What to look out for in a Plate Carrier (Buckles, Mesh, Stitching, and more) - AR500 Armor®

hey guys I'm Tyler and today we're back to discuss what we feel you should look out for when you're shopping for a play carrier now whether you choose to purchase one of ours or another one what we're trying to do is give you some information on what I look for when I design a plate carrier or what we look for in general when we're creating products to give you the best value for your money so we have our Veritas as the comparison of our carrier and then I have two other carriers here I'm not going to name the names we might be able to tell what they are but we're not trying to call anybody out on the way they do things but we are saying you do get what you pay for in certain cases and we're gonna show you what to look out for in terms of material stitching quality overall buckles webbing and that type of thing so let's dive in when you start shopping for a plate carrier what you're gonna first look at generally it's gonna be what type of material that carrier is made out of for example on our Veritas in a good portion of our carriers we use a 510 year Cordura nylon we use a genuine Cordura nylon Cordura is gonna be a name-brand nylon that has been through a process to almost guarantee a certain level of abrasion resistance which is going to be performance and durability and make sure you have a good core system a core building material of your play carrier throughout its entire construction when you move into some other brands you might be getting a knockoff Cordura you might not be getting 500 n here it might be something lower or it might even be a polyester or some other type of nylon now the problem with those is they're not gonna have the same abrasion resistance as a genuine Cordura and especially if it's a lower dead air point it will not have the same level of abrasion resistance as well now in addition to that polyesters and nylons may have different melting points and they when they do melt if you take around if it's exposed to heat or close to flames it could even be a melting hazard now all nylons are gonna melt to some level different ones will be worse Cordura is gonna be a better performing solution for that now mostly you'll see five hundred and thousand D Cordura on reputable carrier manufacturers the market seems to be shifting towards 500 D and we use that as it's a good blend of keeping the weight down but still getting plenty of razor resistance and performance out of your so our Veritas in testudo for the ones we make in Vietnam and our in-house us-made carriers we use a 500 denier Cordura nylon throughout all carrier constructions and you will be able to feel the difference for example when you feel something that it's not cold enough it's it's pretty clear in the quality of material once you get it in your hand so next let's dive into stitching so next up when it comes to what you should have will look out for on a plate carrier is gonna be the stitching the type of stitching throughout the quality of thread and where the stitching and reinforcements are placed throughout a plate carrier so I have a couple different examples here again we're not gonna name names but these are all great examples of different methods of stitching now on our Veritas what we do is we use single stitching perimeter stitching on our cummerbund and the perimeter of every plate carrier and we use bar tacking on each section of webbing for reinforcements on these shoulder straps and particularly on the drag handle in addition to making sure all drag handle backing runs through the back of the play carrier for out of integrity now the difference between a single stitch machine and a bar tack machine or two different types of sewing machines so when you have a section of webbing in this area what you're trying to do is the more thread you can fit in this area the more durability and strength you'll have on their section over time so this one section of bar tack contains quite a bit of thread which is gonna be the most secure method for stitching in our opinion when it comes to durability on plate carriers for example we also use these bar tack methods on multiple areas of our shoulder straps and high tension areas on a plate carrier corners and whatnot so you don't run the risk of a shoulder strap coming loose a high friction or high pulls on on a carrier running out or when you have pouches and weight mounted it will be able to retain the weight and use of your carrier a lot more now a cheaper method then using a bar tack machine is going to be using a single stitch method now on this play carrier what you can see is at a first glance it looks the same but what they're doing is they're using a single machine and they're starting a thread up here they're running it down through the webbing they're bringing it back they're running through the nylon back to the next section wedding they're running the sewing machine back and forth to try to build up material in this area and now will this works it doesn't have the same level of durability as a bar tack would because on a single needle when you're running the machine back and forth you cannot fit the same amount of thread in a given section so bar tacking is both more costly the machines are more expensive and it takes a lot more time to do correctly than it would to use a single needle machine to run through so you can tell the difference real quick on a plate carrier if you see lines running through the sections of webbing it's likely done on a single stitching machine as opposed to individual bar tacks where you do not have any visibility of thread running between the web sections no it's not no bar tacking is going to be a superior method because you do get more durability and thread in a section on that note there are also different different types of threads you can use we use a bonded thread type 92 for all of our carrier construction and lots of