BODY ARMOR BASICS - an intro to all things body armor

I was wrong in the past I've kind of always held the belief that the average citizen or the average person probably has no need for body armor yes I own body armor and that might sound hypocritical but I accept the fact that I probably will never need body armor I'm not gonna recommend that you go out and spend money that you cannot afford to acquire something that's probably never gonna be useful to you however if you have the money to spend on it and you want to get into it and you're curious about body armor I want to give you one place to look one video where you can kind of read and listen where you can kind of listen to just get some general basics that would allow you to more easily start researching to get your own needs met so let's talk about this today today I want to give you the tools to understand more about body armor so that you can make the right choice for you it's not quite as simple as get these plates get this carrier call it a day you kind of need to look at your own needs and your own wants what it is you're trying to protect yourself from how much threat you want to be able to stop and kind of make decisions that would be good for you because if you go on and look at a grantham video and see his video about how to set up a plate carrier for military or duty use that might not generally be what you as an average armed citizen would actually need or want you probably don't need to have five radios and a admin pouch and handcuffs and there's just a lot of things that you may or may not need and you kind of need to look at your own needs and work towards that as far as your gear selection so let's get into it before we really start talking about gear and sort of information I wanna talk about legality in all 50 states it's legal to sell body armor the only state that I'm aware that has any sort of selling restrictions is in Connecticut you can't sell it through the mail you have to do face to face but in the state of California if you're curious about the laws on that generally in most states prohibited persons or violent felons can't have body armor but I want you to do your own research when it comes to that if you feel at all that you might have any sort of worry about it looking to it on your own it's a totally different topic for a totally different day generally however if you're committing a crime while wearing body armor it can be used as an add-on and increase the severity of the crime that you're gonna be punished for so if you plan on doing crimes and you don't want to get it add on don't wear body armor but also just please don't break the law I don't know or do I mean I really don't care what you do but just understand the law how much body armor do you need physically what kind of size do you need to protect a lot of people when they see me wear this they say hey Reno it looks like that body armor is pretty small on you and that's a pretty common thing you'll see on most people when they post a photo of them wearing body armor because you see that my shoulders aren't covered my sides aren't covered my gut is not covered my dick is not covered and I know you want to protect that area but you got to think about what this purpose of body armor is if I were to wear a full-blown Zod suit yeah I'd be pretty damn invincible but I wouldn't be very mobile I wouldn't be able to do things so it's a balance of how much you want to cover how much you want to be able to move and so basically what you want to cover is the vitals and what I mean by that is mostly your lungs heart and the cavity where if you were to take a shot to your down you're not fighting you're not coming back from that an instant stop you do not want to get hit in the chest so it's really about covering the most important vital zone up here and sacrificing the fact that you can still get hit in the face you can still get hit in the central nervous system down in the gut but if you're to cover everything up on your whole body you wouldn't be as mobile and as able to do anything so it's a balance so when it comes to threat levels and what you want to stop there's an important thing to understand NIJ certifications vs. NIJ tested now you're gonna see in a lot of body armor that they say tested to NIJ standards that does not mean that it has been certified by that NIJ organization as verified that it will stop that threat they might have had some influencer that you're very fond of shoot a video of him firing a couple rounds into it and then firing a bunch of handgun rounds into it and that's fine that is entertainment you will always catch me on every livestream of mr. Gunson gear when he premieres a video about body armor testing because I enjoy watching those as entered but understand that when something isn't actually certified by the NIJ as whatever threat level at Sain it's not necessarily something that you can trust you have to choose whether you believe that company that manufacturer you don't know what sort of storage or what sort of actual testing they've done they might have just shot it at it but that's not really what NIJ testing is NIJ testing does a whole lot of stuff outside of just physically shooting the gun in a normal temperature room with a standard backing there is a lot to it I'm not gonna get too into it but basically here's the deal if you're looking to stop handgun threats all the way up to 44 Magnum level 3a is basically gonna do what you need there are some lower level body