Plates II

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In case anyone was wondering:

And T3 was having a sale on plate carriers so I got one of each – this and this.

I already have a couple sets of soft armour, which I believe everyone should have, and I have a carrier and plates next to my AR in the bedroom ‘just in case’. But, I wanted an extra set…perhaps for offsite storage…and I also wanted a low-profile set to keep in the truck. And, lets be real, the prices aren’t going to go down and at some point getting this stuff will no longer be as simple as a webform and a credit card.

And as tempting as it is to buy a set of plates and sock them away, don’t. You need to actually wear them and get used to how they feel and,  most importantly, how they affect your ability to function and move while wearing them. I promise you, bringing up a rifle and shouldering it will be a completely different game when youre wearing this stuff. And it isn’t lighweight. The smart survivalist will buy a dirt cheap plate carrier, a set of weighted replica plates,  duct tape the crap out of the corners and stress points, and use them for training purposes. Crom forbid, but when Der Tag arrives you really don’t have margin for a learning curve. So, yes, feel like a dork as you’re LARPing around your house in armour….thats part of the familiarization process. Your carrier needs to fit you, and it needs to do it in such a manner that donning it is as familiar and easy as slipping into worn shoes. Wear it…go the range, go for a hike, do a workout, but wear it and move with it and adjust as necessary.

And, finally, remember that these things will stop bullets (most of the time) but there’s no free lunch in physics so that energy has to go somewhere and that somewhere is going to be you. Don’t think you’ll have a round of 7.62 bounce off your chest and your gonna keep moving forward like the Terminator. Hollywood makes bullet resistance look like fun and game but it really looks more like cracked/broken ribs/sternum and bruises that make you queasy just looking at them.

BUT….it beats a sucking chest wound any day of the week.

20 thoughts on “Plates II”

  1. Like you needed a fifth set, but in case you haven’t seen/tried them, you really should explore the HDPE rifle-level plates.

    Thicker, but the bullets soak in rather than ricocheting off with AR500, good for a series of hits unlike ceramic, and oh so much lighter than either alternative.

    They make Glocks not-the-only Tactical Tupperware™.

    I’m working on a partial wraparound seat-based carrier for the driver’s seat that’s one helluva lot cheaper than sending your vehicle to Texas Armoring.

    • HDPE is of no real value if it comes down to even a mild steel core bullet. As common as cheap M855 is it’s worth knowing it’ll zip right through HDPE plates.

  2. I’ve been looking for a bullet proof shield instead. Better in my viewpoint for house clearing.

    Any suggestions?

  3. While I have a set of both hard and soft armor (soft is a bit dated but blogger Greg Ellifritz did a test on 20+ year old police turn in armor that still stopped what it was rated for), I don’t understand the whole downsizing of the plates/coverage area to bare minimum of the thoracic cavity area in these carriers. The average person isn’t going to put on soft armor vest then a plate carrier – the old style Interceptor IBA vests of the military had both. Yes they are heavy, yes they don’t breathe but they do offer additional coverage including a soft groin pad. Like my current plate carrier, I added the additional abdomen plate because that’s still a area that can easily be hit and bleed out quickly. Also put an admin pouch there to hold additional medical supplies. Just a useless ramble

  4. I looked at RMAs website and no mention of any certifications other than the ‘lawyer speak’ that our plates are the best. Is there any cert stamp on these plates CZ?

    • Apparently they just got delisted by NIJ for reasons that no one seems to comprehend.

      • You might request a return authorization from them and get some plates that are legit… it’s only your life.

      • There’s also the “I’m From Missouri” approach: You buy three plates, and one of them goes to the range for a little show-and-tell.
        If the test plate passes, I send after-pics and nice review to the company.
        If it fails, you can let them decide if they want the review online, or would just rather offer a full refund on the remaining two plates.
        YMMV.

        • We actually did that with a set of ceramic plates from Botach that were past their “guarantee date”. Although plates don’t have an ‘expiration date’, my friend upgraded to something better. Those cheap Botach plates passed the test with no penetration or perferation until 4 shots with M80 on one plate. The second plate survived 2 hits with .308 AP rounds without full penetration, but with bad deformation. These plates were $80 each on sale with claims of USA manufacturer with zero certs. Down the rabbit hole we go…

      • NIJ’s website still lists the 1155 and 1189 Level IV plates, but as ‘inactive.’ Discontinued models now that RMA is making multi-curve Level IV plates?

    • It’s peculiar that there’s no year on that article. He mentioned 2019/2020 interest in being a dealer.

      Good thing I recommended the 210, whew. In ter net almost got me.

      Lol

  6. I did once read a blog of someone who went looking for weighted replica plates and ended up getting a set of AR500 plates as they cost about the same but did have some use.

  7. As for impact energy…
    In Mosul Iraq in the fall of 2004 we had a soldier who was hit 11 times in his plates, front and rear, to include at least 2 rounds from a burst out of a PKM. He had some minor injuries to his exposed areas and while he knew he’d been hit in the body armor he thought it was 2 to maybe 4 hits, not 11. Typically the strike of the round on dard armor isn’t much worse than the shooters impact from the recoil of the gun. Dampened even further by the adrenaline.

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