Spartan Armor AR550 Complete Kit Review

hey everybody how's it going into daily shooter and today we're going to be taking a look at some level 3 plus body armor from Spartan armor systems we've got their level 3 plus front and back plates as well as side plates so let's go ahead and check it out now before we take this body armor off and put it on the table I want to mention that there's not going to be any shooting in this video and that's because this is my personal body armor and I've already done several tests on AR 550 steel and I can tell you that it is extremely strong and extremely capable as body armor it's stronger than AR 500 steel it's multi threat tested it's multi shot tested it is excellent excellent steel for armor and the Spartan armor systems is one of the better brands on the market so I definitely trust this as you can see with my life already so great armor we're gonna go ahead and take this off now put it on the table and show you guys the package so you know what you're getting when you were to purchase something like this because I know a lot of the body armor that I've reviewed in the past is up there even in the thousands of dollars and it's just well out of a lot of people's reach this right now an optics plan that's going for 269 and then if you use the discount code TDS 5 it'll bring you down just over 250 bucks so 250 bucks with front back and side plates with the carrier I think this is a really good deal so let's go to the table and check it out okay so here's the body armor as it sits with everything installed you can see that we have a cummerbund that wraps around it has velcro panels on it these velcro panels each have a handle that allow you to grab onto it and pull it from around the actual front plate carrier itself now the cumberbund actually wraps right underneath this panel right here which pulls up with this little tab right here so it pulls up you have a hook and loop base right here the cumberbund comes around and then you size it to whatever fits you right and then you go ahead and lock that down again and whatever size fits your body best and then you would bring this panel down like that and that's how the whole thing sets up open up that panel grab your fun you pull that right off and you're good to go now the body armor itself actually sits in another compartment that is in the back right here and all you have to do is basically just pull away that hook and loop which is extremely extremely strong there's some more hook and loop on the inside and see if I can turn this over more hook and loop on the inside and what you want to do is want to pull that away and that allows you to easily access the armor itself grab the body armor pull that out and there is our front plate right there now you access the side panels by going to the inside of the cumberbund pull up some more can loop again there is a as you can see another pocket inside right here more hook and loop and this flap that folds open inside is where you're going to find your side panel this is a six by six side panel and there is your side panel right there with your front panel right here now before we take a closer look at the steel and go over some of the extra features of the play carrier itself I want to address a question that I get every single time I review body armor and that's is it heavy and the answer is yes steel body armor all steel body armor is heavy and when you add things like side plates and so forth it gets even heavier so if you are somebody who is small-framed you can't take the weight for whatever reason if you are somebody with a disability and adding extra weight to your body might be painful or hard for you then you might want to consider that this is a steel body armor they are 550 and yes it is heavy it is actually a little bit lighter in this specific cut than other body armor cuts that are on the market so if you're looking to shave just a little bit of weight over let's say something like this which is a large shooters cut this is actually heavier than this plate because you could see right here this is a swimmer's cut so that is one way to reduce weight but yeah keep that in mind it is going to add some weight to your overall body and and your package including you know your weapons and stuff like that that you might be carrying with this and also any magazines or attachments that you might put on the front now if weight is an issue for you then you might want to consider going to a composite body armor however you might want to keep in mind that composite body armor just for one single plate can run up to four times the cost of this entire package right here for just one composite body armor panel so it is quite a bit more expensive to go with something a little bit more lightweight nonetheless let's go ahead and take a look at the steel right here we're gonna flip this over so you guys can read the back panel on this deal you can see that this is a 10 by 10 by 12 cut this is what they're calling level 3 plus now level 3 plus when you see that is not an NIJ rating the National Institute of Justice which is which are the people that conduct the test that give body armor its rating in its level rating they do not have a plus they either rate at level 3 level 4 level 3 AAA level 2a and so forth they don't do anything in + however this states that the company has done their own testing and that they believe that it's even stronger than the the ni J's testing because NIJ is very specific controlled environment and they could do a little bit more at the company and so this is a multi threat level plate that is above NIJ standards for a standard level three body armor now since we're reviewing this particular body armor in this body armor package I want to show you guys a little bit more information that's on the label here I know you can read for yourself but I want to kind of explain it to you because it could be important to your purchase and sometimes they don't put this stuff on the website so you can see here that on the back of your plate it's gonna show where it was manufactured and the date that it was manufactured the date that it was manufactured is important because you have a warranty time period this one is five years and believe it or not these body armor plates actually have a shelf life this one has a shelf life of twenty years now this thing is gonna last year lifetime as long as you take care of it it's gonna last forever but they put a 20 year shelf life on there because if for some reason it gets wet if something gets underneath the coating