other companies if you don't see specifications on what thread they're using it may not be as high quality of a thread so those are things you want to look out for and stitching throughout your plate carrier okay so next up is webbing and there's a there's a few different variants that companies use to save money here and again I'm gonna dive into what we do and then I'll give you some comparisons of what you might want to look out for in different types of webbing now we use high quality military-spec woven webbing which is going to be a high-strength Specht webbing designed for military applications and plate carrier construction on our Veritas we use what's called a hybrid wetting where we have a base nylon webbing on the bottom which is properly woven and properly expect but on the front of it we use the soft loop velcro which allows us to attach the velcro pouches or our cummerbund this takes more time and cost because we're adding a Velcro on top of the webbing so you have the full strength webbing with the additional benefit of velcro some of our carriers have this some of them don't depending on what future sets you want under carry now the next step is going to be a standard type wedding this is gonna be a woven webbing this is great material right here but it does not have the velcro whining that's up to you the velcro adds a nice benefit for attaching cover buns and pouches but this is not a bad option next up we want to look out for this is actually not a woven webbing what this is is some type of nylon that has actually been folded in half to act as a webbing see on the looping here and it's actually just folded material this is not gonna be as durable this is gonna be the same material the actual career is constructed out of it would basically be the same as if we took 500 denier sheets of fabric folded it in half to look like webbing and sewed it in the place of webbing so it looks like that that is not a proper way of doing it in my opinion I like to see true woven military-spec webbing throughout the carrier over time as you load up with pouches and ear if you get a snag it's going to be more durable and it also gives a much better appearance lastly on webbing we want to touch that the same goes for your shoulder pads now those shoulder pads and the shoulder straps are critical component if you have a shoulder strap care of failure your carrier is down for the count you basically have no solution so having high quality webbing on not just the wedding section where you mount your pouches but on your shoulder and side straps is going to be hugely important you want to make sure you're not into a cheaper polly webbing construction or some kind of polyester or polypropylene you want it to be a nylon and a true military-spec webbing so keep an eye out for that if you don't see it listed on the manufacturers website on the carrier you're shopping for chances are it's not a good nylon because it's a great point to have listed and it's a much more expensive material to use then hg for poly webbing so next up we'll discuss buckles so another key component of like that wanna play carrier are going to be buckles similar to having high quality shoulder straps and side straps a fail buckle can also take it bike carrier out of commission now there are going to be what we did a lot of experimentation with buckles and we're gonna find the two most the two most durable Browns we've experienced they're gonna be ITW which if you're in the community and you're kind of a you geek out and gear like I do you'll know what ITW is they make some high-quality impact resistant buckles Gerald Schwartz is another great u.s. manufacturer of buckles and then there's a bunch of inexpensive overseas knockoffs which could be made of a as plastics or cheap plastics and those are gonna be more brittle what you'll notice we use even on our Vietnam line we ship over us made buckles to them and a lot of us materials to have made for example on a Veritas into studio so you're getting us high quality polymer impact resistant buckles you're gonna get a lot of longevity over these there's on the inside there's gonna be reinforced sections to prevent the buckle from collapsing or if it takes up it takes a big hit when it's buckle or not you will have a much lower chance of having a buckle failure on a u.s. well injection molded buckle out of a good polymer let's get into cheaper buckles they look the same on the exterior but they will have different reinforcement sections on the inside of the buckle and that will give it less durability over time you can feel this one's gonna be a lot more flexible and brittle and we have had these can crack when they take a hit again buckles are hugely important on this carrier right here this is actually using a different type of metal buckle so this is gonna be not in the same realm as plastics problem is these are gonna be a lot more expensive and you're gonna pay a lot more to have this type of buckle and then it's up to you whether you want a metal or polymer buckle on your plate carrier we tend to stick with polymers because it reduces the weight overall and there's a lot of other benefits to that so if there's not a type of buckle with some plate carrier it could be a cheaper imported version make sure it's a US brand buckle and it will be something that's going to hold up over time okay so unbuckles we're gonna give you a close-up of what to look for this is gonna be a Gerald Schwartz u.s. buckle made in the USA so you can see on the inside it has reinforcement pillars and it's gonna keep the buckle from collapsing on itself on a lesser expensive level there is no reinforcement pillars on the outside so not only are you getting a cheaper plastic material you're getting a lot less reinforcement which both has an effect when it is unbuckled and bucking so you want to make sure some things like that you're getting a high quality buckle on your plate carrée okay so next up we're