The Best Body Armor For Civilians

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Today we are talking about body armor, the different types of body armor, the different applications, the advantages and disadvantages of different materials and different types of plates, all right? Now, first of all, I guess you should ask yourself as a civilian, do you even need body armor? As you can see, I have lots of body armor myself and I'm a civilian now just like you guys are. You know, the answer is probably, you'll probably never use it, all right? The answer is probably no. You probably don't absolutely need body armor. If you decide to buy body armor, it's more than likely going to last you your entire life and you can wear it on the range. That's the biggest advantage I see for you guys to buy a set of plates is so that you can put it in your plate carrier that you use when you go out and actually practice shooting on the range. There's a big principle that I live my life by. It's train like you fight, okay? So we are training. If you're training tactically, if you're not simply training to be a competitive shooter, if you're training tactically, you want to train as if you would be going into a fight should that ever happen, right? A real combat scenario, right? Real war. You would want to train the same as you would walk onto the battlefield. That would be probably most of what you're gonna use body armor for is in your training just to get used to the weight of it, to give you some added realism to your training. Now that's assuming that you never end up having to go to war, which is always a potential. And if that became the case and you actually were going into battle for whatever the reason you could dream up might be, then your body armor is going to become very, very important, okay? Body armor has, plates have saved no telling how many lives, especially in this most recent war where, you know, we've been at war for 20 plus years and body armor has been tested. It's been worn. It was mandatory for me to have plates in my plate carrier while I was in the SEAL teams, all right? Whether we were on the range or we were on deployment, it was mandatory to wear plates. It's highly, highly effective and extremely important in combat, all right? It will save your life. So, you know, that's your decision. It's not a small investment. It's gonna cost you some money and you're gonna spend that money on something that you're probably never gonna use, but if it comes down to it and you need it, you're gonna be glad that you have it on. I promise you. It's gonna give you a nice warm and fuzzy inside. So let's dig into the different types of plates, all right? We'll start with the absolute cheapest option that you can possibly go with and it's these right here. There are a bunch of people manufacturing these plates out there. It's simply a piece of steel. It's a steel plate that's been coated with basically the same material that you would coat a truck bed in, almost like a bed liner material. This is the same type of steel, as far as I know, that we use out on the range for our steel silhouettes. AR500, I think, is the steel that's used. This stuff is pretty cheap. It's pretty readily available, but it's got a lot of disadvantages. It will stop bullets. Obviously, we know it will stop bullets. It's AR500. We shoot at it all the time out on the range. But one big disadvantage is the fact that it is heavy. I mean, this is straight steel, man. This is the heaviest possible option that you could choose when it comes to plates, all right? Another big disadvantage of the steel plate is frag. If you take a round in the plate, you guys know what happens to a bullet when you're shooting steel out on the range. When a bullet strikes the face of this steel, you guys know that bullet kind of flattens out and it fragments, all right? If you're wearing this steel plate right here on your chest and you happen to take a round in the plate, you're gonna catch all that frag in your neck, your face, places that you don't wanna get fragged, okay? That's a huge, huge problem, in my opinion, with steel plates. That's a bigger problem, in my opinion, than the weight. I can get stronger and handle the weight if I need to, but the fact, if I get shot with this thing, I'm gonna get fragged all in my face, could be in my eyes, my neck. Those just aren't good places to get fragged at. But it will stop bullets, so you gotta give it that. It's about the best thing I can say about steel body armor. While we're on this, you guys will see how this body armor is cut, and even this next one we'll talk about here. This is called a, we called it in the teams a swimmer's cut. I think I've heard it called a shooter's cut, and basically, instead of this plate being a straight square, this is the cut that you would want if you do get plates. You wanna get a shooter's cut, or a swimmer's cut, or whatever they're calling it now. They're trimmed down to where, when you present your weapon or your shooting, even with your rifle, the actual plate is not restricting your range of motion, okay? So that's the cut that you'll want, for sure. Moving up from the steel plate, if we had another plate here in the middle, it would be a ceramic plate, okay? Ceramic plates are what we used in the teams. They're a lot lighter than steel plates. If you get hit in a ceramic plate, it's gonna be a lot less likely to frag you. So again, those are the two major