How Do You Know If You are Choosing
the Right Soft Body Armor (Bulletproof Vests)?

Like every product niche in existence, the soft body armor (aka bulletproof vests) industry will try to tell you that their particular soft body armor and tactical vests are the best. You can go from vendor to vendor and they all start by telling you how their bulletproof vest is the best. Few start by telling you how to pick your soft body armor of bulletproof vest in a way that makes sense.

Of course, the purpose of all soft body armor, tactical vests, and bulletproof vests is to provide enhanced survivability in what would be considered mortal combat or high death potential environments were bullets, knives and explosives are the main death threat.

All users of soft body armor, hard body armor, and tactical vests know that there really is no bulletproof vest. There are a number of materials, mostly Kevlar based and of various weights and density that provide “bulletproof” protection. By adding plates (thus weight), the level of protection for any tactical vest can be improved.

When choosing your vest, you want to first consider level of protection required. You can review these in earlier posts. These levels for soft body armor and tactical vests are well established by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

You determine the level needed by analyzing the threat. For instance, a prison employee is most likely to face a sharp or blunt object threat, not a firearms threat. This doesn’t exclude a firearms threat, but makes the primary consideration knife and spike related injuries.

Other forces, such as the Army or Marine Corps, face primarily high velocity, penetrating, armor piercing, and explosive shrapnel threats. It does not exclude knife and spike threats for close quarter combat.

But, as you can see, your starting point for choosing the proper level of protection is significantly different. Use the NIJ standards as your starting point. If you use upfront cost as your starting point, I can almost guarantee you will choose the wrong soft body armor (bulletproof vests) or tactical vest.

In the next issue, we will look at another aspect of choosing the best soft body armor for your protection.

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- Daniel Gonzalez
- Wayne Sharer

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To most people, soft body armor used in police force and military tactical vests, is somewhat just pure magic that works. A soft piece of cloth that stops or significantly halts the movement of and otherwise deadly bullet.

What makes this soft material, this soft body armor work? It is a very strong, specially woven net of material.

It is like a tennis racket. The racket has a woven network of strings fastened tightly together in its head. When the tennis player swings the racket and hits the ball, it hits the woven face of the racket.

The energy of the ball is absorbed and dispersed through the net from the point of contact of the ball and the woven net. The energy is spread from the single point of impact throughout the entire racket head.

With all the interacting laces of the tennis racket head pulling together, it completely absorbs the force of the ball and the force of the swing provided by the tennis player. This is a lot of force, but the net does not break (at least not with first contact).

Soft body armor is just a very small, and tightly woven version of the same principle. Of course a bullet, is moving much faster, and this is why a soft body armor or tactical vest (bulletproof vests) use such a finely and tightly woven material.

Most common is the kevlar vest. Dupont produces the Kevlar material used in soft body armor vests and there are several others. The most Ready 2 Protect has produced a vest far superior to anything imagined by kevlar vest soft body armor users.

Ready 2 Protect is also perfecting the implanting of nanotubes in soft body armor and tactical vests. Though Ready 2 Protects vest already out perform anything on the market in protection level, weight, lifetime costs, and waterproof capability, the addition of the nano tubes will make their vest unbeatable.

I know this was quick, and I hope it gave a quick and easy to understand insight into soft body armor and bulletproof vests.

Please leave your commments below

And thanks again for joining us.

- Daniel Gonzalez
- Wayne Sharer

See the best vest anywhere in live tests by clicking here

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