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Tex1961 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 28, 2021 6:53 pm

Beiruty wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:30 am More than enough. Nex order, I would go with lightweight ones.

LOL. when you’re right you’re right. Got the set in and immediately put it up for sale. Sold the next day. Going with Kevlar this time.

It's a real shame no one offered yall advice to avoid steel armor earlier in the thread.

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Sun Oct 25, 2020 12:36 pm The main reason why I have not yet invested in a plate carrier and plates:E1C27CEE-B1FF-498A-8FC5-F589F0165C70.jpeg



I can barely stand the weight of my shoulder holster or my lightweight chest rig. Heck, I can’t walk to my car without considerable pain. There’s no way in hades that I can bear the weight of a plate carrier.

Sorry about your health problems. Your issues may make a PC not worth it, but if anyone else without back problems is worried about weight, that minimalist Grey Ghost carrier I posted above weighs only 11 lbs. 3+ polyethylene plates, 2 loaded mags, IFAK.

It can be done in a lightweight way if thats something you need. Just something to keep in mind, you don’t have to go 25+ lbs with level 4 plates, tons of mags, hydration, etc.

Took some pictures to answer a question on another forum and thought I'd come back to this one with a few extra thoughts.

Two ways to do things:

1) Traditional molle attachment system. Secure, but can be a pain to get set up initially, not super customizable once it's set up.
2) Velco/buckle attachment using placards. Much easier to change things up quickly.

Example of each: Ferro Slickster (not complete yet) on the left, Grey Ghost Minimalist on the right.



Ferro with placard removed:



Anything that uses the QASM buckles and velco backing can be put on a carrier let up like the Slickster. So if you have ARs, AKs, .308s, PCC....someone makes a placard for it, and you can change out what you can put on your carrier in seconds. I have a 3 AR mag placard from Esstac on mine right now, with an additional torniquet holder. As well, you can completely remove the placard and run the PC slick with just plates and nothing attached if low profile protection is what you're after.

Both are good options. Start with buying a carrier, then get plates that fit it, accessories that work with it, and go from there. IMO.

Tex1961 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:58 pm As @rafe said, if the situation gets that extreme I'll have more trouble on my hands than the weight of my kit-

That being said, I've been looking myself for some months, but my reason really is just for range use with new students...

There are two situations extreme enough I'm putting on armor.

1) a home invasion (if I have time, which I'm hoping to have thanks to reinforced doors and loud dogs)

2) unrest/riots/etc

While 1 is going to be over and done with real quick, situation 2 could be a multi hour or even multi day event. Weight is going to matter. Even for situation 1, weight matters if you're going to spend any time training in your armor, and if you've never shot a rifle wearing armor before...you're going to want to practice.

As I said previously, I went the AR500 route first time around because it was cheaper and it wasn't going to be a high use item, so I didn't think weight mattered. My PC only had 4 mags on it, two AR500 plates, and a small IFAK. It was 29 lbs. I almost never trained in it, and even an hour of extended wear would be a major pain...and there's serious questions about how it would deal with XM855 or even XM193 at decent velocities, which is a pretty darn common ammo to not stop.

You don't have to go the super expensive, fancy cut, level 4 ceramics. I think RMAs polyethelene/ceramic level 4 plates are like 140 bucks each and 9 lbs each. Not light, but still enough lighter than my AR500 stuff and more likely to stop common threats than the steel plates were to make it worth the difference if you're going for a first time purchase.

Otherwise you're going to wind up doing what I did and just rebuy quality the second time around and have a cheap and heavy trainer/loaner set.

Just trying to save others money by warning yall of the dumb stuff I did......

I started out doing the AR500 route. Then I never trained in it, shot in it or used it because my plate carrier with 4 mags, med kit and 2 heavy steel plates in it was 30 lbs.

Spend the small amount of extra it takes to go Hesco from the beginning and get a PC you'll actually wear and train in. In the long run, you'll save money over doing it the AR500 steel armor way like I did.

My level 4 rig now weighs half of what my ar500 set up did, has a higher NIJ rating, and would have only cost $200 or so more if I'd done it from the beginning instead of trying to cheap out then having to buy something lighter and more protective.