if you don't take good care of it it is possible for metal to corrode over time so if the metal degrades it may not be as viable of a you know body armor solution as it was the first five years that you owned it or twenty years so that's something to keep in mind that it has a twenty year shelf life on it and this stands for these side panels as well this is something you might not see on the website the manufacturer date on yours obviously is going to be different nonetheless we still have two sana Arizona we have the date and we have our information as far as the warranty and the shelf life go and again this is a six by six Spartan armor level three plus AR 550 panel so even though you don't get this information on the website I still wanted to show it to you guys because I believe it's important to your purchase now when you go to OpticsPlanet website and you search Spartan armor systems you're gonna see this package come up on the thumbnail I believe they have the shooter's cut which is basically the same exact material but in a more square cut so it comes up a little bit higher right here it's more squared off and instead of having these cutouts on the bottom it comes all the way around and it's rounded on the sides so there is more material and it does cover more area but I find that the swimmer's cut just allows me a little bit better ease of movement especially when I'm shooting a pistol and I need to bring both arms in front of me this cut right here allows me to bring both arms forward and still be able to shoot and just you know better ease of movement overall with this particular swimmers cut when you're there you're gonna see that they have the coyote tan they also have black and other colors that you'll be able to get in the carrier itself and then again you'll be able to choose whether or not you want the swimmers cut or the shooters cut now another option that's important to talk about if you're looking at body armor is the build up the build up is more than just protection for the steel itself this is actually an anti spalling coating spalling is all of the material that comes off of the armor once it's been struck so you have a bullet that bullets hitting the material hitting the body armor itself and that material basically just flowers out into all directions and it's still moving extremely fast in some cases you know thousands of feet per second and that could do extreme damage especially if it comes up towards your face and hits any of your major arteries obviously that could take you out of the fight so having a coating on there is important not just for the steel itself you can choose different build ups different build ups could cost it for money so make sure you check on that but you can choose thicker build up so you get more spalling protection and you can choose a lighter build up lighter build ups typically cost a little bit less but you get less of that spalling protection so as the bullet hits it'll start wearing away at the thin stuff a little bit more where you can take multiple hits with a thicker build up coating before the spalling actually starts to degrade around the sides of the plate now there's a couple of the features I want to show you real quick about the carrier itself so we still have one plate in there and one plate in the rear the cumberbund actually slides through this panel in the back right here where there is hook and loop on the inside that keeps the cummerbund from going left to right so it's not going to move while it's on your body it's being held in the back right here another great thing is this thing has a nice size drag handle so if for some reason you do get injured or whatever the case is somebody can grab this and they can pull you with this drag handles you can see we have Molly webbing on the back so you can attach whatever you need to you put some type of a hydration bladder or her pouch some type of you know I guess you can put whatever you want back there but anything that might be necessary for you to reach might not be the best thing to put on the back so for me I just like to put some type of pouch or a hydration bladder on the back you can see there is also plenty of MOLLE webbing on the sides of the cummerbund so if you want to add extra magazines extra pouches if you want to put even your medical kit or something like that you can lash your med kit to the side of the cumberbund right there keep in mind that it is going to be rigid where the body armor is okay so we flip this thing over I want to mention that there is also where I want to miss I also want to mention that there is hook and loop on the top in the front as well and you also have some extra MOLLE webbing here that you can use to attach again your magazines or any other you know accessories that you feel now here we have the shoulder straps these are actually really comfortable shoulder straps I got to say these are probably some of the more comfortable ones that I've ever used so basically what you do is you just take off more hook and loop open that up and you can see that it is adjustable through more hook and loop under there so you just pull that up make your adjustment bring it back down and then this is just a cover that provides you with a little bit of cushion so you can see that there's some cushion that's been built in right there take that bring it back down and you're good to go and that actually has a little bit of Molly on it too that Molly right there would probably be good to run your hydration hose through anyway this is a pretty cool package and you just can't beat the price I know that a lot of the stuff that I've reviewed in the past has been very expensive and there's been quite a few people have pointed that out to me and I apologize I try and review everything from the high-end stuff to the low-end stuff so you can see what it's all about and I think this is some of the more affordable stuff and it's definitely going to do the job so anyway take a look at it use it discount code TDS 5 thank you all very much for watching please like subscribe have a great day [Music]

Channel: The Daily Shooter

Views: 44,811

Rating: 4.852704 out of 5

Keywords: spartan armor, ar550, ar500, armor, body armor, plates, steel, level 3+, lvl 3+, level 3, test, testing, review, plate carrier, mil spec, coating, build up, anti spalling, spall, spalling, bulletproof, penetration, penetrate, 308, 223, 5.56, 7.62, long range, cqb, sig, sp2022, level 4

Id: 85mYz5ytkUs

Length: 11min 21sec (681 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 31 2018