooth jazz music) It should be noted that
hollow-point pistol rounds are even easier to stop, given their tendency to flare upon impact. However, three rounds of
5.56 rips through it easily as soft armor offers no
protection from rifle rounds. (smooth jazz music) Up next, is a standard,
flat, Level III plate with a standard base-coat
of PAXCON applied. As expected, the armor itself, stood up to direct hits from
M80 ball ammunition, just fine, but the PAXCON coat was badly damaged and our dummy took some pretty
nasty fragmentation damage to the face. Needless to say, getting
hit with a .308 round is probably pretty shitty but dealing with hundreds
of tiny metal splinters in your grill, is even shittier. While the Level III curved
plate seemed to deflect a bit more of the blast damage away from our dummy's
face and extremities, this should serve as a demonstration that investing a bit more
in the thicker coatings, is absolutely worth the money. As you can see, the Level III plate with the Build-Up coating,
does a much better job at trapping all of the metal fragments produced by the .308 round impacted steel, though it still does appear
to blow out the coating along the edges of the plate because of physics, or whatever. In theory, a mere Level III plate shouldn't be able to stop either of the 5.56 rounds we tested, but the Build-Up coat
appeared to catch both M193 and M855 green tip, with only minimal bulge on
the backside of the plate. We may have been right
at the cutoff distance where the rounds had slowed enough not to pierce Level III steel, but we wouldn't take this as a reliable indicator of anything, as Level III isn't rated to stop the faster 5.56 projectiles, you will need III+ for that. Moving on to the Level
III+ with a Build-Up coat the plate will likely stop
three rounds of both M855 and M193 with little, to
no, damage to the coat or obvious signs of spalling. The rear of the plate shows
no signs of deformation. However, .30-aught-six black tip, which is an armor piercing round, sailed right through the plate and into our dummy, with ease. Similarly, the Level
III+ Lightweight plate with the Build-Up coat, also ate all of the 5.56
that we threw at it, with a very slight blowout of
the bottom plate edge-coating. .30-aught-six black tip, once again, put this plate in a shallow grave on the side of the highway. Finally, we've got our hefty boy, Level IV ceramic composite plate. While NIJ certification for
Level IV plates dictates that they should be able to stop a .30 caliber steel
core armor piercing projectile, we may have been inside the range at which multiple hits
are reliably stopped. It's difficult to tell but it appears that our Level IV plate caught one .30-aught-six black tip and may have partially
failed with the second, which looks to have traveled into the same cavity created by the first and blown out the rear side of the plate. It's impressive that
the plate still managed to deflect the second AP
round out to the side, considering that that area
was already compromised, but that's certainly
not an optimal outcome. It's worth noting that
NIJ Level IV certification is probably tested at much
longer ranges than 50 yards, underscoring the fact
that being in a gunfight against .30-aught-six
armor piercing rounds, is an incredibly (beeps) situation. (material crackling) When it comes down to it,
is AR500 worth the money? That probably depends a lot
on your individual situation. But in our opinion, the
Level III+ Lightweight plates with the Build-Up coat offer
a good amount of protection with minimal risk of spalling injury if you're fit enough to
hack carrying steel plates for any length of time. However, if you anticipate
having to square off against any kind of armor
piercing projectile, you're probably going to be better off with the ceramic Level IV plates. As always, you'll need to
make the decision yourself as to what trade-offs are worth it to you, but you should always kit up to face the most dangerous, likely threat, if that's a consideration. Additionally, AR500s actual plate carriers are surprisingly well-made and affordable and it's pretty cool to see some low cost, laser-cut MOLLE options on the market that aren't coming from super
high-end Gucci manufacturers. The Invictus takes some
obvious design influence from Crye Precision's JPC but can also be set up to run a swift-clip style micro chest rig or a placard, if necessary. This is, personally, my
favorite plate carrier out of all of the AR500
rigs that we've looked at as I do enjoy lower profile setups. However, the shoulder padding does leave a little bit to be desired and I would probably add on
after-market shoulder pads if I was going to run this
for any length of time. The Testudo is a bit bulkier and includes pockets
built-in to the cummerbund for side plates, as well. We've got this one set up
with a few of AR500s pouches which impressively, include bits of Hypalon-type fabric here and there, for added durability. The Testudo also includes
the thickest foam in the shoulder pads, out of
any of the carriers we tested, improving comfort, if worn
for long periods of time. The Veritas is another
smaller, modular carrier. We've attached an additional
skeletal cummerbund from AR500 and would likely run this
setup with a rifle mag placard, such as you'd find from Haley
Strategic or Spiritus Systems. If you're a tiny boy or you need to armor up
a child or a small dog, the Freeman and the Micro rig offer about the smallest profile possible, while still being able to
carry an eight by 10 plate. AR500 also offers combo packages so that you can grab a carrier
and plates at the same time if you'd rather not play the guessing game with plates sizes and cuts. All right guys, that's
gonna do it for us today. Thank you so much for watching. We hope that we've been able to demystify one of the most oft-talked about aspects of personal protective
equipment in the community, as well as provide some insight into the trade-offs involved in selecting your personal armor setup. We know that we covered a
lotta ground here today, and if you'd prefer to intake
all of this information in a tidy blog format, you can check the description
for a link back to the website where we've got it laid out
all nice and pretty-like. Once again, my name is
John with Pew Pew Tactical and we will see you next time. (glass tinkling) (smooth jazz music) (scratching)
