DFNDR Armor LVL III+ Test Part 2

Hey everybody, how's it going? It's the Daily Shooter, and last week I did some testing on this level 3 plus plate from Defender Armor. It's a 2.5 pound plate, I put 9 total rounds into it, and didn't get a single pass through. What I did was, I used several different rounds of 5.56 and 2.23 in order to kind of switch it up a little bit, everything from XM193, which is a 55 grain ball ammo, I used specialty rounds like the PDX1223, which is a 60 grain hollow point with a split core, used a couple different very fast moving varmint type rounds, like the Hornady Superformance, which is rated at 3500 feet per second with a ballistic tip, and then soft points and regular 2.23s. Put all of that onto the plate and nothing went through, so I was extremely happy with it, but people wanted to see something else. They wanted to see either a .308, which is rated to take up to 7.62x51, and they wanted to see green tips, which this plate is not rated for. So this plate is rated up to 7.62x51, but not rated for the M855 round, but I'm going to go ahead and give that a shot today. Now the rifle that I'm using is the same as before. I was really hoping to bring out a .308, however the only .308 that I own is an old hunting rifle and it's got a little bit of a bent firing pin, so I wasn't able to bring that today. So I'm just going to pound this plate as much as possible with the XM193 55 grain 5.56 ball ammo, and see how many times we can hit it before we get some type of penetration. But I am very hopeful with this plate. Now you can see here the first rounds we're going to take, just five rounds random, not necessarily center. I'm just going to kind of spread everything out, and then we'll see how the results are. But five rounds XM193. Well after taking now a total of 14 rounds, I was really impressed with how the plate looked. It still feels pretty solid, but when I flipped it over, I got really worried because it looked like we had a pass through. Well after playing with it for a little bit, it looks like basically what I did is the bullet just pushed the material through the back of the plate itself. If you push your finger down there, you can actually feel the tip of the bullet still in the ballistic material. So it wasn't a pass through, but it did make kind of some damage on the plate. You can see right there, it kind of pulled the plate apart, separated it a little bit, but still, no pass through whatsoever. So now I'm just going to kind of pummel the plate. I'm going to hit it as many times as I can before I get some type of result, and just put round after round into it and see if anything goes through. I'm just really overall surprised at the amount of damage that a simple 2.5 pound plate can take. You can see how many holes have been poked in the front, and yet nothing has gone through on the back. So we'll do it again, we'll just keep putting rounds into it. And I kind of lost track of how many rounds I had in it so far. I can tell you this, by the end of the day, I had 30 rounds into this plate. So we'll go ahead and we'll take a look at the results so far. We're about 25 rounds in right now. Okay, so we'll take a closer look at the plate as it stands right now, kind of go over some of the holes that have been poked in it. Again, during this test, I'm using all standard XM193 55 grain ball. This plate is rated for that. It's also again rated up to 7.62x51. And I wanted to see really how many rounds that this could take. It's kind of like a torture test. It's not necessarily what's the highest caliber that this can take, but more or less how many shots can soft 2.5 pound body armor take. Just extremely impressed. As you can see right there, there's a bulge, but nothing has gone through in 25 rounds. Okay, so now on to the round that most people requested me to shoot this plate with and that's the M855, also known as green tip. Now even though this plate is not rated for M855, this is what people wanted to see. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go ahead and shoot it with it. They do have plates available that are rated up to M855, but that's not the plate that I got for testing and evaluation. So you can see right there that it goes right through this. No problem. Hopefully I'll get a plate in the future that's actually rated for M855 and we'll go ahead and we'll put a bunch of rounds into that. But for now I just have the plate that's rated up to 7.62.51 and standard XM193. So you can see right there what a clean pass through looks like. Okay, so here's our plate after dozens of rounds and to be honest, I forgot how many rounds I put on this plate while I was driving home until I got home and I was actually able to count it. It turns out that I put 30 rounds into this plate total and remember I used everything from standard XM193 to the specialty rounds to super fast 3,500 feet per second varmint rounds and nothing went through except for the three rounds that I put it that it's not rated for. But everything that was rated for stopped completely. Now you can see the inside of the plate. A lot of people wanted to see what the inside looked like and you can see where it's separated. There's a foam material at the bottom and that helps kind of dissipate some of the kinetic energy as it hits the plate. But the plate took a ton of damage and still is going strong. So the way that I look at it is this, if you've been hit by one or two rounds and you haven't moved yet, then you're just kind of asking for it. But this plate can take 30 rounds like a boss, no problem. I got to say that actually took more like 27 rounds because the three rounds that passed through were the green tip, but still just an amazing plate for only two and a half pounds. I highly recommend it. It is definitely high on the price range, but if you're somebody that has to wear, let's say, body armor for work, you have some type of job that requires you to wear it on a daily basis, that weight reduction is definitely going to be a huge factor for you and would make it worth the money. So anyway guys, next week what we're going to be doing is testing out their level 3A plates and not only am I going to use a standard pistol, but I'm also going to use a 16 inch carbine to test out whether or not we can punch through that plate. You guys are going to be impressed with this one, even more impressed than the 3 Plus plate. That stuff is amazing and definitely more affordable, so check that out next week.