Battle Steel LVL IV 10x12 Ballistic Plate Test

what's up youtube i'm the cacarro 131 this is my review of the battle steel level 4 body armor plate so before i destroy this uh armor plate i just kind of want to show you it give you a quick run down on some of the more basic specs and what the product page says about it so for starters this is going to be an issue for some people a lot of people whatever this is not actually nij certified this is just tested to nij standards so if i get my notes to stop blowing around according to botac which is the website that i bought this from botac i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure battle steel is a subsidiary of botac but according to them this is tested to nij level 4 standards the nij standard 0101.06 by hp white chesapeake and i'll roll in a couple little pictures about what hp white is basically they're a a testing laboratory that does a lot of uh armor plating a lot of ballistics testing and a lot of their they're a well-respected name if what botax says is true and this is actually tested by hp white then that's probably pretty that's a big point in its favor even if it's not actually nij certified so the product page i don't know why it says it's single curve it definitely is not single curve i'll try to roll on some pictures of what like a single curve plate would look like but this is multi-curve so it's curved this way and it's curved this way and that just means that whenever you press it up against a body against your uh your chest if you were wearing this in a plate carrier it would fit a lot more comfortably so it says it's single curve i'm not sure why it says that because it's definitely a multi-curve but it is multi-curve so it's pretty comfortable whenever you have to wear it in a plate carrier against your answer body this is a 10 by 12 plate it does not measure exactly 10 by 12. according to the description it is actually nine and a half side to side by 11 and a half tall and i measured that it does check out quite a it does check out because on the very edge here there's this padding right here to help protect if it gets dropped and whenever you whenever i measured roughly from the inside edge of the padding to the other it came out to pretty much nine and a half by eleven and a half now i don't know if that's common for armor plates to not be strictly exactly 10 by 12 11 by 14 whatever but at the very least they said that i mean in the description at least they did say exactly what the actual size is i'll go away b another one of the big bonuses for this plate here is it only weighs five and a half pounds so i'll roll in some specs and the pictures and stuff of some other uh armor plates other level four armor plates i'll go over some of the specs here in a minute just for a quick comparison but five and a half pounds is it's pretty light for a level four armor it's 0.8 inches thick which is also on the thinner end of what level 4 armor normally is it's they say they use a special pressing technique which is how they got level four armor so light it is crack resistant lightweight structure capable of stopping multiple rounds we will be testing that i suppose it is a symbol assembled in the us from imported materials which you know it's not quite as good as made in the usa entirely but realistically there's not a whole lot of things that are made 100 in the us at least this is assembled in the u.s it is this uh covering on it helps protect it from liquids or water and kind of like the elements stuff like that the warranty on it is for five years after you buy it so now just uh some notes that i got down from some other level four armor plates that you can get other level four ceramic body armor plates the ar 500 level four 10 by 12. it is a single curve it is a little bit thinner it says it's only 0.75 inches thick it weighs 7.6 pounds and one of those armor plates cost 220 bucks now compare that to the uh now the hesco 4400 is nine and a half by 12 and a half so it's just a little bit bigger but basically 10 by 12. it weighs 7.9 pounds so again it weighs quite a bit more than this it is 0.9 inches thick negligible i'd say just 0.1 inch thick more also ceramic and the medium again the nine and a half by twelve and a half is also 220. if you want to get the large then it's ten dollars more i don't know the exact size of the large but it's closer to 11 by 14 size plate the last uh body armor plate that i looked at just sort of comparing specs to this battle steel is the spartan armor systems level four it weighs 8.3 pounds it is a single curve which i forgot to mention the hesco is also a multi-curve so it's going to be a lot more comfortable the spartan armor systems is only single curve it is one inch thick so it's going to be a little bit thicker also ceramic polyethylene and it's 400 per set so i mean the spartan armor technically is a little bit cheaper for a set than the ar 500 or the hesco but all of them are more expensive than this i don't believe i've mentioned so far but the big reason i wanted to get this and test it out and put some into plate carry i'm putting together is because this battle steel level four plate five and a half pounds point eight inches thick multi-curve is a hundred bucks i bought it for a hundred dollars from botak and that might seem too good to be true but i've seen a couple other tests of these and they have all done well so far but i figured hey you know what yolo it's only 100 bucks let's pick up an extra one and uh let's test it out ourselves so real quick overview of how i'm going to be actually testing this battle steel plate i have a the backer i'm using is just my clear ballistics gel i didn't really have a whole lot of ideas for what else i could use for this the way i figure it this way whenever it gets hit it'll have some give to it but it won't have something like if i put it right up against a wall or something it would have no give at all this i guess would kind of help simulate the if it was being worn against a body like your chest would have a little bit of give to it hopefully this will simulate that a little bit either way it's just something to hold it up so i can shoot it and whenever i was trying to decide how i wanted to go about doing this there's really two ways i came up with