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Thread: Modest Civilian Loadout/Range Gear

  1. #21
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    OP - if you’re wanting a plate carrier, this is a very good entry level kit:

    https://cannaeprogear.com/products/v...ternalId=Shs72

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by turnburglar View Post
    This is terrible advice. Hesco just had two big recalls; I wouldn't say their $700 plate is the one stop shop you claim it to be.

    OP: if you want to research any prospective plates check out buffmanrange on YouTube. He shoots tons of armor and has a very controlled procedure similar to the NIJ in almost every way. Some $100 plates are out there that will stop rounds above their rating. You absolutely DO NOT need to spend over $500 on a plate that will stop bullets. If you are fine with a 1" thick single curve plate there are a few that will stop green tip under $200 and 6 pounds.

    Anyone that says only their super duper expensive plate will stop bullets and a $100 plate won't; simply has brand fan brain. I'm not saying that expensive plates are stupid, Im just saying they definitely are not for everyone. When you spend more money on a plate you typically get a thinner lighter plate. For example a battle steel ($150) 3+ weighs 5 pounds and is 0.8" thick. A shot stop ($500) GT2 weighs 3.8 pounds and is 0.6" thick. Both plates are made to stop m855. Also a big feature you get from a more expensive plate will be multi curve. A cheaper plate will typically be only single curve.

    If you dont wear body armor for a living or for 12+ hours at a time you will probably be fine with a cheaper set of plates. Both LAPG and Botach offer some good ones.
    Ok, fine, I'll play....

    First, Hesco did NOT "just have" two big recalls- the recalls happened a couple years back, and they were for the 3610 plates, and one of their 4x00-whatever series (I don't remember exactly) circa 2019 and 2020. I remember this well, as that was when I finally got around to re-buying plates after ditching my old heavy bois I got back in 2013.
    So like most people, when the news about the 3610s broke, which were the exact plates I was considering at the time I had the same "Oh shit, does Hesco actually suck?" moment as everyone else....
    Fast forward to current day, and I am not aware of any current recalls for Hesco products that JUST happened. This is why I mentioned the 3810s NOT the 4x00 series or 3610s, which are now discontinued anyway. As of today, I am not aware of any current recalls on the 3810s, which, as far as I have seen, seem to be existing just fine alongside other plates in their category.

    But if you want to talk about recalls…. Shot Stop had one right around the same time for one of their products (I am guessing one of their IIIA plates based on #).
    https://cjtec.org/files/5fac48c4cbc46
    Oh Noes! Stop the presses! Nobody buy anything from ShotStop, they had a recall two years ago! Those GT2s are terrible advice!
    See, I can do it too.
    Or how about… it seems a wide variety of armor manufacturers have NIJ slap them with a recall each year… So I guess we’d better never buy armor from anyone because they might not get it right in perpetuity.
    Active recalls: https://cjtec.org/active-nij-advisory/
    Resolved recalls: https://cjtec.org/closed-nij-advisory/

    I also am not a Hesco fanboy, or a fanboy of any other brand, not even BCM... Nor did I anywhere in my previous comment say anything about how ONLY the 3810s/other "expensive plates" will stop bullets. Nice try though. Also ironic that you point out in your comment per the $100 plate Vs more expensive plate features, all the reasons WHY someone might make a recommend for the better-featured more expensive plates over the budget-tier stuff. Especially for a newbie you want to have a reasonably positive experience, since this is/was the forum of “buy once cry once” yeah?

    You know, kinda like the ballistic helmet test thing from a while back….remember that? The one where out of two budget offerings one performed (unscientifically) almost as well as the expensive offering? And yet….it seems somehow most people tend to still pick the better-featured more expensive helmets these days…. (although to be fair, the helmet market has improved somewhat since 2018 with better pricing for good stuff). Why could that be I wonder….

