RTS Tactical, Mini Shield Level IIIA

Hey everyone, welcome back to the range. My name is Matt, also known as the King of Armor Destruction in the Armor Wizard Zap Zap. I've got a body armor test for you today, but it is in a non-traditional shape. This is actually a shield from RTS Tactical. Look at this bad boy right here. This is a very large shield. It is heavy. I think it weighs 17.05 pounds. It's approximately 290 thousandths thick or for our friends over across the pond, 7.35 millimeters. In full transparency, RTS Tactical contacted me and asked to provide a demonstration review on this bad boy right here. While reviewing this shield, I found a couple alternative uses for it. One, it can be used for dirt boarding or dirt skiing. And I also found it's good at stopping organic materials when being pelted at by your wife. All jokes aside, over here on my channel, we do things a little different. We're more on the data side of things and we're worst case scenario. I'm trying to give you guys as much information as possible when demoing armor so you can take that information away and make better buying decisions. Being that this is a pistol rated shield, level 3A, it's got some special threat assessments. We're going to shoot this at 45 feet because we're going to shoot some rifle threats at it and it is a steel plate. We use a chronograph whenever possible so we get the velocity. We also shoot at zero degrees because that is worst case scenario. Being that this is a shield, you know, if you're going to use this, you could angle this down and potentially ricochet stop rounds from you back at your adversary, but zero degrees represents the worst case for this because that is the least amount of material that this particular design has to stop. Since this is a shield, we're not really concerned about our back face, but we use a giant clay briefcase filled with Roma Plastilina number one clay donated by Chiffon. This in this case is just going to act as a giant hard object for us to place the shield up again so there's maximum energy transfer into the plate so that it's not wasting it, swinging it backwards. It's around 75 to 80 degrees outside and humid today. At the beginning and the end of our videos, we put a spreadsheet that we kind of foreshadow all the threats that we're going to shoot at it. And then in the end and post, I double check and verify any of our penetrations and velocity figures. And we put that all in a nice little package for you and send you on your merry way. I forgot to mention in the opening video that this is a 14 by 24 panel. So it is fairly large at 290,000 thick being steel. It is going to be pretty darn heavy. I know there are some either ultra high molecular weight polyethylene or ceramic and polyethylene shields out there that weigh a little less. So you definitely want to be lifting some weights to be able to hold that for an extended period of time. Being that this is 3A with some special threat ratings, I had to come up with some different rounds that I thought would be a good challenge for it. Otherwise, I don't want to be too boring. So we have the cream of the crop five, seven rounds here. We have our SS 190 AP. That is the restricted armor piercing round that FN has. It's 31 grains with a little conical steel penetrating tip. I do believe that tip is very much identical to the SS 109 projectile tip. Then we have Vanguard Outfitters Black Dragon Fang. That is a 34 grain solid copper round. Both of these excel at our flexible aramid Kevlar and polyethylene 3A, but once you introduce steel into this, then that kind of goes out the window. We've got the longest barrel length that we have with us, our Kel-Tec P50 here. This is a little top loader. Got a Kestrel 22 up top. We'll take the two rounds of SS 190 first, then the Black Dragon Fang. We'll put quite a few shots on this plate before we go down and see what we did, because there's just a lot of area in with steel. Steel can take a lot of shots. You probably will get some fragmentation coming off this coating by the time we're done. But since this is a shield, probably not going to be an issue. This one I will place on the top left. Did not get a velocity reading off that. Sucks. What about top middle? Air. That's not doing too good for us. We'll go right below that for the Black Dragon Fang. 2248, pretty good velocity. Now put this one right next to it. Air. Great. Lots of airs today. Now onto another caliber known for 3A penetration, 4.6x30mm from Heckler & Koch. However you say their name, we're going to just call them H & K. We actually have our CMMG 4.6, which is, to my knowledge, the only US base gun chambered in 4.6. I have two loads for you. I have a 31 grain solid copper load from Vanguard Outfitters. This is their 31 grain penetrator. And I actually have the APSX load from Fiocchi. It basically is a solid steel penetrator with a very thin jacket on it. I believe Oxide is probably the only other channel that's shot that