Body Armor Basics / Recommendations

hey guys my name is Sam and welcome to pragmatics in this week's video we are talking body honor [Music] so we have seen a huge resurgence of body armor being worn and purchased in emergency services as well as on the civilian side so this video I want to go through some of the options of body armor out there kind of get into the levels a little bit some of the cuts hard soft how are you gonna carry things and really give you guys some information for what you need for your application because while it's super tactical to have your plate carrier on that's not always the best option for everybody I will specify that I am NOT an expert in body armor I have worn a lot of body armor I have a bunch of different kinds to go through however I'm not gonna be talking to you guys about velocities and specific threat protections because honestly I don't know it that well and I'm not about to spew something on the internet that I am not absolutely sure of so this is more of a practical guide to body armor so the NIJ sets the threat levels for body armor they're the regulating agency that has to do with that so they have threat levels rated from 1 all the way up to 4 so level 1 2 a 2 3 a 3 4 so with those levels in mind everything up to that 3a is going to be soft armor and 3 all the way up to 4 are going to be your hard armors I will leave a little diagram up here so you can take a look at what specific threats they deal with when you're selecting body armor it's important to understand what threats you're coming up against the majority of people that are looking to purchase body armor are not coming up against rifle threats is it a possibility absolutely but it's not something that's super common if you look at the statistics for murder in the United States almost 63 percent of all murders are committed with handguns and then the rest are rifles and shotguns and some of the other category obviously looking at body armor it's always going to be a toss-up between convenience comfort and mobility versus protection level the higher the protection level the thicker the armor will get the less it will bend and move with you and the heavier will get while that 8 pounds might not seem like a big deal with meat - in front of the screen having worn it all day for several days it gets very very tiring very quickly so it's all a toss-up obviously the most protection you can get is one of those bomb suits but you're not going to be able to wear that every day and just walk around and even accomplish the mission you have to so it's really important to take that into account the first set of armor I want to talk about is your internal concealed soft armor so this is super common for law enforcement to wear on duty it's something that goes right under the uniform it doesn't look very obtrusive a lot of departments are really concerned about public perception and the dude walking around in the external carrier tends to look a little bit more aggressive now I don't really agree with that philosophy you know I think that whatever is best for the officers back and safety is the right way to go however I do understand that a lot of these departments are playing a political game at the same time so the internal soft armor is really nice because you don't see it it's not obtrusive this is level 2 armor so this will protect you against a lot of handguns kind of the most common threats this exact kind of armor was what I wore while I was a sheriff's deputy or a reserve sheriff's deputy and what's really nice about this is it has a pouch in the front and this is a little bit of added ballistic protection so in here you have a strike plate that will protect you a little bit better than the vest itself and that goes right over your heart protects a little bit of your lungs and your great vessels that's why that's super nice but this vest also offers a lot of wraparound coverage so this actually covers your side very well it comes down pretty far and covers a good portion of your abdomen pretty easy to size so this is an awesome option one of the downsides to this is that you can't just take it on and off throughout the day you know you put this on then you put a shirt over it if you want to take this off you're gonna have to basically disrobe so it's not super convenient for that and really is only going to be good if you're planned to wear this for the rest of the day or for an extended period of time but they are pretty comfortable now the other disadvantages is that this cannot carry anything on the outside it's armored and that's all it is now we do have soft armor that comes in X Journal carriers so this one here is by safe life defense I've had it on the video before but this is not a review of specific manufacturers there are a ton of people making great armor out there I really like safe life defense but there is other stuff on the market you can look at as well so this armor is actually 3a so it is a step above this - armor here for the internal carrier and it's actually 3/8 plus so it will protect you against some stabs and some sharp objects which is really really nice in these vests this is nice because it can carry things on the outside I can also take it off pretty quickly say if I you know get home or back to the base I can just throw this off and then throw it back on when we're about to go on another call something like that if I want I can put a medkit on the front or some other carrying options if you're in law enforcement you can put your magazines your taser mount on there handcuffs get all that weight off your belt the other really nice thing is that it's got very clear identification it says exactly what I am this particular vest you can get in a bunch of different colors and schemes so it'll work well for that now the external carriers like I said before our nice because you get this weight off your belt a lot of back injuries are caused by those duty belts that police officers with wear that's a lot of weight on their waist and it's really bad for you so a lot of departments are starting to switch to external carriers for that reason now you notice this has almost the exact same coverage as the other soft armor i've got armor blocks on the side there so it is a good option for that coverage it comes down pretty low and then the other thing you'll notice about this vest is if i want to up its protection i can actually slide hard plates down level 4 or level 3 plates into the front of this vest and give me a little bit more protection if i believe i'm gonna be facing a rifle threat now this armor is a little bit less mobile than your two armor you know it's just a little bit thicker a little bit stiffer you know sticks out a little bit more so keep that in mind with this however this will still move with you pretty well and allow you to accomplish your missions it's a good balance between protection and mobility however it does look a little bit more intrusive and a spy EMS agencies they're going to be pretty hesitant to let you wear an external carrier because it does look relatively aggressive and the separation between law enforcement and EMS in the field is something that's perceived as very important for your corrections officers or somebody that works and really confined spaces with prisoners you want a vest that has some kind of stab protection in it just because it'll stop a bullet does not mean it will stop a knife or a shank of some kind so make sure if your corrections officer you're getting something that does stop those threats it's actually a different accrediting agency that does your stab protection so make sure you look into that a lot of that has to do with the force distribution of a bullet and the way the materials made so this vest will protect against stab ratings that's why I wear this on the