Premier Body Armor Ultra Thin Durus 8000 Review & Test

Hey everybody, how's it going? It's the Daily Shooter and you're going to want to stick around for this one. Today I've got a review of some armor from a company called Premier Body Armor that will absolutely blow you away. It's definitely some of the thinnest and lightest weight level 3 rifle rated steel body armor that I've ever used. It's incredible and we're going to go ahead and shoot it with several calibers today. Okay so here's a look at the plates that we're going to be testing out today. One of the nice things was that Premier Body Armor actually sent me multiple plates, some to wear and some to shoot at. So I can give you my overall opinion on both how it works, it's effectiveness, as well as it's comfort, it's wearability, the design, the shooter's cut, what I thought about the curve, the weight, and those aspects. So a complete opinion on what I think about this body armor. Now this is a level 3 body armor, it's not a level 3 plus, so make sure that when you're buying body armor you understand the ratings, the velocities, and the standards for that particular body armor. Also know whether or not your body armor has been NIJ rated. This has been NIJ tested and NIJ rated for special threats that they do have listed on their website. So be aware of what you're buying because that's extremely important, especially when you're talking about something that could potentially save your life. Now I do want to make a quick comparison before we go out there and we test this stuff, because this is kind of important. A lot of people know AR500 armor. It's a very popular steel armor brand, so I wanted to hold my AR500 armor next to my Premier Body Armor and show you some of the differences between the two. Now one of the main differences is that the Premier uses what's called DURUS 8000, where AR500 uses AR500. Well the DURUS 8000 is so much thinner, it is extremely thin, and even though the one on the left has a buildup and the AR500 on the right does not, you can see that the Premier Body Armor is actually still thinner, even with the buildup coating on it, than the AR500. And you can see the difference in the cuts right there. So we have a much nicer shooter's cut on the Premier Body Armor, and a completely different curve. So you can see that there's just one single curve on the AR500 armor, whereas the Premier Body Armor has a much nicer multi-curve to it. So it definitely feels a lot nicer against your body. So those are a couple differences between the AR500 and this. What you're looking at here again is the sticker that comes on the back, lets you know that it's NIJ rated, also gives you expiration dates and whatnot. Now another thing I wanted to point out too is the buildup coating and what it looks like without the buildup coating. Because again, one of the things they tout here is that the DURUS 8000 is much thinner. So the one on the left that you're looking at right here has no buildup. No buildup. And you can see how ridiculously thin that stuff is. It is a very thin plate of armor. With the buildup coating, it's really not too bad at all. So here's the table, this is what we're going to be doing to test it out today. And I have multiple firearms and multiple calibers, several different barrel lengths, everything from 16 inch all the way up to 20. Now this table is really just a basic representation of what we're going to be using today because what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the longest barrel available to me. So a .223, .556, it'll be an 18 inch barrel, a .308 will be a 20 inch barrel, 7.62x39, 16 inch barrel, and so forth. So the longest barrels that I have and the calibers that we're going to be using in those firearms are also going to be kind of wide ranging. We have everything from a 55 grain full metal jacket for the .223, we have a .556, 55 grain full metal jackets, we have 7.62x51, .308, we have the X-TAC which has the Sierra Match King, we have some .556, 100 grain Swine Smasher. Really we're going to hit this with as many different calibers and as many different weights and velocities as we can. Now here's the setup. What I did is I just got a bucket, put a bunch of stuff in it to weigh it down because this does have a nice multi-curve to the plate itself. So I wanted something that's going to hold it good and kind of give the plate some support as we're shooting at it. So I'm just going to go ahead and tape it to this bucket and then we're going to go ahead and take our shots. Now the first shot right here is going to be with a standard 55 grain full metal jacket .223. Now let me tell you something real quick about body armor, especially steel body armor. It's speed that kills and the one round that I was really worried about was the 55 grain full metal jacket .223 and .556 because they are really moving and I shot it out of an 18 inch Criterion barrel chambered .223 Wild and you can see right there it did not go through. We have no pass through and really no bulge in the back. So now we're going to go ahead and try it with a .556 55 grain full metal jacket. And you can see it has a pretty good amount of energy there. But still we go ahead and we grab our plate. I hit it pretty much center right there. It's really hard to see it through that coating, you know, the coating kind of almost like self heals. But you can see right here we have our, you know, spalling as this is basically spall protection and after we've hit it multiple times or at least the second time here you can start to see that we're starting to get a little bit of wear on the side of the spalling protection there. Now we're going to go ahead and do is hit it with two .308 rounds. The first one is going to be 7.62x51 NATO and then the second shot is going to be with the .308. This is going to be standard 2 Lamo steel case. And you can see how much energy that a .308 has versus a .556. I mean, push that whole bucket and that bucket probably weighs about, I don't know, 35, 40 pounds. All right, now let's go ahead and check out the damage, if any. From the front, it's really hard to see. You can see that there is a little hole right