DON'T BUY AR500 ARMOR!

today i'm talking about ar500 armor and i personally don't think that you should buy ar 500 armor i'm going to explain why but then i'm also going to talk about if you decide that you absolutely must and you choose that there is no other option that you would like to go with if you choose that ar500 is the option for you i'm going to give you a recommendation as far as what in their product line i could actually in good conscience recommend to you i'm still saying that i don't recommend it i'm still saying do not buy it but if you must i will give that recommendation let's talk about that today so before i get into that i got to give some quick shout outs to everyone over on patreon i want to say thank you to everyone that has supported but specifically i'm just going to list off all the people that need specific shout outs thick [ __ ] 45 the professor cademan 40 unversed jack tripp bootvon shorts reno please use a dildo as a mike 6969 mongoose who actually we've got some cool stuff coming up we might talk about soon glock fairy my best friend jacob munoz armed scholar if you don't know his channel already please go check it out he is excellent resource for california gun law and california information in general pietar el rusty of rancho santa rosa controversy jay white coldkill818 chris foster hentai matthew green is fine now i don't know if that's his name that he wanted me to say or if he just wanted me to say that matthew green is fine but right on yuri freebird69 mega stab crazy cs and sam karasi thank you to everyone that supported the channel through patreon thank you to everyone that likes comments and subscribes let's get into this today so the reason i'm actually going to be talking about this today is because there's a lot of problems with ar 500 armor um specifically the company but steel armor in general also shares these same traits but i'm going to talk specifically about ar500 body armor today when it comes to their steel armor so this is all kind of based a lot of this information is around this post on reddit from tactical gear and quality tactical gear by a guy named richard guy who i believe has a youtube channel which i will link below and it is yukari's gear reviews so i'm going to be kind of skimming through some of this information but i'm going to link it down below if you want to read it as well not everything in here i agree with fully but i think a lot of the points really do come across well before i tell you actually what my recommendation within their product line is i'm going to talk about the good the bad and the ugly um so let's get that out of the way first this is going to be somewhat of a long video because of how much information we have to cover there are pros to steal yes and there are cons so today we're going to be talking about that generally now when you talk about ar 500 you got to consider that there's both the company and the general term so the company ar 500 armor they go by a new name now i think technically but they still refer to themselves and are referred as ar500 but if you're asking what ar 500 steel is specifically what that means is abrasion resistant steel with the hardness level with the brennell hardness level of 500. now when that's rated there's a plus or minus to it um this is steel that is desirable in a lot of fields for example i worked in a rock quarry for a period of time and many times the materials of the loaders and the machines and the heavy machinery and just the equipment that we would use was made out of ar 500 or ar 600 or ar 400 depending on the various use case now while this can be used as expedient armor or makeshift armor when it comes to military applications it is not the same as what actual armored vehicles are made out of so that's something that you need to understand the type of steel is different than the actual military armor that you would find on many vehicles but it is a very hard steal now let's talk about the good um to their credit they have a very affordable they have a very accessible and a very durable product now let's talk about that the price basically if you want the cheapest possible option to stop bullets ar 500 or other steel companies is the way to go is it the best no but we'll talk about that in a bit i believe their free man carrier with level three plates uh is very cheap i'm not i don't know the exact number off the top my head but you can get a setup that will stop bullets for much cheaper than you can get anything else and that's an option that you have accessibility now body armor in general in most states the only rule is that you cannot sell it to felons and anyone under the age of 18. i think in connecticut it has to be done face to face but in california specifically which is where i'm from and where many of my viewers are from you could have armor of any manufacturer sent right to your house however at the time and still to this day there are some companies that will only send you body armor if you are military law enforcement or have some sort of uh security background some of them require that you fill out some sort of i'm not a criminal affidavit but that does nothing um and it's one of those things where that limits