DFNDR Armor LVL 3A Pistol Plate Test & Review UNBELIEVABLE RESULTS

Hey everybody, how's it going? It's the Daily Shooter and today I've got another armor plate review and test for you. This is the Defender Armor Level 3A plate, which is basically their pistol plate, that can take multiple rounds from everything from .44 Magnum, .357 Sig, .357 Magnum, FN 5.7, .40, .45, 9mm, multiple rounds tested at muzzle velocity, and it weighs less than one pound. This is also a very affordable option, so if you're looking for an extremely lightweight Now some of you might remember that last week I did a test and review of the Level 3 plus Defender Armor and was absolutely blown away by the results. It took almost 25 rounds of .556 and .223 and the only thing that went through was the round that it actually wasn't rated for, so I was really impressed and really looking forward to the Level 3A test. This particular plate is a medium sized plate, it runs for $150, so it's affordable protection from everything up to a .44 Magnum. What I'm going to do today is shoot it with multiple rounds of 9mm. Everything from 115 grains up to 147 grains plus P out of two different barrel lengths. First we're going to start out with a pistol, 4.1 inch barrel out of this Ruger SR9, and then step it up to a 16 inch barrel to make sure that we get the maximum velocity possible out of these rounds. Plus P, 147 grains, it's going to be traveling pretty hot at this plate. Now here's my setup, which is the same as before, but before I get started I do want to mention that they do have their threat profile for this plate on the website, so if you go to their website, which is DefenderArmor.com, you can see the threat profile and it has the list of everything that they tested it with, what the muzzle velocity was, and whether or not it stopped it. So definitely check that out. First shot right here, it's just going to be a simple shot using the 4.1 inch pistol, 115 grain, 9mm, and you're going to see the results right here. Basically if you took a center chest shot, you can see right there that the plate actually does disperse the energy pretty well, unlike other plates that might take a center hit and all of that energy is transferred exactly where the bullet hits. This one just leaves a small impression on the back, but really does disperse that energy. Now we're going to step it up just a little bit and go to the 124 grain round. This is basically just a standard full metal jacket, 124 grain bullet, and you can see right there that it really does make pretty much the same amount of damage as the 115 grain round. It stops it, not a problem whatsoever. You get a little bit of deformation in the front right there, but the panel is still in really good condition, just a little bit of a bump on the back, but I've got to say for a plate that is just a little over a half an inch thick and honestly weighs less than a pound, it's pretty amazing. So now we're going to move on to this Winchester, which is 147 grains. This is standard velocity. We're going to be shooting this out of the pistol first to see what this heavier round actually does. You can see right there, we hit the plate, top left, nice, fresh, clean area to see what that does. It's a pretty heavy bullet. It's moving at standard speeds. We're going to try this out of the 16 inch barrel, but you can see right there, it's a little bit more deformation in the front right there, but again, nothing in the back. And I love how much space it actually takes up when it hits in the front, because you know that the energy is actually being pushed around the plate and not just in that one specific area. You can see the side of the plate right there, and then again, just a little bit of a dent in the back. So 147 grain, not a problem for this plate whatsoever. Now we're going to try two 124 grain hollow points, and the reason I want to test this is because I think it's the most common self-defense cartridge used, and I want to see what the effects on the plate are going to be, given that this is something that you might actually come in contact with when you're wearing the plate. So you can see right here, we took one shot, which is a little bit high and to the right, it was on a clear part of the plate. So we'll go ahead and we'll take a look at that. You can see that there is some deformation on there, because it is close to the side of the plate, but still, it seems to handle it no problem whatsoever. Again, on the back, there's just a little bit of a dent. So let's take a look at our second shot. Our second shot, you can see now we have a total of five shots on the plate, and pretty much the same thing. A little bit of damage on the front. You can see where the kinetic energy kind of spilled out from the center part of the hit, and then on the back, it is pretty much nonexistent to minimal on that fifth round. So it stopped all five rounds so far, no problem from those different types of bullets. Now we're going to step it up big time by moving to the 16-inch barreled carbine and shooting this Plus P 147 grain hollow point. This is a devastating round that I've actually shot through cinder block before, just using a pistol, so I'm really excited to see what it's going to do to this plate. It's moving really fast, and it's a heavy bullet. But I've got to be honest, I was extremely impressed when I saw the results, because I actually put this round kind of too close to some other rounds, where the plate was actually already a little bit damaged, so I got a little bit nervous, but after looking at it, it just took it like a champ, no problem. You can see on the back, it's got a bit of a bulge, but really, that's it. It would stop this round. Now I had to stop my test just so you guys could hear that. You can hear all the rounds kind of rattling around in there. It just stops them, no problem. This plate is absolutely amazing. So now what I'm going to