I had never thought about adding armor to my prepping materials. Its easy to think that carrying a gun around is enough to deter people, but really if shtf then you can't assume you're the only one willing to shoot to provide for your family.
These are the ones I bought:
http://dsgarms.com/ProductInfo/IBAIA0035B.aspx
2 total. Even at 7.6 lbs, they are pretty heavy, or at least they were at first. I've been wearing them as often as I can with a full loadout and it's getting easier. You still know they are there, no doubt about that. To be honest, I think it's a weight vs mobility game. Personally, I decided to drop down to running just a front plate for the extra mobility. I've considered getting a soft plate to run on my back, but I am on the fence.
http://dsgarms.com/ProductInfo/IBAIA0035B.aspx
2 total. Even at 7.6 lbs, they are pretty heavy, or at least they were at first. I've been wearing them as often as I can with a full loadout and it's getting easier. You still know they are there, no doubt about that. To be honest, I think it's a weight vs mobility game. Personally, I decided to drop down to running just a front plate for the extra mobility. I've considered getting a soft plate to run on my back, but I am on the fence.
Medium (10x12 )Level IV ceramic plates are right around 6#. Level 3 won't stop M855.
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Specifically ceramic lvl 3 plates? Several of the plates in the tests I linked to are Lvl 3, and stop M855.
I've had GC's vest on (just to see) ... MF'er is heavy, heavy, heavy ... In all honesty I'm not sure I could put it on and get to the end of the block and back ... I cannot imagine how he wears it every day for 9-11 hours, day in and day out. God bless our military men and women ...
It's kinda misleading. Level 3 does not guarantee you're protected against M855. You need level 4 to get that. There are some plates called level III+ that claim to protect against ss109/M855, but that is not an industry wide standard. What you get is plates that wont stop M2-AP preventing them from getting to Level IV.
Right, Lvl 3 isn't a guarantee, but several of those plates do in fact stop M855. The AMI plate stops a ridiculous amount of rounds, but will eventually fail. I believe lvl 4 only has to hold up for 1 hit of M2AP to get that rating. I'd rather have a plate that takes multiple hits from what I believe to be a more common round than a single round of M2AP.
Level 4 is multiple hits of lesser threats. Only one of the M2.
Some of it may depend if you just have a plate in a carrier or a plate in addition to your vest. My vest(s) are level II then I have a 5x8 titanium plate also. The bigger plates suck for sitting, driving in a car, bending over to tie your shoes, etc. Not that I'm against them. I just wouldn't want to wear it all day, every day.