the accessibility for some but ar 500 i will give them a whole lot of credit for this they are very much pro second amendment in the fullest meaning of the words they do not care as long as you are not a felon or under the age of 18 they will sell you this armor and that's awesome now durability all nij certified body armor is rated for drop testing temperature extreme heat and cold extreme humidity drop testing multi-hit rated however steel armor is less susceptible to the elements and to those things and it is more likely to take more shots however even though it is more likely to be able to last longer through those environmental factors and take more shots all ceramic all uhmw all kevlar all whatever body armor that is nij certified is rated for multiple hits contrary to what many fuds on the internet would tell you about steel so now let's get into the bad and the ugly well for starters there is the lack of nij certification if you look at the actual ar500 website i believe they have two plates that are actually certified with nij it is the level three uhmw polyethylene plate and their ceramic plate to my knowledge they don't have any soft armor and they don't have any steel armor that is actually raided by the national institute of justice or the nij to be guaranteed to stop the threats that they are independently tested to now does it mean that the nij is the end-all be-all no but when you have a organization that is a third party that will test and make sure that everything is done to standards making sure that they're doing the proper heat cycling the submersions the drop tests and then the shooting at the proper threat level that's something that i do like because otherwise you're taking the company's word for it and i'm not saying i am not saying at all that ar 500 is sketchy or that they are lying to you when it comes to what they say but when they say that it's tested per nij standards we don't know that it's actually held to the same standard we don't know that it's held at the same temperature we don't know that it's dropped the same way while it could be tested to those standards it might not actually be to those standards 100 does that mean they're bad plates not necessarily but having that certification on it is something that me personally and many others would value also not only have to stop the bullet from penetrating they have to have the proper amount of minimization of backface deformation meaning that if you were to hit that plate and it caves in or dents in if you shoot someone with the threat-rated proper round that that plate is rated for you might be hurt you might be bruised it might knock the wind out of you don't know but it's not going to kill you from internal injury and that's what the backface deformation comes into play will ar500 that they claim is rated to stop this have the proper amount of brake force deformation maybe but the nij doesn't confirm that and that's one big thing like i said before absolutely none of ar500 steel plates are nij certified they say that they are tested to or independently tested to whatever threat level but they're not actually certified by the nij their level four ceramic is and their level three polyethylene plate is nij certified and that's listed very big and proudly but it's kind of i think more people need to understand the difference and that's when we get into the dishonest marketing and wording um because like it says but wait you say as you browse the web store it says right here independently tested and rated to nij point zero or nij0101.06 on the listing that doesn't mean that it's actually nij certified in addition to that you'll see a lot of times youtubers um they'll go out and they'll test body armor and those are awesome i watch literally every single one of mr guns and gear's videos where he tests body armor because it's entertainment it's fun for me to watch it's a data point to gather but it's not the same as an actual nij testing when they hang it against a just box of dirt and it's just sitting there resting or floating freely that is not the same as doing the proper thermal cycling the proper environmental condition testing prior the proper drop test and then backing it up to the proper temperature clay that will measure back face deformation it's really just not the same and i think people need to understand that those videos are awesome and to some people it adds a level of security knowing that hey this person was able to grab one off the rack and it stopped that threat well that's cool i really love those videos i'm still gonna watch every single one of mr guns and gear's body armor tests because i like watching them they're fun they're entertaining to me but they're not the same as an nij testing and i think many people need to understand that so in addition to that for me in my mind if the hard armor rifle plates cannot stop full threat five five six and two two three rounds it's not hard body armor in my opinion i think that if you're going to call something if you're going to think of something as rifle armor it needs to be able to stop m193 at 3 200 feet per second because if someone's rocking an a2 like we saw the mccloskeys they got an a2 loaded with one m193 