Budget Body Armor Considerations (Why I Do NOT Recommend AR500 Steel Armor)

[Music] [Music] foreign [Music] welcome back guys today we're going to be talking about body armor and what kind of body armor may or may not be right for you i've seen a lot of different videos out there where people talk about say ar 500 body armor or we'll talk about some cheaper options like some of these options from botec which are composite materials are either polyethylene and ceramic some type of mixture thereof or you got lighter more concealable body armor kind of like this which is a 3a concealable vest that i actually wear for work there are other options you can buy a concealable vest for these type plates too i have one right here so this is basically a slit carrier this one's made i believe by yeah tactical assault gear this is one i bought years ago and i actually threw some shoulder pads on here i think these are eagle industry shoulder pads 100 necessary if you're going to run steel body armor in this thing which i did for a while back one thing i will say about a concealable vest for rifle body armor it's concealable but not really if you get any sort of polyethylene or ceramic plates they're gonna be so bulky or probably gonna show up anyway so um just take that for what it's worth throw that off to the side um so first we'll cover kind of the concealable body armor which right here um this is a point blank brand body armor it's level 3a and it's out of all these the most comfortable to wear um it covers probably your entire body a lot better than all these other ones do like these just cover your front and back unless you get side plates which again there's going to be a gap in between your front plate and your side plates and here's an example of a side plate that we actually shot so you can see you know it's smaller it goes inside so you can buy stuff that will cover your sides as well but just know that you're generally going to get more coverage with something like this but you can see it goes around i'm a small dude so i actually had to tuck this around itself um but whenever it's on me it stretches out to about right here anyway so you can see the side panels cover your side the front covers you have ballistic material up here and it goes all the way through the side so the entire material is designed to stop bullets now it's only designed to stop pistol calibers um you can also say it'll stop shotgun rounds which technically it will uh how much backface deformation there would be uh or blunt force trauma transferred into your body i don't know i don't think i've ever seen a video done on that but in theory it'll stop shotgun slugs buckshot nails off pretty much every hanging caliber there is now there are some hanging calibers that will actually punch through even 3a uh some of it's a civil defense i think makes some it's a nine millimeter round and it's traveling around uh 2000 feet per second some ridiculous number and it's a light like 50 grain bullet so it's super light for nine millimeter and it'll actually punch right through those things now how much damage it'll do once it passes through i don't know i can tell you also another side note is if you own a token f pistol the 762 by 25 tokarev if you own surplus ammo that stuff is actually hot enough where it'll go right through this as well so just kind of something to take note of um every body armor system has its pros and cons um the this one is concealable and lightweight you can come it's comfortable you can wear it underneath the shirt most people aren't going to know you have it now if you're wearing a hoodie or something you could probably get away with wearing one of these with that concealable plate carrier i showed you um but if you're any other time other than hoodie or jacket weather this is pretty much your only option that's concealable and it still kind of prints a little bit but just know this is what most law enforcement officers wear because again it's the most comfortable now granted they're super hot and sweaty if you live in the south or in any humid area you're going to sweat a lot just be prepared to be very sticky and sweaty after wearing it for more than a couple hours but uh so i just want to put this here just kind of as an option today i'm really mostly talking about these kind of plates right here the level three the level three plus and level four body armors and the different types so i'm gonna go ahead and throw this aside now that you've seen it you know what it looks like so now we're gonna be talking mainly about those types of body armor right there so these types are this one is a level four and it's a ceramic polyethylene hybrid for like a better words you have this one which is a level three and it's an ar 500 plate um it does not have the build up coating this is a plate i think this is the very first body armor i ever bought and it's just a level three it doesn't have the buildup code because i didn't know at the time how important that was and also over here we have a level three plus plate it's a ceramic polyethylene plate as well and both of these ones that say strike face on the front are from botak um so but first let's kind of talk about this ar500 one and kind of my beef with ar500 so i love the company themselves all the things i bought from them with the exception of these plates have been fantastic now they specialize in steel body armor and i mean kudos it is a cheaper option but and i'll talk about this in a second these plates over here are roughly the same price as that so if you get the super basic version of this where it's not curved as you can see this one i don't know how well you can see that but it's curved so it conforms to the body a little bit better um if you don't get that curve and just get a flat plate it'll be a little bit cheaper i think it's somewhere around seventy dollars something like that per plate and but if you get it curved you add another 15 and then if you get the buildup coding you can add another probably 15 20 on top