do is just take a couple shots of this plate, again using the carbine and a full metal jacket. The one thing that I haven't tried yet, which is the carbine, full metal jacket, it's going to be traveling extremely fast at this plate, and kind of see how it handles that overall, and then we're going to switch over to some other rounds. We can see right there, still no pass through. Now this next cartridge really piqued my interest, because this is actually what I have loaded in my defensive pistols. This is the Hornady Critical Duty 135 grain hollow point, but it has that ballistic material inside the hollow point to help it penetrate barriers. So I'm going to shoot it twice with that out of the 16-inch barreled carbine, and we'll see what type of results we get. It's a pretty hard hitting round. It's really heavy. It's traveling fast, and it doesn't really lead to much expansion with that tip on there until it penetrates its barrier, but you can see right there that two rounds out of a 16-inch barrel stopped it like it was nothing. We have definitely some more damage to the front of the plate since this has taken multiple rounds, but still, if you had this damaged plate on, it would still save your life. Now that this plate's taken multiple hits from several different types of defensive cartridges, what I want to do now is just see how many rounds it'll actually take before I can get through it. So you can see the plate before I get started with this right now, I'm going to be switching back over to the pistol. I'm just going to shoot round after round until we can see an actual penetration. So this should be fun. We're going to go ahead and get started just by shooting a few rounds, hopefully get it on the plate here, not make myself look like a fool on camera. And we'll try this again since it came off, we'll just keep putting rounds on it until something actually goes through. Now this is just getting a little bit ridiculous. I have shot this multiple times with defensive cartridges, hollow points, 115 grain standard, 147 grain plus P out of two different barrel lengths, and nothing will go through it. To be honest, at this point, I'm actually a little bit nervous that I didn't bring enough ammunition to punch a hole in this plate. It just takes a beating from everything and nothing goes through it. Now I have to show you guys a little bit of a blooper. I wasn't sure how I was going to do this or even add this to the video, but I accidentally shot this plate with a rifle. I had two plates with me that same day and I was doing testing on both of them. One is a rifle plate, one's a pistol plate, and I actually shot this one with a rifle, but I figured, you know what? I'll show you what happens if you shoot a pistol plate with a rifle anyway. So I had the plate set up, I shot it with the rifle, and to be honest with you, it went pretty much right through it like butter. When I grabbed the plate, I knew instantly that I put the wrong plate on the hay bale. You can see right there, that's where the 5.56 full metal jacket went through. It just punches a hole in it, no problem, but a little bit of a blooper I thought I'd share with you guys. Now back to our testing. At this point, honestly, it's more of a challenge than a test. Basically what I'm going to do now is just keep shooting it with the 16 inch carbine with full metal jackets and see if we can get any type of pass through. After I shoot it several times, I'll go and I'll check and see if anything actually went through. But like I said, it's more of a challenge. What I'm going to do now actually is use the tool ammo. This is a full metal jacket as well, but it's a bi-metal bullet. It's a little bit more dense than your standard full metal jacket or American full metal jacket, and I'm going to shoot that with the carbine and see if anything goes through. But I couldn't. I just kept shooting this plate. You can see right there, it's just like an oversized waffle now, and it just has multiple rounds put through it and nothing would go through. You can see our rifle round right there at the bottom, sorry about that. But with everything I've done here, nothing has gone through this plate. It's absolutely amazing how many times I've shot this plate. Let me count these holes. Okay, so I have about 40 rounds into this plate and nothing has gone through. Forty rounds. It is just absolutely astonishing. Now you can see right here some of the material. I can actually reach in and grab some of the rounds that are just kind of caught in that fibrous material and rolling around, and you can see what it did to them. It just completely stopped them, squished them. You name it, this plate just ate it up. And it's super impressive. I may get the question a lot, how come you didn't shoot it with .357, I want to see it shot with .44 Magnum. Well the way that I look at it is the 9mm is the most popular round on the market by far. And we know that this can stop those rounds, .44 Mag, .357, it can stop FN, it can stop .40 and .45, but being that 9mm is so popular, I just wanted to hammer this with that round to see how much it could actually stop. And I think that up to 40 rounds in my testing out of a 16 inch barrel is really impressive. So here it is again, the Defender Armor Level 3A Pistol Plate. Absolutely amazing stuff, great technology, the test proves what it's capable of doing. And I gotta say, if you're a cop or somebody who is out there, even a security guard who needs to wear body armor, this stuff weighs less than a pound and can do what you just saw it do. This is definitely something worth investing in. And again, like I said, the medium size plate right now is going for $150 so it's definitely affordable and this is, it blew my mind what it was capable of doing. And I hope you guys agree that this is some very capable stuff. Thank you all very much for watching, please like, subscribe, and have a great day.