Armor is a life-preserving piece of equipment. Before making a decision, you need to take a lot of factors into account, and not just cost. Armor also pretty much sucks to wear. It’s hot, bulky, heavy, and makes doing anything a bit more difficult.
You’ve already commented some on the threat level you may expect to see, which is good. However, one thing to take into account is that here CONUS M855 is a fairly common round. This is a bit of a problem, because M855 was designed with the express purpose of defeating steel plate body armor. Even just going down to the local rifle range may expose you to M855…and in the SHTF situation that many use to justify the purchase of armor, you WILL be facing such a round.
In my research-for CONUS use, the end user needs to be concerned with stopping M193 and M855 5.56mm threats, and Mild Steel Core 7.62x39mm threats. Anything else is a bonus.
The problem with this is that NIJ '06 's level system isn’t well designed to take into account common CONUS threats. Level IV should stop M855 (but isn’t expressly tested for that round). Going from Level III to Level IV brings with it a lot more weight, and thickness. This is why if you’ve been paying attention to the armor market lately, you’ll see a lot more special threat plates being released-where a plate is tested against precise threats, but it is not, “NIJ Certified.” A prime example of this is the Velocity Systems PBZ plate, but there are others out there if you know what you’re looking for. Don’t get so wrapped up about what level a plate is, and be more concerned about what specific threats it can stop.
All that being said…I’m not a huge fan of Steel Plate armor for several reasons.
- Testing/Threat Levels-Just because you see a YouTube video of a random plate being shot, there are a ton of variables that go into properly testing armor. Everything plays a role in this-plate position, backing, distance from shooter, and more. If you want to see the level of detail involved in testing, you can check out the the NIJ guide on ballistic testing (https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/223054.pdf). Ballistic testing is SCIENCE-which means it needs to be controlled, and reproducible.
Note-I’ve read over AR500 Armor’s page, and did see that their plates were tested to NIJ .06 standards by HP White. That goes a long way to helping my concerns there. But, it is worth noting that testing was documented only up to Level III standards.
Before you buy armor-ask the maker who tested it, to what standard. If they are not forthcoming with this, you may not want to spend your money with them. Further-any armor that is NIJ certified will be present in the NIJ’s listing, which you can find here:
http://www.nij.gov/topics/technology/body-armor/Pages/compliant-ballistic-armor.aspx
- Shape/Size-Most steel plates are not available in SAPI sizes, but are often 10x12" shooters cut or the like. SAPI calls for very specifically defined sizes. As an example, a Medium is 9.5"x12.5", and a Large would be 10.125"x13.25". This means that if you have a 10x12 plate and a Medium SAPI sized carrier, your plate is going to be a touch too wide, and just a touch too short. In light of this, said plate may not fit in some carriers (too wide), and some of those it will fit in, it will not sit so that the top edge of the plate covers the ascending aorta, etc.
…I may have allegedly ripped a seam on a Medium SAPI carrier trying to cram a 10x12 plate into it…
The other part is that some steel plates are flat. This isn’t exactly good because the human torso is not flat. At minimum, I’d want a single curve plate, and optimally a multi-curve design. This is for comfort, as well as keeping the entire system closer to the body so it doesn’t snag on anything.
- Weight-That AR500 plate in a 10x12 Lvl III clocks in at 7.5lbs per plate. Add in a carrier at ~2lbs, pouches at another 1lb, and then a few loaded mags…and all of a sudden you’re at 20lbs+ of suck and hate sitting on your shoulders. With some looking, you can find armor that comes in at a lot less weight, for minimal cost penalty. A good example is the Armour Wear PE 3+ plate plate. $189 gets you a 3.9lb plate that will stop M855. All of a sudden, you’ve cut your armor weight burden by almost half.
http://armour-wear.com/hard-panels/17-hard-panel-10-x-12-pe-lvl-3plus.html
(Yes, I know, they are 10x12’s…no free lunches. My personal favorite SAPI dimensioned plates are the Tencate 2000SA & 6400SA, the VelSys PBZ’s, and Tyr’s LV-1191’s. but those are all more than you’re wanting to spend).
Anyways, that’s all I’ve got for the moment. I hope you make your choice carefully, and in full consideration of all the facts.