A Beginners Guide To Body Armor

By Author: James Melia
Total Articles: 6
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Different pieces of body armor are designed to be used at different times, for that reason it's important to determine whether you'll be using your body armor beneath or over your clothes.

Covert styles of body armor are created to be worn under clothes. As a result they are normally built to be as slender and as light in weight as they can be, and are designed to end up being hidden when worn below clothes. These types of body armor are commonly made of moisture wicking materials that will help to keep the person wearing them cool, and are often produced in lighter colours than other kinds of body armor.

Covert body armor will be worn by people who prefer the fact they are wearing body armor to go undetected. This is often people such as close protection officers, undercover agents and door supervisors, as an overt type of body armor wouldn't be practical for them.

Overt forms of body armor are designed to be worn over your clothes, and as a consequence they tend to be made out of tougher materials than those used for covert pieces of body armor. The idea of overt body armor is that it is recognizable ...
... to others, and as a result traditional overt body armor covers are usually black, but there are various other colors that are available. Quite often overt types of body armor will come with high visibility markings, or be manufactured entirely from high visibility materials, meaning that the person wearing them stands out.

Police forces worldwide use overt types of body armor, as do security firms and also security staff. An overt piece of body armor can often be a deterrent, because it can help identify an individual of authority quickly in a group.

Body armor has become widely used in the past twenty five years, for 2 major reasons. Firstly, early forms of body armor were heavy and rigid, however innovations in technology means that the body armor we wear these days offers high levels of protection, while at the same time being light-weight, flexible and comfortable even when worn for long periods of time. The 2nd cause for the rise in body armor use is because, unfortunately, it's starting to be essential in several types of work because of the increased risks we face in modern society.

When you've decided if you'll need a covert or overt type of body armor, it is then important to decide on what protection levels you will need. When deciding on an item of body armor it is important to take into account what kinds of risks that you might face, simply because different types of body armor will offer protection against different types of risks.

A bullet proof vest is the most well recognized piece of body armor available. This kind of body armor is created to stop a bullet by "catching" it in a web of super strong fibers, and stop it from passing through the jacket itself. They can provide a number of levels of protection, which will offer the person wearing them defense against low powered firearms up to high powered Magnums.

Another popular form of body armor is stab resistant vests. Plenty of people think that if a piece of body armor can stop a round then it can easily stop a blade, but unfortunately this is not the case. The reason being that a blade penetrates fabric in different ways to a bullet, and consequently a normal bullet resistant jacket will not protect its wearer from a blade based assault.

In recent years spike resistant vests have also become obtainable on the body armor market. These vests provide the wearer protection from spiked weapons such as needles and also syringes, which can very easily slip through the weave within the material of a bullet or stab proof piece of body armor.

With such a selection of body armor available you need to think about which kind is correct for yourself. If you're doing work in an area with absolutely no gun crime but substantial levels of knife crime then it's pointless wearing an item of body armor that will only protect from firearms. Similarly a knife resistant item of body armor will be useless when you are in danger of being shot.

However modern kinds of body armor are now able to provide multi-threat protection. Because of this they'll protect the wearer from different kinds of assaults, for example there is now body armor that is both bullet and stab resistant, and even bullet, stab and spike proof varieties.

The most critical aspect when purchasing your body armor is to ensure it's going to protect you. Make sure you have the appropriate kind of protection for the dangers you are going to face, as you can not put a price on your life.

James Melia is a content writer for simplebodyarmor.wordpress.com. Our collection includes a wide varieties of body armor, bullet proof vest and stab resistant vests.