of that so you end up playing paying pretty much the exact same price as one of these polyethylene ceramic options that weigh significantly less now one of the advantages of the steel body armor is it's multi-hit capable more so than these are now these are still multi-hit capable now this one the level four is designed to stop armor piercing rounds which i'll show you here this is a 3006 black tip armor piercing round um this plate is designed to stop one round of this now it will stop multiple rounds of that 30.6 if you want to see a good view on what these things will stop i would suggest going to mr gunsinger's video or his channel he does a video specifically on both of these plates again this is a level 4 from botak this is the level 3 plus their battle seal brand is the name of them and i'll go ahead and show you the back so you can kind of see um so that's battle steel um let's see if you can see read what's on there so let's see it says level four and they have a validity period of five years now as long as you don't mess these things up or you don't leave them submerged or whatever they don't get damaged in some way shape or form they should last significantly longer than five years but that's just what they put on there probably for liability's sake now this one over here is save you can read that it's a level three plus which is a non-nij certification that should be changing sometime in the near future i know that they're probably gonna change up how the nij's ratings work but this one weighs if i remember i think weighs around four and a half pounds something like that it's a pretty lightweight plate just picking up it's pretty lightweight it doesn't weigh a whole lot it's level three plus and what that means is it will stop this bad boy right here so this is a m193 ball round which is 55 grain probably the most common 556 round out there just a normal fmj rounds 55 grain now these things out of a 16 inch barrel or longer or will actually penetrate level three body armor because it's moving so fast and if it's moving fast it punches right through because the way you beat armor is speed so this level three this level three steel plate at closer ranges or if you have a longer barrel and you reach a certain velocity this will actually punch through now i shot this type plate which again is right here showing i shot that 55 grain 556 the m193 round at this plate but it was at 50 yards and it did stop it have a 16 inch barrel at 50 yards so that's just take note of that up close it would have gone through the steel so that's one tradeoff you're getting if you buy just level so that's true of both if you get enough velocity level three won't stop it so that's where level three plus comes in where it will actually stop the m193 round because that ceramic uh strike face on the front breaks up the round slows it down enough to where the polyethylene material can catch it so as you can see 55 green bullet now one thing that this will stop that say and i may have said earlier that the polyethylene rounds won't stop that they actually will stop that the level three well but the steel um rounds or the steel body armor will stop the 50 these 62 grain green tips um these are pretty cool rounds they're technically not armor-piercing but they act similar to an armor-piercing round so these will actually punch through polyethylene plates that are level three just standard polyethylene not these here these have ceramic if you shoot a ceramic plate or if a level 3 for some reason had a ceramic plate or strike face it would most likely stop this round and catch it but any of your just solid polyethylene level 3 plates will not stop the green tip now the steel level three will stop green tip but it won't stop the 55 grain in 193 so that's just kind of something a plus and minus i guess pro and con of the two different types of level three polyethylene which i don't have just a solid polyethylene plate they're really lightweight which is pretty cool but since they don't stop green tip which again is one of the most common rounds out there i don't consider them a viable option just like i don't consider steel a viable option in level 3 because it won't stop the probably most prevalent round out there which is a standard 55 grain bullet so all of that aside the pros and cons of steel so this steel plate if you're shooting it with rounds that it's rated for and it's not going to stop so say you're shooting it with a whole bunch of green tips this plate will keep trucking forever and ever and ever at some point sure around is going to go through it but you can probably shoot this thing thousands of times before you get any sort of penetration so that's cool some people like it for that i guess function but for me if you're ever going to buy steel well body armor in general if you buy any sort of body armor and you take around to that body armor as soon as you get the opportunity replace that sucker there's absolutely no reason to run around with compromised body armor just because in theory it can stop more rounds why would you even take that chance so with steel this is a non-build up coat which means it just has a standard coating over the top which is a i think it's pacsun coating i don't remember the exact name but it's kind of like a rhino truck bed liner material it's pretty durable it's pretty tough if you see on here i'll try to zoom out on it so you can see it's not very thick at all like it's very thin and all that coating is designed to do you can kind of see how thick it is right there all it's designed to do is deflect the spall kind of away from your face as well as protect the steel itself from wear and tear like rust moisture stuff like that and it does do that well now whenever we shot uh that steel body armor this basically it's just a smaller version of this it's a side plate it did deflect the spall kind of i wouldn't say all the way to 45 degree angle but close to 45 degree angle so if your head you know your chin sticks out to here and the brown hits