Shot Stop Level 3A Armor Review & Testing

Hey everybody, how's it going? It's the Daily Shooter. And today we're going to test out a couple different body armor panels from a company called ShotStop. They have a website called ShotStop.net. These two body armor panels you see on the table right here are both rated level 3A by the NIJ. NIJ stands for National Institute of Justice. Level 3A is basically a pistol threat level. Both these panels have been tested to 44 magnum multiple hits. So they're definitely capable body armor panels, but they are unique in certain ways. So I want to go ahead and I want to show you first this white one right here. This white one right here is really, really interesting. This is intended to be an inconspicuous level 3A body armor panel and it's different than anything I've ever seen. It's almost like a white board. It is a rigid design. It weighs only just, I mean just barely over a pound and it's only around a quarter inch thick. As a matter of fact, I think it's .265 inches thick. So just barely over a quarter inch thick. So it weighs almost nothing. It's rigid and it has the same texture, the smooth finish on it that you would get from like a dry erase board, something you see at school. So you could use this and somebody wouldn't even know that you had a body armor panel on you. You could actually use this to take notes, throw it in your backpack. I mean you could take it out. You could have this on the wall of your house and I don't think anybody would even know that you have body armor. So this is a really cool setup right here. Again, it's rigid. It's almost like a white board in the type of texture that it is. It's kind of reflective. It's really neat. And then we have what I would consider to be more like a traditional body armor panel as well. This particular one right here is again level 3A, but it's more of a flexible type material. So it's a little bit more flexible. This one right here is the same weight and the same width as this panel right here, but just a little bit different. So if you wanted to put this in something that you needed that flexibility instead of something rigid, then this is something that you could use right here. But we're going to go ahead and test them both. And we have three different guns, three different calibers that we're going to be doing it with today. Okay, so let's go and take a look at the pistols and the ammunition that we're going to be using for this test. Each caliber is going to be shot twice at each panel. So we'll have a total of six shots per panel. Maybe I'll put an extra one or two down the middle just for good measure, but we'll go ahead and we'll start off by taking a look at the smallest of the calibers, which is the nine millimeter that's going to be shot out of a full size Glock 17 with the true precision barrel. This true precision barrel is the exact same length as a standard OEM barrel, so we're not gaining anything there. We're going to be shooting 124 grain nine millimeter Aguila. Out of this gun right here, which is a Smith & Wesson SD40VE with a four inch barrel, we're going to be shooting 180 grain Aguila full metal jacket. And then here we have a Rock Island Armory 1911. This is their A2 double stack, 45 ACP, and out of that one we're going to be shooting 230 grain Aguila. So we have full length barrels and what I would consider to be like an average or standard weight per caliber. All are full metal jacket, all are going to be basically your standard round. So we're going to go ahead and shoot again two shots per caliber on each plate and then again maybe one or two down the middle just for good measure. So let's go ahead and get started. All right, so a quick look at our setup here. I have a bale of hay. This is basically just to simulate a body because these body armor panels tend to work best when they're up against something. If you were to clamp it down or sit it like this, it's just going to have too much flex. But if we put it right here against our bale of hay, we're going to be able to shoot it and we'll get more accurate results than we would otherwise. So that's what we're going to go ahead and do and we're going to start off with the nine millimeter first. Now, I should also mention that I'm shooting this plate from a distance of only about eight feet. All right, well, I definitely didn't hit that where I wanted to hit it, but we still hit the panel. At least the first shot was exactly where I wanted it. All right, let's go ahead and pull this off, inspect the back, and there is zero pass-through from the nine millimeter, which was pretty much to be expected. We have an impact right here and an impact right here. Okay, so here we go. Two rounds of 40. Again, this is 180 grain, full metal jacket Aguila. Let's see, we have one hole right here and then we have another one very close to our nine millimeter right there. Let's take the panel out and inspect it. And absolutely zero pass-through. So we have two rounds of 40 right now and two rounds of nine millimeter. So let's go ahead and move on to the 45 ACP. Okay, here we go. Two rounds of 45 ACP, 230 grain out of a five inch barrel and we are standing right now about eight feet. So let's go ahead and try the bottom right of this panel. All right, there we go. Two shots, 45 ACP. Let's go ahead and check it out. Take a look. Okay, so we have a shot there and we have a shot right here next to it. I'll try and get some of this straw off of there. Straighten the panel out a little bit and zero pass-through whatsoever. So we have a total of six rounds in this panel now. Two nine millimeter, two 45s and two 40s. Why don't we go ahead and throw a couple more 45 ACP right in the center here and we'll see how it holds up and then we'll move on to the whiteboard. Okay, so here's a look at the front of our panel. We have a total of 11 rounds in here right now and it sounds like a rattle. 