ambulance that's why I've worn this in EMS is because right next to a patient chances are I'm going to get stabbed not necessarily shot so I want something that has that capabilities for me now one of the most popular vests on the market especially for law enforcement are going to be plate carriers but really these are not the best option for armor for a lot of reasons and I'll talk to you about this now I really like this vest itself this is the Shellback tactical banshee 2.0 plate carrier I think they have a newer version of this out there this is a very specific application now we've all seen the Instagram photos of the really tactical dudes in the full multicam and they've got the plate carrier on them that's cool you know I'm not a Special Forces dude I've never been in Special Forces or in the military anything like that a lot of those guys have very specific job duties and need a lot of mobility they're willing to take the risk however the disadvantage of a standalone plate carrier is that it does not cover very much so inside of this I've got a level 4 zappy plate which will stop armor-piercing rounds it's very very sturdy however that will only really protect my heart my lungs while those are my most vital organs it does not protect on the side it does not protect down on to my abdomen so you have an advantage in mobility you can wear a big battle belt with this however I had this because as a law enforcement officer I had my soft armor on under my uniform and if I was going into an active shooter situation I could throw this on me I could have extra magazines and extra protection as well as an effect mounted on it already so I used this as almost a deployable kit plus I would have all the additional protection from the soft armor and this would go over top of it and protect my vital organs so really I recommend these for somebody that's wearing soft armor already and you wear this in conjunction with it the other thing to consider with these is that what you're using for a plate so in here I've got two ceramic plates and each one of those ceramic plates weighs about eight pounds and they're pretty thick I would not want to be sitting in this all day that's very very heavy now you can get polyethylene plates with which are a synthetic compound there are a lot lighter way about three pounds of piece two to three pounds of piece the disadvantage with the polyethylene is they're very very thick and they're also very expensive so because both ceramic plates and polyethylene plates are expensive a lot of people go out to ar500 and they buy their steel plates there's nothing wrong with that but the issue with steel plates is that when you get hit with one it's balls and it can come up into your face and hit you anyways now they do offer some small protection on there they've got some coatings on those plates however you know they're very heavy pretty bulky and if I'm wearing it with any regularity I don't think I'd go that route the other thing to consider is that a lot of manufacturers make level-4 plates but they say they're in conjunction so if it's a conjunction plate that means that it has to be worn with soft armor under it to give you that level of protection that's not to say it won't necessarily stop some of those threats without the soft armor under it but it is relying on that layer of soft armor to give you that level so while that's okay like there are some advantages to that as a law enforcement officer it's gonna save you some weight there and save you some bulk but it is not gonna work if you just want to throw that on and like I said before this does not offer the same amount of protection some of these vests do can be very very heavy as well all of that leads me to the final vest I want to go through with you and the final type I'm going to discuss and this one is my C jar optimized first beer vest now this was my tactical vest I wore on the SWAT team during my last year super great piece of equipment but this is not for everybody so this is what I would call an entry vest the armored inside of it is soft armor right off the bat it's three a soft armor with some special threat protection but then it also has two ceramic plates in it that will stop rifle threats and the reason this is super nice is it can be thrown over just a shirt you have the full soft armor protection with the rifle protection built into it you've got a ton of real estate on the front sides and back to mount whatever you need to carry with you the one advantage this has over say my safe life defense vest is that it has the ability to mount things on the cummerbund on the side so you can mount a lot more equipment on the side of this I've got my eye FAC over here that I had with me and then it just offers really really good coverage the other thing this vest offers is you can attach a lot of other things to it so this one has some shoulder protectors you can get some bicep protectors you can get a groin protector for it as well as a NEX route so this offers you a little bit more protection however it does come with a premium price tag to go along with it so it is not for everybody now this armor is cut in the bulks cut so it does offer you a lot of coverage going down your torso on the back you can see it's even bigger than the front and offers a ton of real estate there so this will protect you pretty well when you're looking at plates and soft armor you have to look at the cut you have things called you know you've got your sappy plates that are in here you've got swimmers cut shooters cut that give you a little bit less protection but allow you to bring up and get a good cheek weld on your weapon you have to kind of evaluate that once again that goes back to the trade-off between protection and usability for you so you have to make sure you're still able to accomplish the mission at hand so as far as my recommendation go if you are a patrol officer of any kind I would recommend some kind of internal or external soft garmr that's at least NIJ level 2 you can use that in conjunction with a plate carrier if you do need the ability to face a rifle threat and if you have an active shooter bag I would actually advise you to go out and get a plate carrier that you can mount all the contents of that active shooter bag onto your vest in EMS I would recommend an external soft armor that has some kind of mounting capabilities and really big identifiers of who you are and what you're there to do if you are on an entry team or taking a more tactical approach obviously I would recommend something that's more robust has more capabilities such as this vest and then finally if you're a civilian looking to buy something I would actually stay away from plate carriers and would go more with either an internal and external soft armor with the ability to add plates on the inside that's simply because that will give you more coverage area and will allow you to quickly Don and doff that armor but while the plate carriers might look really cool I would advise only really wearing these if you have soft armor underneath them that's not to say everybody does and that's not necessarily needed from everyone however these do not offer quite the same amount of protection across this body surface area and you're not very likely to be encountering rifle threats as the civilian although it still could happen if you have any questions please leave them in the comments down below and I will see you next week [Music]

Channel: PrepMedic

Views: 232,069

Rating: 4.9254313 out of 5

Keywords: Body armor, armor, dragon scale, Vest, bullet proof vest, NIJ, stop a bullet, First-spear, Safelife, EMS, Law enforcement, Police, sheriff, Paramedic, Firefighter, Stop the bleed, Prepmedic, Prep medic

Id: FgnLy7lvbBc

Length: 15min 32sec (932 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 19 2020