about right here it might deflect it kind of away from your head now granted if you do that your arms or whatever if they're out front of you they're gonna catch from spall so i would absolutely never recommend someone buy level three steel that does not have a buildup coating that's designed to catch spall i don't understand why ar 500 even makes this version anymore in my opinion their base model should come with the build up coding automatically you should not have to pay extra for that or if they want to charge an extra five ten dollars for something fine whatever but there's absolutely no reason i would never suggest anybody buy this specific plate without the buildup code now that said there are some advantages for steel one it's thin you can see how thin that is that is an advantage and that's pretty much the only advantage you could say multi-hit capability which that's fine technically this ramp this plate right here is only uh the nij rating is only designed to take one round of this but it'll take multiple rounds you can look at mr guns and gears videos and you can see this thing will take 10 20 30 rounds depending on the caliber of whatever it is if they're spread out they're not all exactly in the same spot and it'll stop every single one of them just like this will but technically speaking this plate will stop more rounds than this one would but again like i said if you're taking four or five rounds and you haven't moved and they were lucky enough to hit all on your plate and not spread out amongst your body i mean you're having a good day anyways and again you should replace that plate this plate is not designed to sit there and basically be a tank and hold up a shield of this thing in front of you like that's not what these are designed for they're designed for oh i got shot i need to move so i don't get shot again um but another negative about these specifically the air 500 ones is they weigh a ton these things are incredibly heavy you put two of these things in and you're looking i think they're around eight and a half nine pounds for this specific model if you add the build up coding add another pound to that um absolutely ridiculously heavy so whenever you get two of these you're at 20 pounds if you get the build-up coating which again you need if you add side plates to that those things weigh another three and a half pounds something like that so i mean you're you're looking at 25 to 30 pounds somewhere in that range if you get all steel and you encompass your entire body that's ridiculously heavy i don't see a reason to utilize that whatsoever and again for the price these are all essentially going to be about the same price this one is the level three plus was i think 120 this one was 99 this one if you build a build up if you buy the build up cloning it's gonna be around a hundred dollars so why not buy one of these um that said there are some disadvantages to either of these as well so let's go ahead and go over this one this is probably if you're wanting the most bang for your buck this is probably it again this is a level four um botak battle steel so they make this is a ceramic polyethylene panel as you can see right there um it's level four so it'll stop armor piercing rounds that's what it's designed for and it'll stop anything under that now this weighs five and a half pounds i believe um other level four body armor out there um will stop well we'll stop they'll stop the same as this but they're they're heavier so i also at one point owned a rma body armor which those are actually certified by the nij they're a little bit more expensive they're about 125 for a level 4 plate so you spend an extra 25 bucks you get something to certify which means back face deformation all that will meet nij standards this one is tested i assume by battle steel to those same standards but whether or not they're actually 100 the exact same testing i doubt it but you can see right here um it's tested in accordance to that standard now this does not mean that it's certified to that standard it just means that the private company who produces this plate test it to that standard and they said that it passed so you may or may not trust the company that's fine but again for the price kind of hard to beat um and after seeing multiple videos on youtube that's another data point you can add to whether or not you trust one of these plates or buying something that is nij certified so this one right here weighs five and a half pounds so that's really lightweight for a level four which is what i was getting at with the rm8 plates the rma weigh around i think they're around eight pounds so that's getting close to this one still a pound less than these are about half pound less than these but it's significantly heavier than this now the rma plates are about the same size as this and here's a disadvantage to this level 4 plate so this is your level 3 plus sorry bump the camera there so here's your level 4 on top and i want to show you the size comparison these are both 10 by 12 plates now you can see on that side it sticks out and on that side it sticks out so you're losing about an inch now granted this is a multi-curve plate the level four is so what that means is it's curved so you can see right here it's curved this direction and it's curved that direction so it kind of encompasses your body a little bit better kind of forms fit see your chest a little bit better but in order to achieve that light weight they cut off a little bit more of the swimmer's cut here where you there which you could argue is better because you can shoulder your rifle a little bit easier that way but you lose coverage so now with this one the level three plus it's designed to stop pretty much everything the level three should stop including the green tip and the m193 the 55 grain this one is actually a little bit bigger so this is about the same size as the rma plates um they're the same coverage which is why they are made way more than the botac ones do uh because that extra weight and