r/canadaguns May 01 '26

Gun and gear reviews Body armour?

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?

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u/GodsGiftToWrenching May 01 '26

Aratech plates are solid. I was going to reccomend MMD but, well rip

Also can confirm LOF has nice carriers

As for armor, definitely go with plates, soft is fine for ricochet and shrapnel but if theres an accident or a hill-a-billy isnt confirming whats beyond his target then you're pretty much wearing a heavy sweater vest, especially if he's blasting pee-paws 30-06. Plus the energy transfer of soft armor has to suck vs hard plate and a LOF carrier that has built in shock mitigation

1

u/Embarrassed-Gur1769 May 01 '26

What happened to MMD?

2

u/GodsGiftToWrenching May 01 '26

Their parent company or sister company got sued pretty hard and MMD closed by extension. If I recall correctly, either way they closed shop a couple years ago

1

u/Embarrassed-Gur1769 May 01 '26

I currently have MMD plates. Was the lawsuit in regard to quality issues? Or not meeting the NIJ standards they claimed?

1

u/GodsGiftToWrenching May 01 '26

I also have MMD plates, I couldn't resist the tiger stripe camouflage. I can't remember the specifics on what the legal issue was. I don't think it was about the NIJ testing as they said they were NIJ tested but never claimed to be certified.

Side note I way prefer the design of MMD ceramic which is a hex grid of many pieces of ceramic leading to a inherited better plate that would be stronger with consecutive hits vs the aratech that is one large price of ceramic leading to the entire plate being compromised with a hit

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u/SJHardware May 03 '26

That not how it works. Tiles are used before assembly it's heap and easy. 1pc ceramic is the gold standard. It allows for muti curved qirh out making gaps between each tile It also spreads the impact over a greater area. All 1pc ceramic plates are muti hit. Also 95% of ceramic tiles come from China. 70% of the world's 1pc eramic plates come from the EU and usa. So think about that as far as quality goes...