for how you can test body armor the two ways are you can test immediately the first shot of what it's the maximum thing is rated for or what you're you're hoping for it to stop or the other way you can do it is it's kind of better for videos but you can start from the bottom and kind of work your way up and see what all it can take well i opted to do the first option and that meant so that means the first thing i'm going to be shooting it with is this pmc x-tac 62 grain m85 556 green tip it's not technically technically armor piercing but it just happens to be really good at piercing armor m855 has a steel core in it so it does a really good job of penetrating steel or just any kind of uh body armor so that is what i'm going to be shooting with first the pmc m855 i would shoot it with the this is level four armor so it's rated for up to a armor piercing thirty odd six unfortunately i don't have any of that i don't have a 30 out of six to shoot it with anyway but also frankly i'm not worried about getting shot by a pissed off deer hunter who happens to have armor piercing 30 out 6. um the plate carrier that i'm setting that i have these plates in that i'm really what i'm actually worried about is more like active shooter situations or something like that where you know it's more likely you're going to be running into a ar or an ak realistically and m855 that green tip it's not exactly uncommon you can go into a lot of sporting goods stores and find m855 ammo just laying around in stock maybe not in stock right now but my point is it's not hard to find and of all of the commonly available calibers out there this is what's going to be hardest for this this armor to stop so i'm going to hit it with this first see if it'll actually stop it i have little doubt that it will if battle steel is correct they've tested this to standards far beyond m855 in its past but i guess we'll find out i'll be about seven yards away i'll start with this uh m855 and then after that once it proves that it can defeat this we will uh have a bit more fun with it first up i got the m855 pmc 62 green green tip out of a 16 inch barrel see what happens all right so clearly as you saw from the slo-mo no pass-through a whole lot of i stuff i suppose these are the ceramic ceramic chips they uh tore up but very clear stop not just got more and more ceramic falling out not too much of a backface deformation you would definitely feel that on your chest but i don't know what the exact measurements are i'm pretty positive this would not be lethal at all as far as back face deformation and cracking your ribs or going too far and still killing you i'm pretty positive that would be very survivable now now that this battle steel plate has frankly passed the only test i really expected it to the biggest threat that i'm expecting to face whilst wearing it if i was to ever have to actually use it now that it's past that i'm gonna hit it with the m193 next up i got some pmc m193 55 grain 556 full metal jacket once again no pass through see the m855 much bigger hole in the m193 down below kind of hard to distinguish between the the bumps for the back face deformation but it almost looks like the m193 down below has a bigger bulge in the back but that could very well just be because this whole area was kind of weakened by the m855 but it held up after the m855 and the m193 so now let's have a have some more fun with it all right i got a nine millimeter this time this is federal centek 124 grain mechanic tp9sf see how it does that was the nine millimeter 124 grain centek and a hole a whole lot bigger hope you can the angle is right here but this is the 124 grain whole lot bigger hole and i'm not sure what exactly that is hopefully you guys can see like right in there there's that backing material in there there's a bit better i'm not sure what that is maybe kevlar it's too hard to be a fabric material i think but something in there none of these have penetrated past that even the m855 the steel core hopefully you can see in there it punched through this first layer of ceramic but it stopped on this interesting all right this time i got something a little different 180 grain 40 smith and wesson out of the the beautiful high point here all right we passed the 40 smith and wesson 2 i'll be damned okay so i guess you guys would have seen better in the slow-mo i'm pretty sure i hit it because it fell over and i'm pretty sure i hit it right here and it still didn't penetrate and that's impressive to say that this entire area should have been compromised by the m193 that i hit it with and i'm pretty sure this little extra bulge over here is from the 40 smith and wesson and it still didn't penetrate back face is getting bigger uh kind of fits in the palm of my hand pretty well the whole bulge here but yeah you'd probably have some cracked ribs at this point if you just stood in one place and let them hit you repeatedly but i mean assuming that the this bulge here wouldn't have caused enough trauma to kill you which i'm not an expert but i don't think it would have it doesn't seem like it's really all that bulged i mean that is better than all of these going through your chest all right i got a 410 this time i got some winchester super x uh one fifth ounce slug i believe what this one is one more 410 i got here three inch five pellet triple lot buck all right so the 410 slug hit right up here somewhere blew the side out but did not penetrate little bulge there the 410 triple up buck five pellet hit right here once again i'm really good at hitting in the same place i've already hit the m193 and the 40 and then right here bulge is getting bigger but still don't have any penetration got some 762 action now i don't remember exactly what this is i believe this is 123 grain but i don't remember who makes it i got it a while ago so we'll see how the armor plate likes it um yeah huh the uh no penetration come over here so you can get a better look uh yeah no penetration but i'm pretty sure this one definitely would have uh definitely would have killed you so the 762 by 39 punched in there did not penetrate but we're tearing the sides out big ass bulge from back face deformation but you know m1 m855 m193 nine millimeter 124 grain 40 smith and west and 180 grain um the [ __ ] was that 