Surplus Irish Body Armour?

[Templar Knight]

A thread from the past...tagged for interest....

[Mercenary Geer]

If you are serious about this why would you ever trust your life to some surplus second hand

Any chance of it stopping the ever dangerous shots of Irish whiskey?

[Sevensixtwoby39]

If you are serious about this why would you ever trust your life to some surplus second hand

I'm curious to how this old body armour holds up?

[Frontier Firearms]

Shot 2 with a 30-06 for fun, both were stopped. These are not intended to be used for protection of life anymore.

[rickspeed]

Bought mine about 1 1/2 years ago...
Cut the plates out (ceramic) . The plates were in perfect condition and the vest was in very clean and like new.
And custom cut out the Kevlar soft plates, wrapped the edges in Gorilla tape.

FYI: purchased it in XXL

Now sitting in a Condor plate carrier in A-TACS AU.

Do it....well worth the money and time.

It's a Ceramic plate with IIIA soft body armor (acording to Frontier)

I bought a set and yes, you can cut the panels out, then cut the plates and soft armor out as well.

I cut mine out because I wanted to inspect the plates for impact damage. The plates themselves are glued to the soft armor, so I put them back into the nylon panels and stuffed them into a Condor plate carrier. The plates themselves are very large and the front has "operator cuts" but just barely. It will prevent you from getting a "proper" isosceles stance/grip when using a pistol but nothing that is unmanageable. The back plate is a large rectangle with a "hump" in the middle for what I guess would be your spine when you sit down.

Mine was issued and did not smell, but it did have what appeared to be coffee spilled on the front if it.

Quite happy with the purchase I might add!

I'd definitely recommend anyone wanting to get started in Body armor to look here. Once I save up for polymer plates, I will likely replace the ceramic ones.

[Noob_]

Like going to a scrap yard for brakes for the family mini van .... Why?

[rickspeed]

My question as well....condoms prevent mini vans...

Really.. mini vans.....?

[Sevensixtwoby39]

Bought mine about 1 1/2 years ago...
Cut the plates out (ceramic) . The plates were in perfect condition and the vest was in very clean and like new.
And custom cut out the Kevlar soft plates, wrapped the edges in Gorilla tape.

FYI: purchased it in XXL

Now sitting in a Condor plate carrier in A-TACS AU.

Do it....well worth the money and time.

I seperated the ceramic plates from the kevlar panels but I'm having some trouble cutting the kevlar panel. Did you cut yours with a special fabric cutter? Thanks.

[rickspeed]

Not going to get all " Martha Stewart " on you ...........but here it goes.

Tools:
Box cutter, with multiple blades ( 3X) Canadian Tire.
Industrial scissors
Gorilla Tape.
Sharpie felt pen
6 pack of you favorite suds

I basically started by removing all the stitching which binds the vest together. (box cutter)
1st can of beer
Looking at it from now the inside of the vest I removed the ceramic plates front / back.
2nd beer.
You can feel all the Kevlar padding, start cutting the material away from the Kevlar vest. ( scissors / box cutter ).
3rd beer.
Take your ceramic plates and trace out the shape of plates against the Kevlar....The Kevlar is bound together with tons of stitching, you can position the plate where it can be the most effective, not much fraying will occur.
After desired location...measure twice cut once. This is when a new blade works very well.
4th beer.
Apply tons of force to cut the soft Kevlar shaped plates.
Beers 5 & 6.
Cover the cut edges with Gorilla tape...
Done... and out of beer.

Cheers

[Sevensixtwoby39]

Thanks a lot =).

Ps I might post some pictures of the vest dissection later on