With all these wars and stuff happening, body armor. The 2020 riots and the kickoff of the war in Ukraine put huge stresses on armor supply and “raw” materials to make armor. Israel is next

I have a M951 that’s been adapted to use the Malkoff E2HT scout heads (powered by 16650 batteries).  It’s got a tight beam that’s perceptively not very bright indoors but it really does shine outdoors for further distances. For closer distances, I think it’s better to have something that offers more flood rather than jumping on the pure candela train. Cloud defensive offers a good balance with flood and throw, and much easier on the eyes than lights using cooler tint heads especially in heralding weather conditions or just overall spore and water particles in the air at night

Aside that I’m a sucker for warm/neutral tint lights, I’ve found that the Lumens factory neutral white bulbs are a great alternative over the Malkoff M61 drop-in bulb especially for a little less cost.

I’ve also used some handheld lights on the AR. An Armytek Dobermann Pro and a Nitecore P20i. Both are fantastic at throw and spill for both indoors and outdoors but they’re limited to momentary clicky caps on 1” ring mounts. There are wire pressure switches for them but I have not tried them but I don’t think I’d trust them either. You can almost never go wrong with the clicky cap besides the limitations to ambidexterity. The P20i is a bit hefty though.
 Pretty soon I’m hoping to grab a couple Eagtac (Eagletac) lights and see how they hold up.

There’s no eruption nor is one imminent. However it will not be surprising if it did erupt since volcanic eruptions happen during/after heightened seismic activity, but that doesn’t mean that heightened activity with no eruption over the past decades is just wash.

In other words, those living on the big island should continue as normal but should also be prepared in the event it does erupt. Things can change on a short notice, after all.

Nothing particularly wrong with using steel for weight/endurance training and use ceramic for range/“real” practical purposes, so as long as the training regime is conducted in such a way that it doesn’t destroy your knees on the long term. Training with heavier weights makes lighter equipment (ceramics)  feel even lighter and puts less of an impact on endurance.

For actual use as body armor, nah. That’s bad insurance.

Ceramics are tougher than people think. Not that you should deliberately be smacking them and dropping them or getting hit by a car while wearing them. Those plates are gonna be on you as a part of you, so treat yourself with care. Much like a car, you take care of it and it will take care of you for many many years.
Even if there’s a crack, a well made ceramic plate should be laminated with strong adhesives and thus the plate will hold together enough that there wont be much significance in performance degradation from a crack.
As for age, it shouldn’t matter so as long as they weren’t horribly abused and neglected. There are Vietnam chicken plates and 90s era ranger plates that stop their intended threats.

100% PE (UHMWPE) plates are not really the way to go. PE is not known to reliably perform well against stuff like M855, so you’d be playing with fire regardless if they’re marketed to stop it. However, certain PE plates may be applicable in certain circumstances or requirements with some caveats.

There’s not much reason to stick with steel these days. It’s a obsolete body armor material with risk and downsides outweighing the benefits. In any case, go for multicurve ceramic plates. The money you don’t spend on steel plates and rifles/accessories that only see the light of day a couple times a year helps invest in ceramics.


As for helmets, just stick to a reputable US manufacture such as Opscore/Gentex, Highcom, custom armor group, revision/galvion, whatever flavor of milsurp ACH/ECH helmet as long as it’s not compromised and you put a upgraded helmet liner than standard ones.

Really for any AR, build your stuff with the right parts and you won’t really need an adjustable gas block. It’s all more or less a band aid for industry inconsistencies.

Honestly body armor has become a bit stagnant. While research for newer materials to tackle modern threats (which is also kinda stagnating) continues, I don’t see the viability to move away from the current ceramic armor technology.

Maybe at the least government contracted armor companies and researchers in those companies will expand on the ceramic armor tech. There’s plenty of research finding how how to improve the construction of the ceramic plates such as the arrangement of the UHMWPE sheets, monolithic vs mosaic ceramic cores,…etc. but I don’t think we’ll see much from the armor industry for a while.
The slowly growing fad is the flexible rifle armor. Stealth Armor Systems makes a good one and it can be custom shaped but even the designer says that it has its limitations on what threats it can handle.


Some certain companies have coined titanium armor but really it’s no different from steel plates, that being the result of spalling and ricochet and excessively heavy. You can exclude that from being an option. Rumor is that there has been a casualty with the steel or titanium Velocity Systems ULV plates, and those who are using that armor system have been issued ceramic versions of the ULV as a result. Anything that’s performs similarly to steel and titanium where they redirect the mass of the projectile, is not worth it.

Taking away one of the oldest (although refined) tool of mankind. Geez

RMA has plates designed specifically for women. I believe servicewomen still use sapi/esapi plates just like every other service member but don’t take my word for that.

Stealth Armor Systems Hexar HFRAS (sapi/shooters cut) is a good option too but expensive.

Plate carrier option doesn’t really matter as long as it’s a decent brand. The plate is the more important part.

That’s more of a basic safety issue. I don’t think it would make much of a difference for any other firearm if you don’t drop the mag and check the chamber a few times briefly.