armors but level 3a is fairly lightweight you can get backpack panels you can get soft body armor that is level 3a that will stop 9 40 45 44 Magnum and all that kind of handgun calibers you're typically gonna come across so if you're only looking to stop handgun threats level 3a is probably what you need it's very lightweight very concealable much more concealable than this level 4 plate when it comes to rifle threats level 3 is a good protection rating however it isn't always known to be able to stop m855 or m193 out of normal 556 velocities so for me if you're looking to stop rifles in my mind I always recommend that you go with level 4 or level 3 plus but you need to keep in mind level 3 plus currently is not an actual NIJ certified threat level what it is is a level 3 plate that the manufacturer of that plate has gone out and tested it to an extra standard to be able to stop those special threats like 5 5 6 it's something that you need to be aware of because lots of companies make level 3 plus plates and you have to choose whether or not you trust it a way to know that you could probably trust their level 3 plus rating is if they have level 3 plates and level 4 plates that are actually certified by the NIJ it's probably good to go with them it's probably ok to trust that they're level 3 plus will stop it but you're going to want to do your own research many of people do tests online level 3 plus is the only time where I would truly recommend that you go out and watch and see that people are actually reliably getting those plates to stop that actual five five six threat of m193 or m855 so if you're looking to stop threats like that level 3 + or level 4 the downside of level 4 is typically it's thicker and heavier the level 4 is designed to stop armor-piercing 30.6 so yeah if you find yourself probably coming into contact with that go ahead and get level 4 personally I bought level 4 plates not because I was particularly worried about them I just couldn't find the characteristics and pricing that I was looking for in a level 3 + plate because sometimes they are more expensive due to them being marketed as lightweight I was able to find a level 4 plate that fit my needs fit my sizing that I needed and a price range that I was comfortable with and I was able to get a pretty good price on it and I'm happy with that you kind of need to consider what your goal is like I touched on earlier if you watch a garand thumb video where he talks about how to set it up for military or duty use that's great and that's definitely helpful for people that fit into that role but the average person doesn't actually have those needs or those uses they're not going to be able to use it to that full potential so you kind of need to think what is it that you're actually looking to do for me if I just have a way to stop some bullets I'm probably gonna be very rarely ever putting this on in a serious situation if ever there has been exactly one time in my life where I've ever actually wanted to put body armor on I didn't have it at the time and I kind of still think you know I probably won't ever need that again but I own it because I own a lot of guns why not own this it's not that expensive for me to buy a pretty good setup and so I just figured might as well but the setup that I went with is very slick I don't have a whole lot of stuff hanging off the edge of this and if I take these mags out I can actually concealed this fairly well under a jacket those of you that know me personally if I were to be wearing this under a jacket you probably notice that I look a little bit hunchback assur just a little bit thick in the chest you know I'm looking a little extra plump and juicy that day but people that don't know me if I was wearing a loose jacket you probably wouldn't be able to tell unless you're looking for me being wearing body armor which the average person wouldn't be so this setup would provide me a pretty good slick undercover or covert look as opposed to the typical overt style that you're probably going to see on Instagram and seeing people promoting those are definitely useful there's a lot more to it but it's like having a large backpack full of a lot of [ __ ] versus a small backpack that you can carry around that carries just the important things I'm not running two columns I'm not running an admin pouch I'm just probably if there's a time where I'm gonna need body armor I'm probably gonna want to be bugging out and being able to maintain covert situations and just being in public if I'm running a full overt plate carrier totally open with a whole bunch of [ __ ] on it I'm gonna stick out like a sore thumb and that's not really what I'm looking to do so that's why I have mine set up the way I do when it comes to actual plate carriers there's a ton to consider honestly just go out and look for reviews look what you're actually looking to do but some things to consider would be how things physically attach this one uses a swift clipped system if I want to run some sort of placard but it's just a velcro most of them are kind of like that nowadays you got velcro within just a simple clip system but if you're looking for an all-in-one package they make those as well you got to consider do you need modularity do you need ability to attach a lot of stuff to it or do you want something slick a couple good recommendations are Pharaoh Pharaoh concepts spiritus systems defender cry JP seas there's a lot out there but any of those brands either Pharaoh Spiritist