that's a 20 inch barrel that's moving at around 32 to 3 300 feet per second those those bullets are coming to vibe check your level 3 and your level 3 plus ar 500 plates so for me if it can't stop those threats it's not hard armor it's not rifle armor in my mind in my opinion many people aren't worried about those threats and they're just worried about you know some fuddy rounds like 30.6 308 they're worried about some of the lower velocity if they're running against an sbr kind of threat but for me i want to know that some homeboy with an a2 and a carry handle isn't going to be able to just punch through my plates like butter that's why i use level 4 and i recommend at minimum level three plus if you're looking to stop rifle threats the problem is is that level three plus isn't an actual armor rating it is a certif it is a uh it is a rating that has no actual standard the nij currently does not value and level 3 plus as an actual standard that's going to be changing in the future to have a rifle threat rating and range that should encompass all your typical 556 and two two three loads in with the what's typically level three i think they're going to change the name nomenclature if that happens in the future we will have that discussion but when you look at ar 500 it doesn't list 55 grain ammunition as something that their basic level 3 armor protects they only show that it should that it will stop 62 grain at 2600 and they say on their website looking for protection against high velocity threats such as m193 look to our level 3 plus body armor which is special threat special threat tested to m1 to d3 velocities at 3 100 feet per second the problem is if you want to go with a light option lightweight option relatively for level 3 plus you basically have to use the super narrow cut and diagonal shaped plates that they have which basically gives you a very small area of protection i'm already using minimal protection this is a lot of i know a lot of people will comment on my videos and say hey it looks like you're not really covering what you want to but my lungs are not right here this is i just have wide shoulders i have wide shoulders i got big old dude pecks or whatever it is and that's just how my body is built if i were to start cutting at a super hard angle here it would start exposing lung tissue in ways that i don't want it to and that's why i don't recommend their lightweight plates so their traditional cut plates will only stop up to 3000 to 3100 feet per second which is very easily reachable by 16 inch barrels so a 16 to 18 to a 20 basically guarantees that you're not going to be able to reliably stop m193 aka the most popular rifle round in america right now so spalling and bouncing projectiles this is a topic that gets brought up basically anytime anyone talks about ar 500 or steel plates in general well steel unlike most body armor types doesn't catch the rounds kevlar uhmw ceramics they catch they absorb the energy they slow down the bullets and that's how they actually stop projectiles steel on the other hand acts as a basically just a shatterproof surface a surface that if the bullet hits it it explodes inherently because of the way it stops bullets is going to create an explosion of metal of lead and copper sideways up and down now i don't want shrapnel in my crotch i don't want shrapnel on my jugular i don't want shrapnel in my arms so the way around this how do they solve that problem well ar 500 has what they call paxcon which is basically a bed liner type material they're going to argue that it's nowhere similar it's not similar at all but it's basically the same thing functionally now they sell a base coat option as pretty much one of their only options now on some of them i believe they used to or at one point they did sell it with just bare but the current options that i would choose have the option for the base layer which has been shown to be very ineffective and then they offer the option of upgrading to the build-up code at a significant charge which with extra money the problem with this if it's so useful and it's so necessary to trap the spalling why would you ever offer the option to not use it to me it's scummy of them to give an option that does not capture the spall adequately and yes i fully agree that not having a hole in your chest is a lot better and is a decent trade-off if you said i only had two options in my life if i could have a hole shot through my chest or i could have shrapnel spall all around my body uh yeah i would choose the shrapnel spall as opposed to having a sucking chest wound or hitting my nervous system obviously but it's not good you don't want spall you don't want bullets to ricochet off you don't want them to hit at an angle and then hit you in the arm that's defeats the purpose of wearing body armor if it causes you then to get hit there's plenty of pictures out there showing that it does fail and their own advertising material obviously if you watch an ar 500 ad they're not going to set the test up in a way that's going to fail you don't know whether or not it's truly effective in the way that it's going to hit the end user and i'm not accusing them of lying i'm just saying that you cannot trust a lack of