also since they're nij certified something i've noticed they're a little bit thicker so they have a little bit more padding or material or maybe it's whatever polyethylene type material they use there's a little bit more on the backing so it doesn't bulge you don't get as much back face information so one thing i would suggest if you go a cheaper place like these is go ahead and get some i guess trauma pads to go behind i would suggest trauma pads with pretty much any plate you get even if it's a standalone because it's just going to make your life easier unless you're just trying to be super cheap but i would suggest getting that because even though these will stop bullets you may get some back face information that depending on how thick you are how much body fat you have or if it's just straight on bone or if you're skinny like me it's going to affect different body types differently so if you got a little bit of cushion there you may be okay but if you don't you may want that extra padding so just something to take note of but again the rma are heavier because they're a full-sized plate so that's something to take note of as well now the level three does not have the multi-curve it is just a single curve so it's curved this way but it doesn't have a curve this direction so i haven't noticed that to be a real issue i'm a pretty skinny dude it fits fine to me i don't have any issues with it now this is lighter than the level four these are around four and a half pounds so you save about a pound a piece and it may not sound like a lot but just estimate an ar mag fully loaded 30 rounds weighs about a pound so by just buying these plates you can add two extra mags or save that much weight which may not sound like a lot but whenever you put on all your gear you really notice the difference and i'll tell you really notice the difference whenever you go from steel over to even this ceramic plate which saves you about you know three four pounds per plate and again you add that for two plates that's eight pounds significant weight savings one of the guys i work with he also owns a build-up code of the ar-500 and it is a huge difference whenever he took these out and put these in he was just amazed on how much lighter it was so again something to take note of um that's really all i can think of again i highly suggest not buying steel body armor because there's really no advantage i take that there is one other advantage other than slimness and that is you do get protection now if you buy this the build-up coating the small build-up coating which absolutely if you're gonna buy steel you have to get that no exception um if you hit anywhere near the edge on the steel it will stop the round on any of these plates it'll stop the round now on these if you get so close to the edge you may not hit the ceramic material which means it may not catch the bullet it needs a certain amount of airy on all sides of the bullet to be able to catch that so in theory probably about an inch half inch somewhere around the edge is not technically going to stop a bullet as it goes for most ceramic type plates um so that's just something to take note of with the steel it will stop it no matter where it is kind of that edge to edge protection but on their build up coating with the small protection if you hit near the edge anywhere near the edge now i've seen videos where people shot you know somewhere an inch or two somewhere near the about right here so it'll stop the bullet and this fall will stop in all these different directions but this ball will not be caught by the stuff on the edge because there's not enough material there to catch it so that's just something again to take note of so um we have a what the spa do or how dangerous this ball i don't remember the name of the video but it's how dangerous is spall and against where we shot that plate and we put pork chops on top of where this ball was going to go and it tore up that pork chop so imagine that your arms or your legs you're growing your neck you really don't want that so again even if you bought the buildup coating and say you took a round somewhere up here near the edge of the plate while you'll be alive um the top of that is not going to stop the spall which means you've got a bunch of spall that potentially just went into your neck so that's going to be a bad day for you now you could argue well at least to stop the bullet and sure there's something to be said for that and maybe if it hit up here on here when stopping it also again pros and cons in each but i would say overall probably your best bang for your buck is gonna be this level four plate um if you're wanting a little bit more coverage i mean you want to be sure that it meets the nij certification all that kind of stuff and you don't really care about weight but you want ceramic and not steel i would suggest probably rma which again i don't have on here but i have owned at one point i just ended up selling them because i didn't need them um if you're looking for kind of a compromise of everything where it'll stop most rounds except armor piercing i mean if you don't expect to be going up against you know your grandpa with a m1 grand using black tips or even like you know armor piercing 308 or something like that which is kind of a weird odd caliber this will stop pretty much every normal threat you could come across and again you save a pound per plate and it gets more coverage than this one does because the cut is a little bit larger so those are kind of the pros and cons um if you have any questions sorry i rambled for a good long while um but feel free to ask them down below um i try to answer again all the comments and questions that we have but if you like this kind of content go ahead and give me a like and subscribe all right appreciate it have a going guys

Channel: undefined

Views: 5,185

Rating: 4.6603775 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: -7veCf6lhiQ

Length: 22min 57sec (1377 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020