improvements. The biggest downfall to a ceramic plate is they're pretty fragile in terms of, if you drop them, if you drop them on the ground, or you're rough on them, they can crack, okay? So ceramic plates have to actually be x-rayed every so often to see if there are any cracks in the plate. If the plate is cracked, then it's compromised, okay? So they're not quite as durable as what we're gonna talk about here in just a second, but they are lighter and they're much more functional, okay, the ceramic plate is. I don't have one here. This is what I actually use now. In my opinion, it's better technology. It literally fixes all the problems that we see with the steel plate, with the ceramic plate. Now we move up to this. This plate is made by ShotStop Body Armor. It is made out of a material called dridium, all right? We've actually tested this ShotStop plate, not this exact one, but one exactly like it, identical. Unlike the ceramic plate, because of this material, it's not fragile. If we drop this plate, if we're hard on it, if it gets beat around, bumped around, it's not gonna crack, all right? It is also much lighter than a ceramic plate, much, much lighter. This is the lightest plate that I've ever put my hands on, okay, this from ShotStop. It doesn't frag like the steel. So we have solved, ShotStop has solved all the problems with this plate right here, okay? This is a level, a threat level, special threat level. So this'll stop green tip and 7.62 ball, which we have, when we tested this plate, we shot this thing multiple times with green tip, 5.56, multiple times with 3.08, and that video is down. If you scroll down, you'll find that video review somewhere on this ShotStop body armor. This is the way to go. It's more expensive, but it's gonna last a long time, and it solves all the problems we face with steel and ceramic. Let's talk about this right here. This is soft armor, all right? So a lot of times you'll see maybe police officers wearing just soft armor because they don't want the rigidity of the plate. Soft armor is more comfortable. I would never wear this soft armor as just a standalone in my plate carrier, right? Soft armor is only made to stop pistol rounds, basically. This isn't gonna stop any kind of round from a rifle, M4, whatever it may be, okay? What, the way that I use my soft armor is I actually put it on the back of my plate. All right, this is how I wear it. When I slide this in my kit, it's just like this. The soft armor is against my body, against my skin, and what this does, not only does it make the plate carrier, whatever plate carrier you're wearing, not only does it make it more comfortable, because this soft armor is soft, right? It's almost like a layer of padding. So it makes it more comfortable because you're not feeling the hard surface of the plate against your body through your plate carrier. Another thing that it's gonna do, if you ever get shot in the plate, it's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt really bad. Now, I haven't been shot in the plates. I know plenty of guys who have been, and let me tell you, they get bruised up, banged up, sometimes they get broken ribs, whatever it may be. You're gonna feel it, all right? This soft armor on the backside of your plate is going to help minimize some of that impact that you're gonna feel, and that's actually gonna damage your body. It stops the bullet. It doesn't stop the impact that you're gonna feel, all right? That soft armor back there is gonna help with that. So that's the way I wear it. The last piece of armor we're gonna talk about here today is a side plate, all right? Side plates, man, guys go back and forth with side plates. This is a ceramic side plate. It is not super light. It's gonna add a few extra pounds to your kit. The side plate fits in your plate carrier right here, all right? So it gives you an extra, it gives you basically 360 protection. Instead of just having front and back, if you're turned, you're gonna have protection right there. So, you know, guys went back and forth between these all the time, including me. The thing about it is, I've heard stories and I've talked to guys who have been shot in the side plate and they say, thank God I decided to put my side plates in that day because the side plate probably saved my life. So these are, I think, I think a good choice. If you've, your plate carrier, you should be able to insert these in. They're only gonna add minimal extra weight and they actually provide significantly more coverage than you're gonna have without them. So side plates are something to think about. So guys, I hope that clears up some confusions that you might have about the different types of body armor plates, how it's used, how you use the soft armor. Go out and buy some body armor. If you're like me and you like to train like you fight, go out and get some, use this stuff on the range, get strong, get used to carrying it. If you ever have to go into combat, you're gonna be wearing it. And if you're not wearing it, you're gonna be way behind the power curve. Thanks for tuning in. Enough said. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. If you got something out of this content, please like, subscribe, turn on notifications and drop us a comment. We always love to hear from you. If you want more, come join us at a live training event, either the basic course or the Proving Ground. Go to threeofsevenproject.com to submit your application. Enough said.