defender or cry they all make good stuff there's plenty of other options out there those are just a couple recommendations that I know that have a good track record so when it comes to actually picking what plate and carrier system you want it's kind of like a triangle you got price comfort and weight and then protection so if you want a level 4 plate that's cheap you're kind of gonna be getting away from the area of where it's comfortable so it's gonna be heavier if you want to spend a lot of money you can get both of those you know you can get expensive and you can get high threat protection and comfortable so you got to kind of figure out how much do you want to spend how much you're physically able to spend I'm not gonna recommend that you go out and spend two grand on plates because I think that's a little ridiculous for the average person but the option is there but I'm also not going to recommend that you spend seventy dollars on some weird Chinese ium plates that you can't actually be sure will stop it because if you're putting body armor on you don't want to be thinking in the back of your head I don't think my plates are actually gonna stop this threat you want to be sure that what you're looking to do is actually going to be accomplished so you can get pretty good at brands for very inexpensive prices but they might not be the most comfortable they might not be the best shape or the highest threat level so you got to kind of figure out where in that spectrum you want to live and where you want to get stuck so when it comes to sizing shapes and geometry there's typically two ways there's the sappy plating system and then there's small medium and large typically a ten by twelve which is what this plate is is considered a medium and eleven by fourteen or some sort of other variation is a large but just understand that you need to measure yourself a good way to measure is from nipple to nipple and collarbone down to basically your sternum and you got to kind of figure out where your vitals are and how big you are and what kind of threat you want to stop this plate is a 10 by 12 and it's arguably on a little bit of a small side realistically I could probably get away with like a 10 and a half or an 11 by maybe twelve instead of or twelve or thirteen but an eleven by fourteen is kind of pushing it on me so I ultimately chose to go with something that I can still move and actually exist in and I could be comfortable there's a lot of different shapes and cuts and bends and what I mean by that is the actual shape so some plates are just they're gonna go straight up like a sappy plate this is what's considered a swimmer plate which kind of has more of like a curvature up towards the top and then a very small flat section here there's a lot of different sizes a lot of different shapes swimmer cut and shooter cut are typically good for actually being able to move around and shoot in it just depends on what you want to what you want to go with because for me if I have the swimmer or the more sleek style cuts I lose protection up here but do I need that to be protected you know so it's you gotta kind of sacrifice comfort and movability with protection you know I want to still be able to cross over my shoulders like this and be able to do stuff so it's kind of why I've chosen the way that I've chosen it but you've got to make that decision for yourself now let's talk about curvature now it's a plate why would it need to be curved well the human body is not if I put just a flat surface on my body it would be uncomfortable it would not conform to the actual shape of my body and I wouldn't be able to wear that comfortably for an extended period of time I have gone several days wearing these plates you know I wake up in the morning I put on my clothes throw it on just to experience what it feels like to have this weight on me you know do some pull-ups do it so the push-ups just do some exercise going to run and I got an idea of why this is the way it is and why it's a good thing that I spent the money for a triple curve or a multi curve setup the more curves you have to it the more it adapts to your body nobody is straight up flat and that's not gonna be comfortable on you so at the very minimum I recommend getting a single curve plate but multi curve is typically better the more comfortable you have it set up the more likely you're gonna be able to wear it for longer periods of times if needed so you got to kind of choose what's worth it for you flat or single curve are cheaper than multi curve but is it worth it if you're not gonna end up wanting to wear it when you might need it so some of the consider when it comes to weight the heavier a plate is the less comfortable it is to wear the less mobile you are and the harder it is for you to be quick and move around so if you get a plate that's eight pounds each that's 16 total pounds the plates that I chose are about six and a half each and that's a pretty good compromise between the super ultralight and the super cheap super heavy so there are cheap plates out there but they're typically gonna be heavier they're typically probably not gonna be multi curved so you got to kind of figure out what's worth it for you I recommend people buy the most comfortable highest threat and the most expensive that they can afford is really my general recommendation figure out how much you can spend and then try to get the best and lightest plate within that price range that covers the threats that you need to cover