410 slug 410 triple lot buck and 123 grand i think it's 123 grand 762 by 39 no penetration at all did it still start holy [ __ ] well i gotta say i'm impressed with this thing despite everything i hit it with nothing penetrated i could have kept going and uh punched through it with something but i kind of wanted to keep it mostly intact so i could hang it up on a wall or something just for a nice little conversation starter but recapping going over everything again m855 m193 little divot there 40 smith and wesson 9 millimeter syntec 410 slug 410 triple lot buck five pellet hit down here 762 by 39 down here i hit it one more time with the m855 right up top here i was kind of wanting to see how well it would do in this area where it's been kind of compromised and this close to the edge i thought about doing another one trying to get it right on the edge but yeah my phone's overheating so i'm not gonna bother with it i'm taking that as close enough to the edge what i why i tested that i guess if you don't know some armors will have issues with if you hit them on the close to the edge with it not being structurally sound enough i guess is the word for it and it will still like push through the side or just crack kind of flake the side off something like that so i tried to hit it close to the side the edge where it was already weakened from these with an m855 a penetrator light penetrator uh and no penetration didn't go through still tore the side out but despite everything i've hit it with nothing penetrated this so i gotta say i'm impressed with it it uh i figured after hitting it with one or two rounds the entire thing would be cracked and fractured enough that something would have went through but no i gotta say i gotta admit it did better than i thought considering it's only a hundred bucks i've heard people online bad mouth botac and battle steel mostly you know elitists and i'm not to get too much into that but it's kind of a thing for me it pisses me off when elitists are like oh it's not nij certified you might as well not even spend your money on it i'm not going to get into it but clearly it doesn't have to be nij certified to stop a whole bunch of rounds hitting it so supposedly this has been tested by hp white it's been tested by the calcarro 131 mr guns and gear several other smaller youtubers that have bought these and done tests on them and from what i've seen it passed most of them like i said i could have kept going until i just destroyed the thing but i didn't want to throw it away i kind of want to keep it so i stopped right there but is this worth it oh hell yeah i mean this is a sample size of one i did buy three but i'm not gonna shoot all three so this is only a sample size of one but it more than held up to what i expected it to now would it have held up to a full power black tip 30 out six armor penetrating 30.6 i don't know i don't have any from what i understand and from what i've seen not only are they pretty hard to get black tip actual armor piercing 30 out six they're hard to get but also as i said i think i said in the intro of this video if not that in the specs portion uh uh there's not very many active shooters or anything like that that happens with armor-piercing 30.6 it just doesn't happen you know the type of events where i maybe conceivably could do something with the plate care that these are going in are more likely than not going to be handguns or uh ar or aks and it stopped multiple ar rounds and stopped an ak round a lot lot more back face deformation with that one but it stopped it so it did everything i expected it to again is it worth it i would say so for a hundred bucks to get armor that is point eight inches thick kind of average maybe on the uh thinner edge of what level four armor is only five and a half pounds and it stopped all of that oh no backface deformation would definitely have killed you but it stopped all of it so is it worth a hundred bucks i would say so especially for civilians where put aside your john wick fantasy for a minute the chances of a civilian this depends i guess a bit on where you live but the chances of a normal civilian needing a gun in a self-defense encounter being relatively close to a plate carrier and having the forethought and the criminal or the bad guy giving you the time to put this on and then respond to him come on get a [ __ ] lottery ticket if that happens because while it's possible yeah obviously well i mean i think everyone watching this is sort of in that niche of accepting the real world and knowing it's possible the chances of it are really [ __ ] low so for a civilian who frankly is more likely than not never ever gonna need to use it is this worth it yeah even so even if you did need to use it it'll clearly save your life assuming you don't just kind of stand there and let them put rounds on you in that case you'll probably be dead but it'll stop bullets from going in you while you respond to the threat and that's exactly what armor is meant to do so the battle steel level four ceramic armor plate it definitely passed in my testing got a thumbs up from me if you liked the video go ahead and give me a thumbs up uh tell me what you think of this again i've seen some people online bad mouth botak and battle steel for various reasons whatever their reasons and my limited experience with them they did everything i could hope it would so if you have bad experience with them i mean let me know tell me if you think otherwise that this isn't worth it but the battle steel level four plate definitely gets a pass from me if you like the video if you like the content that i've been putting out consider subscribing tell me in the comments down below some other stuff you want to see me do i have ballistics gel assuming i could find ammo in stock and not for triple the price that it should be i would probably be doing some more ballistic gel testing but from apocalypse so yeah definitely if you're looking for some pretty decent armor that's not going to break the bank check this stuff out i'm the calcarro 131 signing out

Channel: TheKalkara131

Views: 2,482

Rating: 4.9583335 out of 5

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Id: UspM7N_kfoY

Length: 27min 48sec (1668 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020