Body armour?

[u/pooshlinger]

Im wondering if anyone has much knowledge or experience on body armour in Canada, specifically BC.
I do alot of shooting on crown land and in my area theres alot of other shooters in close proximity, so Im mainly just concerned about ricochet or stray rounds, or the odd crazy hillbilly when Im out in the forest.

Im leaning towards a soft vest as opposed to plates just for more coverage and being concealable if need be. A carrier would be cool and Ill end up buying one eventually but in a situation that I need to be wearing a vest, it screams “shoot me”.
However soft armour really only goes up to NIJ 3A. I like the idea of level 3 plates in a carrier just for the fact that 99% of shooters out there are shooting rifle rounds and shotguns, protection from just pistol rounds is kind of irrelevant in this situation.

On another note, Ive heard LOF defence is good, wondering what other options there are out there and where I can find them. Im aware that Canarmor is a heaping load of chinese shite.

Soft vest for peace of mind or blow the budget on a nice carrier and some plates?

[u/Dry-Syrup-3058]

I’d highly recommend the plates. I have a couple sets of hesco plates for work and I love them, they’re very light and comfortable to wear for the level protection they provide.

[u/pooshlinger → u/Dry-Syrup-3058]

In terms of level of protection, what would be your recommendation? “Special threat” seems to offer more protection at a cheaper cost than level 3.

[u/Pho-fo-Sho → u/pooshlinger]

Special Threat plates such as the L211 won't be able to stop larger caliber (.308).

They're rated for intermediate rounds with armor piercing/penetrator around (M855A1 or x39 MSC). In addition, the reason why it's cheaper is due to construction, like being single curve as opposed to multicurve and having less polythene to control BFD, hence that's why it technically not rated for large calibres.

I'd get lvl 3+ / R2 for the best of both worlds.