so something to consider let's talk about pricing there's budget options for plates and around the hundred dollars per plate but you usually pay the price in terms of comfort and weight so make sure you're spending the money that you can actually balance out the threat protection and comfort that you need if it's a cheaper plate you're gonna want to make sure that it's actually NIJ certified NIJ tested can be fine can be that's the thing the comfort in knowing that a plate has been tested and properly stored manufactured everything through the quality control process is tested and updated that is something that I cannot recommend you don't buy something that's NIJ certified now the addendum to that or the gotcha to that is the fact that level three plus is not currently a actual NIJ certified threat but if the company has level three and level four plates that our NIJ certified and they are marketing it as level three plus I'm comfortable going and going with something like that but there's plenty of companies out there that have no actual brand track record no NIJ certification you don't know where the materials were source you don't know where was manufactured you bought it on eBay you bought it on wish I definitely don't recommend you use those if you're actually serious about protecting yourself can they work maybe will they reliably work probably not and that's not something I'm looking for in a situation where I'm gonna be putting on body armor right all right bring out the iPad so materials you basically have three typical styles that you're gonna run into steel ceramic and some sort of poly and then sometimes a hybrid of ceramic and poly the pros for steel they're typically very cheap they're typically rather thin and that's pretty nice you got something that's fairly inexpensive and it's fairly thin however the downsides there are some major important ones I need to talk about weight they're typically very heavy in order to get to the threat level that you need you're gonna probably need to be getting thicker plates which is gonna add more weight to it they start at around eight pounds and get up to the ten pound range Steel has some major downsides steel has the downsides of transferring energy more it's typically heavier for higher threat protection you're gonna need to get trauma pads to counteract that the build up coats that they mark it towards catching spall typically adds an increased price so then the good steel typically gets you into the price range where you can get good ceramic so for me I don't really recommend steel but I will give you a couple recommendations that I know of and kind of talk about the pros and cons them generally why I don't recommend ar500 let's talk about that so it has all the steel inherent downsides I'm not saying they're bad but if you choose to buy them for your own reasons feel free to weigh the pros and cons for yourself but let's talk about it so ar500 advertises a very tempting price they say things like Oh for $89 you can get a steel plate and that's fine but when you add both the increased spall protection the spall guard the base coat buildup the add the multi curve shape to it add trauma pads you're looking at about three hundred and twenty five dollars plus $70 for the trauma pads meaning four hundred bucks for a set of plates they also have an eight to ten week lead time and for me that's enough to no longer consider them but then when you do the weight math you got a plate that weighs around eight and a half pounds you got trauma pads you got the build up coat the plate carriers that they sell with them aren't very lightweight all in all you're automatically jumping up to about eighteen to twenty pounds alone just for your plates then when you start thinking about adding on a magazine which weighs about a pound each loaded plus whatever other medical kit or whatever the doodads you got on it I honestly I can't recommend ar500 armor I know plenty of people have them and you trust your life to them and that's fine but for me when I look at the downsides that Steel has and then I look at the price of what air 500 I would actually think about recommending to you it's just not worth it when I can get a set of hesse koel 210 ceramic plates that weigh less cost less and don't have an eight to ten week lead time I just couldn't recommend ar500 because of that so if you're looking for a steel brand that I'm actually positive of but I want you to do your own research into steel ops they're a pretty good company they seem interesting they seem to have figured out the right material they don't use ar500 they use a stronger metal that is lighter weight for the same threat protection they don't sell any of their plates with just the base coat they all have a good small protection they seem to have pretty good ideas as far as shaping weight and everything so they're interesting they're also fairly inexpensive for asset so for me if I was looking to get steel armor I would definitely recommend steel ops I'm sure there are other manufacturers out there I don't have time to list them all I'm just listening a couple of the big ones that I know of when it comes to ceramics okay the cons of ceramics basically you can't throw them around as violently because people are afraid of them cracking but the current NIJ rating system actually does factor in drop testing when they shoot them so they get them soaking wet after doing a heat thaw heats the heat thaw cycle they then weigh them and then drop them with