underneath the logo where I hit the plate pretty much dead center. And on the side of the panel, you can see how the spalling protection is kind of starting to tear away, which is pretty much standard for any body armor, any steel body armor at this point taking multiple hits and on the back, nothing went through. Just a couple of very minimal, minimal dimples there on the back. So what we're going to do now is we're going to hit it with one of my favorite rounds, which is the 100 grain 2545 Sharps Swine Smasher. This stuff is a heavy hitting round. It's only 25 caliber. It doesn't go through, but you can see on the back that it makes a dent that is pretty much comparable to a .308. That is some incredible stuff from Sharps Rifle Company. So you can take a look at our plate here. Again, you see that, you know, the spalling protection is starting to come away. We've hit it multiple times now and on the back, still nothing's gone through. Okay, now I apologize for this one. I actually forgot to hit record on the camera, but this is the result of the plate being hit twice by two rounds of 7.62x39 from a 16 inch barrel. If you don't know what that caliber is, it's typically the caliber that is shot through a standard AK-47, except I shot it through an AR-15 style platform. You can see both of our hits right there and 7.62x39 2 Lamo, I believe it was 123 grain projectile and again, nothing went through. There wasn't even any dimple for that one, so no damage whatsoever. Now we're going to go ahead and hit it with the 62 grain 5.56 and you can see there that it hits, you know, our tape's getting a little bit messed up, but still it had enough force, enough pressure to knock the plate off and again, our spalling protection is taking a little bit more damage there, but absolutely nothing on the back. So for those people that were wondering about the 62 grain green tips, absolutely nothing. So now this is our 300 blackout shot and I know that if 7.62x39 is not going through, neither is 300 blackout, but still I figured, you know what, people are going to want to see if 300 blackout has any impact on the plate whatsoever and we'll go ahead and we'll show you now because I'm going to go ahead and take this buildup coating off and at this point it's been, you know, so damaged by multiple hits that it just kind of peels right off and we'll be able to get a better look at the plate or the strike face of what it looks like underneath and you can see where the swine smasher hit kind of low and we had the two 308 shots were sort of center and with those two shots or three shots, excuse me, you can see that that pretty much puts the biggest dent in it, but absolutely nothing went through. Now, once we peel the coating off the back, it'll give you a little bit better understanding of the back face deformation that we were facing from those particular projectiles and you can see right here that it's very minimal. You can see three dents, very minimal dents. Those are from the 308s as well as the 2545 sharps. Now, with the buildup coating removed, I wanted to hit this plate two more times with the 62 grain green tip. The reason is because if you remember a while back, the ATF tried to ban green tips because of their mild steel core saying that they were armor penetrating rounds and now there's this big misconception that they're armor piercing and they're really not. As a matter of fact, 62 grain green tips are slower than the 55 grain ball XM193 and have less of a chance of penetrating steel body armor. So you can see here the 62 grain green tips really just polished it, didn't do anything to it whatsoever. So I just wanted to clear that up. It'll stop the 62 grain steel core green tips all day. Now, I actually forgot to shoot these plates with one specific round that a lot of people like to see and that's the 168 grain Sierra Match King, which is the PMC X-TAC. It is a big bullet. It's moving extremely fast and so I took the plate that never had any buildup coating on it at all and I set it up on my table and I took one shot at it from a 20 inch barrel and only about 30 yards and here you can see it really didn't do very much to it at all. Just very minimal damage on the front and again, this Duras 8000 steel is pretty incredible. Very thin and I mean almost no damage at all. I mean there's barely a little bit of a bulge on the back, but really nothing significant. Nothing even to mention there. You can see that it didn't really even move the sticker very much. So really impressive stuff. I like this Premier body armor quite a bit. So here are my final thoughts on this armor. I think it's fantastic body armor. It is extremely thin. It is very lightweight. The Duras 8000 seems to live up to everything that I've heard about it. I love the shooter's cut. It's kind of an aggressive shooter's cut, so it's very easy to shoot with your pistol and with your rifle and get your arms out in front of you. It has a really nice curve to it, so it's comfortable on your front and your back. It's very thin and lightweight. Just comparing this to my AR500 armor, that rig, putting this rig on after putting on the other rig, it's just night and day. I mean the difference in the weight is, to me, a seller on its own right there. But still, it lives up to its NIJ rating. It stopped all the rounds that we shot at it from standard 55 grain ball all the way up to 168 grain Sierra Match King out of a .308 7.62x39, and then some other specialty rounds that we shot at it. But still, we shot it a bunch. It stopped multiple rounds, and it worked great. So it performed good. It is cost effective. It's not as expensive as a lot of other ceramic or other lightweight components that are going to be on the market these days, so you are going to save money there. And again, I think this is for the person that wants something better than just the standard thing that's on the market. So definitely worth checking out. I've enjoyed wearing it myself. So if you're interested in it, I will put a link in the description box to where you can pick some up for yourself, and I really appreciate it. So if you wouldn't mind, please like, subscribe, and have a great day.