    If the OP wants to spend an hour, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc-ZCGI5z5c
    For comparison, here’s another unscientific test of one of the same budget offerings from the above video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0T4IFK9XJY
    Now, I like Sage and think his info is generally good, but without any other calibers fired, he goes straight for the 44mag side shot. If you go back up to the previous video, note that it still deforms almost the exact amount as the Opscore with similar shot placement.
    So then, what is one to conclude? Is it a bullshit test because he only fired one max-level round to a known weak area? Are all helmets just equally weak in the same area regardless of manufacturer, and if so, than why not simply conclude CPG is just as viable of an option as Opscore, or other “premium” brands?
    Why am I harping on helmets all of a sudden? Welll…

    ….Back to the plate “science” -
    Per your recommended YT channel, the video for his 3810 test is right on his front page. Can’t miss it. Current as of Jan 2022, so I’m guessing it’s a fairly new plate from 2021.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1gc1jPAo6Q
    Your counter of ShotStop GT2 is right here, also fairly current as of Dec 2021. That’s good - means hopefully plates were made around the same time, so you don’t have a random plate from “the good ol days” of one company or the other while the new ones are shit. Hopefully…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcO0S4bCQDU

    For starters, he doesn’t exactly do the same thing with each plate (or use fresh plates per caliber), so it’s hardly close to NIJ testing protocols. At minimum I expected him to use the same rifle for each set number of rounds fired into the same area, and already that did not happen.
    Then for the GT2 plate, he essentially “cheats” for the .308 rounds by sticking a soft armor backer behind the plate. The 3810 received no backer.
    Both plates slipped a round of 855A1 when hit in a “fair” area. I feel like this is acceptable as A1 is the new hotness for just this sort of thing.
    Both plates exhibited roughly the same BFD with 5.56 when (eventually) shot with the same guns. And without the backer, it seems the GT2 would have had worse BFD with .308 than the 3810. Or at least, the same as the worst of the 3810.
    Both plates, when chopped apart, were noted to have un-pressed internal ballistic layers. The argument could be made that the second 855A1 round that slipped past on the 3810 due to the unpressed layers “rolling” could also have randomly happened to the GT2 plate, since it is also unpressed, so I’d consider it a wash.
    Apparently Buffman considers it the same way too, as by his own admission the 3810 video, it made his top 5 plates. So, per your own guy…it’s not bad advice. But let’s continue on…

    Anecdotally, I have watched other armor “tests” where a 3810 was pelted with many rounds of 5.56 M193 out of a 16” gun and held up fine with medium BFD, and others where a GT2 plate was also pelted with the same rounds/same barrel length and by the end had disintegrated into a fuzzy pile of individual layers. Also other tests where the Hesco plate popped the backing padding off and started disintegrating under multiple hits.
    Or a wide variety of other “tests” over the years where a variety of other manufacturer's plates, when hit with .308 looked like they had essentially exploded internally.
    So, whose “scientific” tests should anyone take as God’s own truth? Or maybe bullets are just scary fast and hard to stop regardless? Rolling back to the opening exhibit, would you buy the CPG or the Opscore?

    As for the price of the GT2, they are already almost the same price as the 3810s, so the price diff is nearly moot. Especially if AS SHOWN in the video, you add a soft armor backer to avoid the BFD, in which case you are also nearing the same thickness as the 3810s as well tacking on an extra $200-250. It's also worth considering the long term storage/use/weather considerations of soft armor Vs hard. While this may be a moot consideration for some people, I try to avoid it if possible.

    That being said, I would be very interested to see more testing of the bare GT2 Vs backed GT2 Vs 3810 against .308 - if it can be demonstrably theoretically proven that the advantage could be turned toward the GT2 + 3A backers when hit with .308, I might be willing to amend my “wash” conclusion between the two plates.