full weight added on to them and then they shoot it so for me when I think about the cons of ceramic be more brittle I don't have plans of jumping out of a building wearing my plates and falling onto them so that's not something that I'm really worried about I'm not going to hit these with a hammer intentionally in the same way that I wouldn't hit any of my valuable items with a hammer intentionally so I'm not too concerned about that but it is a Conda I do want to bring up some of the options are pretty thick so when you think about ceramic it's a ceramic material this one is 0.67 inches thick but there are some that get up to like point nine inches thick and that's pretty thick that's adding a lot of extra distance to your front and back which basically gets into the realm of no longer concealable which that might not be an issue for you at all but more thickness means you're less mobile a little bit harder to cross your shoulders over because it's got more distance out in front so it's something to consider now when it comes to price the cheap ceramic plates are all gonna be about eight bucks or eight pounds apiece so you add 16 pounds of total weight just for the plates now that's something to consider but you don't need to run Trauma pads with them necessarily so it's still wider than some of the cheaper steel options that could get the same threat level protection now the ceramic pros you can get them in level four meaning that you can actually get level four plates in ceramic but you can't get them in steel so if you want to be able to stop all the threats you want to be able to stop five five six green tip or m193 at 3,200 feet per second but you're not confident in steel level four is what you're looking for if you don't want to go with that level three plus rating and you want some that's guaranteed to stop those threats level four is what you're looking for and you got to go with some sort of ceramic or ceramic poly there are way lighter options for ceramic on the market meaning you can get ceramic plates that are were like four and a half to five pounds of piece that are still level 3 plus or level 4 which is pretty damn cool so you get a lot lighter weight now granted the very lightweight very thin plates are more expensive as with all things the most comfortable the lightest weight are going to be more expensive they're just something that you have to consider so for me because they also don't spoil as much they capture spall a lot better I'm personally willing to go a ceramic they're not quite as multi-hit rated but I don't plan on taking seven shots to the chest and not getting the [ __ ] out of there if I am wearing steel armor that is in theory rated for indefinite number of shots I'm not planning on surviving a situation where I take a hundred rounds to the chest if you get shot that many times in the body armor you're probably getting shot elsewhere that is causing you to die so for me I'm thinking about realistic situations where I might want body armor and probably more realistically wood soft level three a body armor that completely wraps around might be more useful but for me I've chosen to go with a plate system that allows me to stop higher rifle threats with the risk of not having my sides or whole body protected with it so you got to make that own decision for yourself if you're looking for some ceramic brands some of the ones I recommend would be Hess COEs or the various rebrands Hesco is kind of the industry standard you can get plates like the L to ten that is a special rifle threat that'll stop all your five five six all your common rifle rounds as well as handgun rounds for about 270 I think for a set sometimes on a pretty good sale but the thing about Hesco is they also sell plates to other manufacturers that brand them as their own so you can go to places like body armor outlet and get the cheap lightweight plate and get the cheap level four plates for about ninety bucks a piece sometimes so Hesco is definitely a brand that you want to look into RMA they got good price for performance options they're NIJ certified just like Hesco so it's one of those things where they offer good cheap plates they also have some very expensive very lightweight plates so it's something to look into now hoplite this is a company that I have plates for do I like hoplite as a business and the company and the people that run it no absolutely not horrible lead time not very good customer service but the plates are made by LTC leading technology composites they are actually NIJ certified LTC is an excellent company the plates that I got were fairly lightweight they were very inexpensive for the threat and weight and level protection I got these level 4 multi curve six and a half pound plates for what was it like 450 which ain't bad at all considering that most the other Hess COEs or other brands out there that offer a similar style plate would be looking at around 650 for the set so for me I don't like hoplite I'm not gonna recommend you buy a hoplite but when I bought them before I knew all those things about them it was a damn good option for price and performance let's talk about the one that I'm sure you've probably all commented on and asked about by now battle steel if you go to Botox website you can find a company called battle steel mister guns and gear and all kinds of other your favorite influencers have done tests on this company do I recommend them no they aren't NIJ certified yes there have been many youtubers that have