information as your source when you watch those fancy marketing videos and that's really what they are it's not the same as actual testing and that's the problem because there are plenty of videos and photos and images online of people showing that their base coat failed during normal shooting they're just shooting at that plate they hit it a couple times and if it blows off that chunk of spall protection right there if you take another shot nearby it's basically like shooting bare armor i've seen photos of them shooting a steel plate just a couple times and the entire small protection just coming straight off it's like they pulled the sheet and they've pulled the foil off of yogurt like it's not reliable and personally that's why i don't recommend it now let's talk about weight ar500 armor is very very heavy especially in the level 3 plus format which like i said before in my mind is the only option for rifle armor now it's only a quarter of an inch thick but for a 10 by 12 plate it's around 9 pounds per plate in their new and advanced advanced shooter cut so basically what it does is you choose if you're right-handed or left-handed and it cuts off more on that side so that you can more easily get a stock here so that shaves off physical material of protection which that's fine if that's a better cut that's the trade-off you take but that's in their advanced shooters cut that it's nine pounds per plate and that should be mentioned that that's for a bear plate ar5 doesn't mention how much the extra or the build-up code actually costs so if you're running about eight and a half pounds per plate i think it is plus the best estimates that we have from other similar companies that offer a similar product say about a pound per plate so let's say it's 10 pound we're going to say that it's about 10 pounds per plate with the build up coat because that's the only option you should ever consider even going with so you got 10 pounds per plate about 3 pounds for their plate carrier which is not super inexpensive considering other options on the market but if you go with their plate carrier as well which usually offers a better price if you do one of their bundles you're looking at 23 pounds before you add mags now each magazine a pmag with 30 rounds in it is gonna run you about one pound on average so for me i'm wearing a ceramic plate two of them in a slick carrier with three mags on it my setup weighs less than 18 pounds with three mags versus 23 pounds with no mags i don't know that's a pretty considerable amount of weight to be shaving off and yeah you could go with their three plus lightweight option at six and a half pounds each with the coating but the coverage is pretty lackluster in my mind um and you're still down to only 3000 fps for 5.56 3000 fps is very reachable by 14 or 16 inch barrels and that's in my mind out the question so the option is then well why don't they have a steel plate that's level four well if you were to do that the plate would be about 30 pounds each 30 pounds each if you wanted something that could stop 30 odd six mp or armor-piercing rounds so for me yeah it's just a no-go when it comes to weight now steel armor it used to be a lot cheaper or it used to be the best cheap option but for me when i go to ar500 if there is an option that i would go with the plates aren't nearly as cheap as the super bare minimum cost options that you can get so when there's ceramic plates that cost anywhere from 150 to 200 bucks and way less and our level four well for me that's starting to sound better in basically every possible way so i have a hard time even recommending them on the cheap side because if you're going cheap you can still get inexpensive nij certified level fours that cost similarly with a little bit more money and are coming coming in at a lower weight like no brainer for me now let's talk about trauma pads so for about 35 bucks extra for a 10 by 12 pad you can put a piece of padded material that goes behind the armor and it's basically marketed as it reduces the pain that one would feel from being shot and it also adds the benefit of actually being more comfortable if you have something that's hard especially if it's not multi-curve you're gonna have a lot of issues with things digging in and having those trauma pads i've heard people say does add a level of comfort but for me if i was going to be running steel that would be almost mandatory for me to run them so you're looking at another 35 bucks that's 70 bucks extra for the trauma pads adding about i think 0.6 pounds each so or i think when i did the math on the trauma pads it's about for two of them it's about point seven pounds so uh for me what i go with it still probably not but that's one of the options so if i were to buy ar500 armor now that we've talked about the goods and we've talked about all of the very extensive negative sides of it let's talk about what i would actually buy so if we look here i'm going to go there just show you how to get here so armored republic ar 500 armor just ar500 armor dot com we're gonna go here to level three plus if we then scroll down we see that they have several options 11 by 14 10 by 12 side plates so we're gonna go to 10 by 12 because for most