Adept Armor’s Stand-Alone Rifle Plates

As I approach the transition from Law Enforcement to civilian or contractor work, I realized I was going to turn in my issued armor. Our issued plates have come a long way in the last 20 plus years, improving our protection and getting lighter. My first plates were heavy steel level IV rifle rated plates with a rubberized coating, weighing 7.25 lbs each. Current set is a Level III made from Honeywell’s Spectra ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) composite fabric, weighing 2.2 lbs each. When you start looking for your own to purchase the value really comes to mind. What am I going to get for the price? What does the “ballistic” ratings really mean? I went looking for a good value that will keep the weight down and the protection up.

I realized this was going to be an investment and most armor is only warrantied for 5 years. It can still be effective beyond that period with proper storage and treating them with care. Keep them out of extreme temperatures and protect them from impacts. You can get them re-inspected every five years. Just like everything else, take care of your kit and it will take care of you. This might mean not doing every bit of your training in them. First thing I looked at was the protective ratings. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has been the industry standard recognized by military and law enforcement for as long as I have carried a gun. The current rating system is NIJ 0101.06 (as in version 6) was published in 2008, it rated and tested armor against the then current threats to US military and law enforcement. The NIJ has since been working on a new version NIJ 0101.07 (version 7) that was supposed to be originally published in late 2019, then promised in 2021.

To avoid drilling down a rabbit hole, I will attempt to simplify the ratings specifically for rifle rated plates. Version 6 listed the plates as Level III and Level IV, where Level III can stop 7.62×51 ball and 5.56mm M193 and Level IV could stop up to 30.06 armor piercing. Armor rated to stop 5.56mm M855 Penetrator (green tip), a current risk to soldiers and officers was being listed as Level III+ or Level III++ (depending on manufacture, get in there and read their specifics) meaning they stopped more than the NIJ Level III rating. I found that some manufacturers have both a Level III+ and a Level III++ and it depends on how they tested the M855 or write the descriptions. Do your homework and read through the manufacturers support documents. One company listed a Level III+ plate as defeating M855 at a weight of 2.5 lbs but then when you looked at their own threat classifications it only listed their Level III++ as being rated for M855 and weighed 4.1lbs. The new proposed NIJ 0101.07 version list Rifle Threat Levels in RF, RF1 is equivalent to Level III, RF2 is the new Level III+ and Level III++ specifically defeating multiple hits from M855 and lastly RF3 equivalent to Level IV. Here are two different articles to help understand the versions better: NIJ and Engarde..”