on camera. Very nasty little round. This has an eight inch barrel. So we should be getting, you know, MP7 like velocities out of this. We'll place that shot first. It should be, let's see, hopefully down on the left side by the bolt for the handle. I think we got a velocity reading off that, 2492. Then I'll walk these right in the line next to it. Nice. Now we're going to step up into some rifle caliber threats for this 3A. And I have a feeling that it should stop this. This is our 6.5 Grendel. One of my followers sent me a box of this from Underwood. This is their 105 grain flash tip. They claim 2,800 feet per second on the box. I'm going to guess that's out of a 16 or 18 inch barrel. Hopefully we can capture the velocity of this particular round. We just have a 12 and a half inch upper from Palmetto State Armory here. I'll place two rounds of this. I got the offset pretty good from what I wrote down. So we should be good to go. Now I got a round stuck in the magazine there. There we go. These should be right above the four, six rounds. 2325. 2296. Pretty good velocity off those. The velocity on the box must be out of longer barrels. Don't worry AK fans. I didn't forget about you. I've got some mild steel core Chinese 7.62x39. This plate is actually special threat rated against that. I have a 10 and a half inch Brownells BRN Gen 2 chambered in 7.62x39. This particular upper has the recoil spring assembly inside of it. So you don't necessarily need the buffer tube here. It works on any mil-spec AR lower. So that's why it has a buffer tube on it. We'll take three shots of this. This is going to be more towards the bolts a little bit. The upper bolts. That is loud with that muzzle brake on there. Pretty good velocity coming off those. Now we're not messing around anymore. We've brought out our 5.56 threats, which is going to get a little bit spicy. Again, this is special threat rated for M855. We'll see how long of a barrel length it can take. It is pretty thin. Although I think the majority of that thickness is the actual steel plate. So I have M193 that is a 55 grain full metal jacket that is known for penetrating steel type armor. We have M855 62 grain ball round conical steel penetrating tip. Good against polyethylene, not good against steel. Then we have the Army's current issue M855 A1 EPR round. The steel tip is much larger and harder on that sample. Like 5960 on the Rockwell C scale. Many people think the M855 steel tip is a mild steel, but it's actually hardened as well, 4950 on the C scale. We have a 10 and a half inch upper with a turbo 5.56 suppressor on there. We've got two shots of each. I think we'll go look at the plate after that. Got a primary arm is 3X Cyclops up here. These should be on the left side of the plate. 27, pretty good velocity on that. And I just broke a strap. This should be on the left side still. All right, we'll go back the dots to the next bit. So this is the second shot of M855. Then our A1 on a plate at the bottom of the plate. Just got gassed out from my suppressor, but let's go see what we did before we continue. There's a lot of hits on this plate and it's going to get hard to discern what's what because of how this coating either breaks away and, or doesn't show shots at all. But you can see here was the five sevens. Here was our AK rounds, six five Grendel, the four six rounds. Then M193 was one, two, M855 number one was here. Number two was right here. Then our two A1 shots were down here. I would consider all these fair hits. I will say again, steel is good at absorbing lots and lots and lots of hits. As long as you bear in mind that velocity becomes a factor depending on the bullet construction against it. Place those bets in the comments below. Zero penetrations whatsoever so far. Now we're only with a 10 and a half inch 556. I think we'll go up to the 16 next. I think that's where we're going to see some penetrations likely from M193. I'm really interested to see the breaking point of this particular piece of steel against M193. So we have two more rounds of that and two rounds of M855 A1. This is a 14 and a half inch upper from Pro 2A Tactical. Very nice little setup. I did have to put an adjustable gas block on it because the barrel is over-gassed quite a bit. Still have the primary arms 3X optic up top. It should be on the right side of the plate. Saw some sparks fly down there. Getting pretty good velocity off this 14 and a half inch. We brought the 16 inch out to throw two more rounds of M855 at it. This is actually the longest barrel length I brought with us today. We'll have to defer to RTS Tactical's special threat rating for the maximum velocity for M855. This is a Palmetto State Armory build. Got a RISE armament trigger in here. 1X Cyclops. You should be in the middle of the plate. I'm somewhat optimistic that this plate will stop our final threat here. We have a SCAR 17S pistol. This is built on the Imperial Arms Co Cypher X0 upper receiver. Very nice little package. Has a 13.1 inch barrel or 13 on it. We have some M80 ball, 145 grain full metal jacket. This is the load that NIJ level three is specced against, but it's going 2,750 plus or minus something or other out of this particular barrel length, we should see around 2,500 feet per second. So quite a bit faster than anything 7.62x39 or 300 blackout wishes it could do with a similar bullet weight. Let's see here. So these should be all shots on the lower part of the plate. 