people that's what you need me realistically i might be able to get away with like an 11 by 13 but 11 by 14 is just a little bit too long for me so if we go to the 11 by 12 or 10 by 12 level 3 plus advanced shooters cut you see that the cut here has a sharper angle on the side that you would shoot on giving you better mobility so multi-curve i would always go multi-curve with a flat piece of steel it's going to be very uncomfortable so i wouldn't even consider it an option but if price is absolutely of the essence the only option and you legitimately think that you cannot save that money over a period of time and get to a point where you could afford better a flat option is an option for you i don't recommend it whatsoever coding they give you the option of base coat only but like i said it's basically mandatory to have the build-up coat yes having shrapnel all over your body and neck and jugular and arms and crotch is better than having a hole in your central nervous system but build up coat is the option that you want to go with so that bumps it up to hundred 170 seventy three dollars from the multi-curve level three plus now i'm right-handed i'm gonna add two now you notice here estimated lead time 14 to 16 weeks well that's a problem but we'll just throw that in there so in 14 to 16 weeks think about how much money you could save up to afford something better but that's besides the point for right now if you go here ar 500 blunt force trauma pad like i said i'm going to recommend that you get two of these so boom we're at our cart we got two pads and we got two plates this puts us at a total of four hundred and sixteen dollars now when you think about the fact that ceramics don't necessarily need to have this that's something that really is important it saves seventy dollars in my mind that's a mandatory option if you want to have the best possible experience with steel i still don't think that you should do this because i think if you just look here look 416 dollars this is no longer just the cheap level three free man carriers that they advertise and that seem very enticing because for me this is the only option i could even possibly recommend and i still don't recommend it if you want to buy this i'm gonna have a link down to their website below it is an affiliate link you can feel free to use it or not if you're going to use it it gets me money if you don't want to use my link because i've been trash talking ar500 this whole time that's very fair i'm not saying that this is not an option that will stop bullets i am just saying that there are so many better options without all the negatives of steel and that don't even cost 416 so here is t-rex arms website they sell hesco l210 special threat plates they're basically rated for aks handguns ars of any type they cost four point or five point four they weigh 5.4 pounds they're single curve multi-hit stand-alone plates a plate set from t-rex arms when they're in stock is 370 this is not the best price that you can find online however about every week these come in stock meaning that every week they will be shipped out in one to ten business days every single time that i've ordered from them they've shipped within two business days which is kind of crazy right so this is an option i would actually recommend that gives you a lot of threat stoppage so all in all i want to reiterate i don't recommend ar500 armor but it is an option if you must go with it i have one recommendation that i can make i am eagerly awaiting the fact that i know that tyler from ar500 armor and all of the marketing people are going to leave very long comments discussing the benefits of steel and that's fine personally i value the things that ceramics and polyethylene plates offer significantly more if you have any discussion that you would like to have drop those comments down below i hope to hear from you this is a topic that's going to get a lot of hate and i'm aware of that but personally in my mind when it comes to a potentially life-saving piece of equipment because if you think that you absolutely need this now and you need the cheapest possible option there are significantly better options out there these are not going to get to you within 14 to 16 weeks personally i could not recommend ar500 but it is an option that is available should you choose to go with it you guys know the drill though have fun be safe stay dangerous [Music] peace uh actually before we go if you guys have any questions about my setup i'm currently running hoplite plates which by the way i think the plates made by ltc are great they're good bang for the buck ceramics uh the company i don't really like but if you're interested in a review on what i think about these plates what i think about the company uh let me know down below but yeah you guys know the drill have fun be safe stay dangerous peace [Music] you

Channel: Reno May

Views: 190,527

Rating: 4.345017 out of 5

Keywords: ar500, body armor, steel armor, body armor test, body armor setup, body armor levels, body armor of the future, body armor backpack, body armor commercial, reno may, reno may body armor

Id: IY_EYg0PwyA

Length: 27min 12sec (1632 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2020