shot at them you probably might even know someone personally that's shot bullets at them are those tests legitimate and certified in the same way that the NIJ does them no they use Chinese materials and allegedly make them over here but I wouldn't trust my life to something like that and I don't recommend that you do either so I couldn't personally recommend that you actually buy them however they're very cheap they're very light I don't know how they're doing it for so cheap probably something to do with the fact that they're not NIJ certified so they'll have to pay for testing and then you add on the fact that they are using Chinese materials and most likely assembling parts of it in China so the labor is super cheap I'm sure that has something to do with it it might work it probably will work I recommend them I couldn't in good conscience and let me explain to you why I am not telling you that your favorite budget option is not good I am simply saying that if I heard that someone used something that I recommended to them and it caused them to die or be injured or hurt because it was not capable of doing the things that I said it should be able to do I don't know how I would sleep at night if I told you hey battle seal is a good company you should use their body armor and you took a round with one of those on and you died I don't know how I would I don't know how I would sleep at night I truly cannot recommend anything other than what I know for a fact is good to go have I recommended stuff in the past that might not be as good or might not be the best and most superior definitely will I probably recommend stuff that's not the best and most superior in the future yeah but I can only recommend things with good conscience things that I actually know about now I might talk about things like PSA or other cheap companies but I couldn't actually in good faith recommend them to you you can do your own research and decide that it's what's right for you but that's not gonna be on me so that's where I'm coming from when I don't recommend battle steel and I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings by that so let's wrap it all up in summary the quick and dirty figure out how much you want to spend figure out what sort of threat you need to protect figure out how you want to set it up do you want it covert or overt budget options typically are less comfortable more expensive options can be more comfortable and lighter weight and stop more threats but you got to kind of find a good place in the middle as a final note I'm gonna talk about how I have mine set up this is a Farrow concept slickster inside it I have to hop light level 4 plates they are Swimmer cut meaning that I have good mobility they're medium sized meaning that it covers the important parts if I were to go to a large I would probably be pushing it I wouldn't be able to move around as much I'd be a little bit more boxy so I chose to go with a lighter weight plate I can conceal these under a jacket if I'm not running them eggs I can wear a jacket that's pretty thick and loose and I don't look super noticeable only time in my entire life that I've ever thought to myself man I wish I had body armor let's talk about that real quick Sonoma County was on fire in 2017 we woke up at around 3:00 a.m. and had to get the hell out of our house we packed everything up I packed up all my guns packed up all our important documents got in the car and left we needed to make a pit stop in that pit stop I needed to go to a convenience store the convenience store was an absolute madhouse people are running around scared it was kind of just a little crazy in that moment I thought to myself man I'd really like to be able to have body armor on me I was carrying a firearm on me at the time so I was in a situation where I would have liked to actually have body armor I could have been in a situation where I could conceal it and have it on me and have an extra level of protection do I first see myself going out in full kit in the future probably not I'm probably never going to actually have to put these on however considering current events with the riots going on best believe I'm glad that I bought body armor at the beginning of the corona pandemic so yeah I'm pretty happy with that decision should you buy a body armor I don't know I can't make that decision for you but hopefully I've given you enough information here to take that back with you and actually make the decisions that are right for you and if you have any questions drop comment down below and want to say thank you to everyone that sports a channel I gotta say thank you to one of my patreon members California EDC on Instagram who sent me this absolutely phenomenal shirt I am really enjoying wearing offensive clothing now I don't mean in politically incorrect terms I mean I like wearing things that hurt to look at for people I like being annoying sometimes and that's just how I am and I'm not gonna change who I am for you or for anybody so Thank You California EDC my patreon member thank you all the other patreon members thank you to everyone that likes comments subscribes and sports channel as always have fun be safe stay dangerous peace

Channel: Reno May

Views: 32,284

Rating: 4.934752 out of 5

Keywords: California, California compliant, target practice, calguns, gun laws, ca gun laws, assault weapons ban, second amendment, gun control

Id: 7N0UI5UeS3Y

Length: 30min 37sec (1837 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020