2,400 something or other. All right, let's go see what we did. Before I show you the plate, I figured I would show you the fragmentation that can come off any type of plate. Not only steel, but ceramic as well, but to a lesser extent is typically exasperated more on steel plates because of how that strike base actually stops the bullet, but this was a brand new table and you can see that we're actually eating through this plastic here with all these shots. Now, granted, you know, we've got 20 plus shots in the same area on this one, but my poor little table is already got damage to it. Let's take a look at our plate. Our final shots of M855 were right here in the center. Our 14 and a half inch M193 shots number one, two were right here and A1 shot number one and two. Then our M80 ball from the 13 inch barrel was right in here. Shots number one, two, and three. Place those bets in the comments below. I'm going to actually just almost just peel it off here. Uh oh, raggy. We have penetrations in the 14 and a half inch on both of those shots. Our M80 ball though, look at that, stopped. And you can just get this off here. Whatever. Interesting. Very little dimpling, if at all, from any of these other shots on this plate. I do believe from what they told me at RTS Tactical, they're using the same hardness steel that they use in their actual body armor plates. And I think that was AR600 if I remember right. So very, very tough. There's our four holes in the backside. My fourth way briefcase. You can see the holes right there. Pretty darn tough little plate. And I think that's about all she wrote folks. Bonus round. I feel we should always represent our 300 blackout guys whenever we can. So I have two specialty loads for this caliber. I'm kind of using this as a judge to see what 8.6 blackout is capable of when I eventually get the rest of the components I need to build that. So I have M2AP and M80A1 loaded in our 300 blackout. M2AP is the round that level four is judged against, but it's in a much higher velocity, you know, 2880 feet per second. I think we see 16 to 1900 out of that. Then M80A1 is the Army's current EPR round in .308. That's going 3000 feet per second. I think we're right around 1900 out of this 10 and a half inch 300 blackout. Got the JK Armament rifle kit on there. We'll take the M2AP load first. Trying to remember my offsets here. Pretty good velocity off that. Then the M80A1. Awesome. Our final two shots from 300 blackout, our M80A1 was right here and our M2AP was right here. There was zero penetrations from those two rounds. And guess what? There's no tear down portion of this video because this is a solid piece of steel with our Rhino lining type coating on here, very thin. Like I said, this is more so a shield. So the fragmentation coming off of it is still a concern depending on how you hold that shield. Like I said, you could angle it down. I'm fairly impressed with RTS Tactical's steel offering given what it can stop for its given thickness. Now there's always that argument about steel versus ceramic or even polyethylene. With polyethylene, your weakness comes from stopping rounds like M855. It can stop M193 going insane speeds, but M855 poses a problem for it. I was impressed that from our Pistol Scar 17, those three rounds of M80 ball were stopped. I would say the only downside to a shield design like this is it's 17 pound weight. You are probably not going to be Captain America running around throwing the shield at people. Although if you have this in your vehicle and you need to harden, say your door or something to provide yourself with actual cover versus concealment, this may not be a half bad idea. With all that being said, it's time for me to get the heck out of here. Cause I'm going to go have Moe's Southwest for dinner. But at the end of all my videos, I take a moment to thank all those who helped make these possible. Number one is my Patreon and Subscribestar fans. I have a link tree in the description below with various ways to get ahold of me. I'm still running my road to 50,000 subscribers giveaway. So there is a link to that first giveaway there. We're going to probably do two or three of those. Number two is RTS Tactical. Again, in full transparency sent me that shield to demo with no strings attached. I feel that I can go above and beyond some of the other channels and show you the performance limits of our body armor. And of course, number three is you all for watching until next time I'll catch you at the range.