gonna dive into the mesh which is gonna be on the inside of a plate carrier what makes it a lot more comfortable it acts as a buffer between you and the plate it's gonna keep the plate carrier off your body it's gonna allow air to flow through or that's the intention of mesh and just give you overall a more comfortable experience wearing a plate carrier so we're gonna use we're gonna compare our veritas first this is the chinese-made plate carrier and then send you a us-made plate carrier and we'll show you the difference it's important to know that not all mesh is created equally and there are different tactics companies use to either save money or give you different types of mesh what we do is we use a true 3d space no mess which is a single composition material that has a good thickness and a good a good depth to keep the plate carrier off of your body and really allow genuine airflow and something like this plate carrier what you'll notice is this is actually just a mesh looking fabric but there's no padding in this so we're gonna cut these two and I'll show you the difference and the inner workings of the mesh and you can see what it looks like now on some us options there might be intentionally minimalistic mesh and that might be designed to keep a play carrier a little bit more low-profile so when you choose your play carrier you want to decide what kind of mesh you want and there's a lot of plate carriers that don't use mesh or use a pontoon system so we recommend you check it out and think about what you want generally speaking we love 3d mesh because it does give you some inherent air flow and comfort when wearing a play carrier so first off on the Chinese play carrier I'm gonna take a pair of standard trauma shears and I'm gonna cut this and we're gonna see what the mesh looks like very easy to cut now what you can tell here is this first layer is gonna be what they're calling mesh this is a very thin layer of mesh it's gonna honestly provide little to no benefit carrier for airflow what they're doing here is we're using a cheap EBA foam on the inside to give the feeling of mesh when you feel the plate carrier that is not gonna give you the benefit out of having mesh in my opinion it's not gonna be much better than just having no much at all this is really just a padding not so much a mesh for air flow in between I have no idea what this is this feels like a very like a 60 denier nylon this would also be considered a melting hazard in my opinion I would not use something like this in a plate area that I've designed so we're gonna pull up on very fast here with a 3d mesh we're gonna take the same trauma here cut it right off the bat much harder to cut and you can see we're using a single construction material which basically in here what this is is it's a soft velcro that especially machined with a mesh liner on top and we call this a 3d mesh now there's a lot of give and a lot of cushion and a lot of possibility for air flow to get through here one compared to offer you an alternative style of mesh so when you purchase a carrier understand it just because it has the appearance of mesh doesn't mean it's high-quality true mesh there could be tactics used to reduce cost but just to give an appearance if we're trying to give you actual function not the appearance of function alright so the last couple of things you should look out for on a plate carrier are gonna be the type of velcro and the type of elastics used now again as with everything when it's if it's gonna be like a Chinese imported carrier it's probably gonna be a lower quality or a knockoff type of elastic and velcro things that will be affected over time exposure to the Sun UV the elements of dirt water whatever the case may be on a lower quality elastic or velcro you're going to find that it's going to degrade faster over time and your long-term ability durability will be decreased now we use a lot of our lasted from Gerald Schwartz and even on our Vietnam Line like artists to do--and Veritas what we do is we send our buckles and elastics and a lot of Cordura nylon overseas we have a manufactured there because it is cheaper to use labor in Vietnam and we have it shipped back but we're using a lot of US components in construction and that really is what allows us to have the quality we offer and then carrier like the Veritas without cutting corners and still being able to give you give it to you guys at a killer price compared to all their play carriers so when you keep that in mind you want to pay attention to what the components are on your carrier and what your use is and there's a lot of good applications for an inexpensive carrier and a lot of this may not affect you if you depending on how you use your carrier but again what do you choose us or not we want you to know what you're getting into and I want to try to help you on what to look out for cyou get the best value for your dollar don't forget to check us out at AR Facundo bomber comm subscribe to our youtube channel click the bell modifications so you get updates on our future videos we're going to be coming out with a lot more soon and don't forget to hop on our mailing list we have a lot of cool new products coming and we thank you guys for your support we wouldn't be here without you and we hope to keep giving you guys the best year possible offer as many years as we can thank you

Channel: AR500 Armor®

Views: 68,588

Rating: 4.8790436 out of 5

Keywords: Rifle magazine, pistol magazine, magazine specs, cordura, tactical belt, tactical, operator, pew pew life, pew pew, plate carrier, ar500 armor, armor, ar500, glock, ak, ar15, M4, clip holder, pistol holder, magazine holder, 9mm, .308, 308, body armor, diy, bug out, prepper setup, prepper, .45, gear, tactical gear, military setup, army, range day, range, shooting, pistol holster, how to, mil spec, military

Id: NDoYzwPlbk4

Length: 15min 45sec (945 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2019