11 rounds. We have two nine millimeter, two 40 and seven 45 ACP. Let's go and flip it over and no penetration at all. So the panel looks perfect. Okay, now it's time to shoot the ballistic board. I got to say, this is the one that I have been the most excited about because it is so different, it's so unique and it's so inconspicuous. It just does not look like body armor to me. So I'm really curious to see how well it holds up. We're going to try and run the test the same as we did on the other plate and we can kind of compare our results. So again, two rounds of nine millimeter first and we'll see how it goes. And again, we're going to be standing at about eight feet. Okay, so here's our board. But again, standing only about eight feet away using a Glock 17 with a full size barrel and this is our board right here. You can see we have two holes left and right, both nine millimeter and absolutely no pass through. As a matter of fact, for a board that's only about a quarter inch thick, I'm really surprised there is almost, I mean, very, very little back face deformation given the fact that this is so thin I expected there to be a lot more. So now let's go ahead and aim right here and we will try putting some 40 Smith and Wesson, see if there's any difference. Okay, 180 grain Aguila, 40 Smith and Wesson from about the same eight feet. All right, so we have our two shots at the bottom there. I left the middle open this time so that we can put all of our 45 in the middle like we did on the previous panel. Let's go ahead and take a look and see what happened. Okay, so here are our shots for the 40 Smith and Wesson. You can see we have this hole right here where you can actually see the round, if I can pull this up for you guys. You can actually see the round is still in there right there. Just kind of squished it out real nice. And then this one right here was really close to the edge. We flip it over and you can see that there is some cracking going on right there. That's just the cover, you know, that I peeled away earlier. And then you can see that nothing made it through. So now we're going to go ahead and switch over to the 45. All right, well, what I did that time was I decided instead of taking two shots and then looking at the panel, decided to take our seven shots with the 45 and then look at the panel. So let's go and take this thing off and see how well it did. Okay, so here's our panel. Again, we have a total of 11 holes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. So we have 11 holes in our panel right here. You know, one thing that I like about doing body armor testing is that you get to see how things react in the real world because NIJ testing is a perfect standard. So they do six shots. There's 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, controlled environment. Everything is controlled. The ammunition is controlled. The shot placement is controlled. Everything is perfect. And so when you do real world testing, you get to take the panel, shoot in a bunch of different places, see how well it holds up to multiple calibers, and kind of see in a, you know, a different not so controlled environment how things hold up. Let's go ahead and flip this thing over and you can see that our cover is just all kind of cracked up. Again, this is just a kind of a facade for the armor itself. You can see it pulls off right there and here's one of the rounds you can see stuck to the paper right there and how it just kind of smushes it out. There's some more rounds stuck to it right there. You guys can see that. And so you can see that absolutely nothing went through. Nothing. I mean, a total of 11 rounds. If you had this in your backpack or, you know, just at school with you or at work, maybe you're in law enforcement and you want to put this next to your clipboard, yeah, sure enough. This is pretty cool stuff. I got to say, for around a pound and a quarter inch thick to stop, I'm sure it would take plenty more rounds. Impressive. Now, before I sign off, I do want to mention one other thing that I really like about Shot Stop. Shotstop.net, you can check out the information that I'm going to give you guys right now for yourself. But one thing that they do that I really like is that they post all of their ballistics, charts, and ratings right up front for everybody to see. So you can go ahead, you can click on the specific armor that you're looking at, whether it's level 3A, level 3, level 3+, level 4, and so on. And you could see all of the ballistic ratings, the ammunition that was used, the grains, the weight, the distance, the humidity, temperature, everything. The entire NIJ report is right there for you to see. So all of the ballistics are completely accessible to the public. They're not hidden or very hard to find. So you can actually see whether or not it stopped the threat that you're looking to stop. You know, the general public versus somebody who's law enforcement, you know, these things become standards that I think everybody needs to be able to see. So if you see a company that's hiding that information, you might want to ask yourself why they're hiding it because, you know, they make this very, very much in the forefront. So I do appreciate that, you know, they use this duridium technology is what it's called. And I got to say, it's really, really impressive body armor. So if you're in the market for body armor, definitely check out shotstop.net. I want to thank them very much for sending these panels out to the channel for testing. They're pretty incredible. Please like, subscribe. Have a great day.