    I say all this, and use your recommend to draw a direct comparison between the GT2 and 3810s, because I did consider the GT2s myself for a while - they were in the top 3 running between the Hesco and AT Armor house-brand offerings. In fact it may also surprise you that I have heard of Buffman before this - long story short, as presented in the linked vids, and elsewhere if one cares to scour the internet, the plates are nearly a wash between each other, so I chose what was more readily available for me to buy at the time, and recommended what I still see as more readily available. YMMV, as may anyone else's on the internet, per availability.

    Now, if I wanted max thin-ness, would I choose the L210 Hescos over a GT2? Hell naw. And that's why I did NOT recommend the L210s/M210s...
    Even though, with their known/alleged issues, people are still buying them. In fact AT Armor, one of the most knowledgeable armor guys I've ever talked to (ie, pestered the hell out of - the man has a seriously long-suffering soul and should be sainted... ), STILL carries them (and as of today 4/14/2022 the website says "in stock ships immediately")... so technically, anyone recommending them WOULD be well within their rights to say they are giving "good" advice, even though the L210s are known/alleged mediocre performers.
    So what gives? Does AT know something the rest of us don't? Have they sold out just to make a quick buck on a high-demand item? Or is everyone else on the internet to dumb to understand what a “special threat” plate means and keep testing them Vs rounds they’re not rated for?
    I, a lowly internet nobody, have NO IDEA, and so therefore in the interest of giving good information did not recommend an item that is less than confidence inspiring, even though something like the L210/M210 plates SHOULD be the go-to recommend as they are super thin, super light, and super cheap.

    And so, after this page of text, perhaps the OP can see what I’m getting at, rolling back up to the comments on the helmet tests compared to all of this.
    Also, single curve plates are meh as hell for comfort, even if you do not intend to live in your armor, and I rarely recommend them to anyone unless they are literally on a poverty-tier budget, live in Chicago, and need plates RTFN to get groceries...
    Seriously, once you go multi-curve, you won't want to go back.

    But perhaps this may shed some light on my "buy the 3810s and live your best life" comment, which, perhaps being the internet, came across a bit unclear as a bit tongue-in-cheek, per your previous comment of "buying plates is an extensive rabbit hole that I dont want to get into here...." .
    Well, sure, but it doesn't have to be, so I cut to the end of the road.


    So no, the advice I gave is not "terrible" it's exactly as your own information you shared presented it, therefore one can only conclude that either you did not correctly understand what I wrote, or you do not entirely understand the information you are sharing.
    I mean, really, you're saying I'm giving bad advice, then counter-recommending LAPG and Botach?

    For the OP, if you found my initial recommend misleading, my bad. It was not intended to stop you from doing your own research.
    "Once we get some iron in our souls, we'll get some iron in our hands..."

    "...A rapid, aggressive response will let you get away with some pretty audacious things if you are willing to be mean, fast, and naked."-Failure2Stop

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  3. #23
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    As the OP states, "a civilian looking for a minimalist load out", I fall into that category, regular Joe Citizen, wanting to have a degree of protection in case bad situation xyz arises. My version is light, discreet, and mobile. Also, what scenario are you anticipating? Abandoning your vehicle in the face of a blm/antifa mob? Stuck in a rural location due to ____. A simple small slingpack with 3-4 spare mags (21rd 9mm Glock mags), water bottle, flashlight, fixed blade, & Boo-Boo kit is what I have in my vehicle to complement my EDC pistol, G19RMR, plus a lightweight black zip-up hoodie. In the event of severe badness, should I need to abandon my vehicle, my goal is to be unnoticed as much as possible, blend with the unwashed masses and GTFO of area as quickly as possible. Wearing a plate carrier, carrying an AR or AR pistol just may attract unwanted attention from LE or covert elements watching the impasse or among the bad guys. If you expect the US to go all Ukraine, then yeah, load up, but for average Joe citizen on his daily commute/errand runs, perhaps discretion is called for. This works for me, as I reside in urban area. As the expression goes, your mileage may vary and your situation may warrant different requirements.

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