Buy cheap, buy twice – quality features for ballistic protective equipment

Ballistic protective equipment is no longer a product that can only be purchased from specialized dealers and manufacturers with official or private legitimation.

One store for tactical gear after another has sprung up on the Internet and protective vests, plate carriers and ballistic equipment have long since become a mass product for the general public. Be it for professional users from the police or military or private individuals who want to protect themselves. Simple soft ballistics to ballistics of the highest protection class SK 4 or Level 4 are just a click away on the Internet.

As ballistic protective equipment becomes more and more widespread, however, there is also a wide range of questions regarding the quality of this equipment and buyers are increasingly asking themselves what they should actually look out for in the numerous products on offer.

This article is therefore intended to provide assistance in distinguishing high-quality ballistic protective equipment from inferior products.

The first feature to recognize quality is the manufacturer of the ballistics. As with buying a car, there are well-known manufacturers who are known for reliable products and whose products can be purchased without hesitation.

The following questions can also be used to assess the manufacturer:

• Is the company itself a ballistics manufacturer or just a dealer?
• Is the company based in Germany or in the EU?
• Does the company supply authorities and armed forces?
• Are there references in trade journals or from customers?

In most cases, companies based in Germany or the EU are forced by law to keep the quality of their products high due to the applicable product safety regulations and the high requirements of the authorities. Furthermore, the European government market is characterized by quality competition, so that companies with government contracts in particular cannot let up on quality.

Deliveries to public authorities are usually accompanied by references that are published in trade journals or on the companies’ websites, which private customers can use as a guide.

Another important characteristic is whether the seller is a manufacturer or just a dealer. As the market for tactical gear has developed into a mass market in recent years, retailers in particular are under price pressure. A large amount of cheap ballistic protective equipment is produced in China in particular, which means that many retailers have seized the opportunity to buy there in order to secure a price advantage over the competition.

Companies with their own production facilities in Europe will not try to drive down prices by buying cheaply from outside Europe, but will try to maintain their market position by offering better designs and performance.

In addition, according to European and German product safety law¹ , manufacturers of ballistic equipment are always responsible for their products. However, dealers are not always, especially if the ballistics themselves were purchased from another dealer, which is not uncommon with ballistics imports.

Choosing a reliable manufacturer is therefore the first step in ensuring the quality of ballistics.

1) § 3, § 6 ProdSG

The be-all and end-all for assessing the quality of ballistic protective equipment is ballistic certification. This means not only that the ballistics have been properly tested, but also that the protection class matches the claimed performance.

It is not uncommon to find incredibly cheap offers for protective vests on the Internet, in which it is claimed that the protective performance of the vest fulfills, for example, SK 1. Protection class 1 according to the “Technical Guideline (TR) Ballistic Protective Vests” of the German police is the most common protection class in Germany in the area of protection against pistols and submachine guns.

If the customer now looks at the pictures of the protective vest on offer, he will sometimes notice that the label on the back does not say SK 1 for protection class, but NIJ IIIA. This is a protection class from the American standard for ballistic protective equipment, which is similar but not comparable in terms of performance and is often equated with SK 1, especially by dealers. The fact that it is not an SK 1 protective vest at all and that this equation is incorrect according to the principles of ballistic protection is of secondary importance.

The descriptions of the products often include phrases such as “Protection class NIJ IIIA corresponds to SK 1” to give the impression that the ballistics have a different protection class, but still meet the performance requirements of the protection class that is standard in Germany. An inspector at a German firearms office would tear his hair out at such statements.

Interested readers can read about the difference between the German and American protection standards in the following article.

In addition to the sometimes incorrect designation of ballistic protection classes, another common deficiency in ballistic protective equipment is incomplete certification. In Europe, the ballistics system is organized by the state and carried out by ballistics offices.

This means that protective vests intended for public authorities must be tested by these state ballistics offices. Although there are also private ballistics laboratories that carry out legitimate ballistics tests, these are not accepted by most authorities, so it makes sense for manufacturers to test directly at the ballistics offices. This means that the protective equipment can be sold to both public and private customers without any problems.

The ballistic test report provides information on proper certification by a ballistics authority or, if applicable, a private institute. The test report records all ballistic ballistic tests that were carried out to confirm the safe protection of a ballistic and to determine its performance.

The test report contains all the important information that a customer needs to know:

• Which protection class was tested?
• How often was it shot at?
• How many samples were shot at?
• At what distance was it fired?
• How were the samples fired? Were angled shots and heat and cold shots fired or only a 90° shot?
• Were all tests passed or were there any shoot-throughs?
• How high are the trauma values, i.e. the residual energy that affects the wearer after a hit?
• Were durability tests carried out, such as a drop test with subsequent firing, or a long-term test in a tumbler?

The manufacturer or developer of a ballistic system does not simply come up with the number and requirements of the tests themselves, but are precisely specified by the ballistic protection standards and the respective protection classes.

However, it may be that the standard requirements of a ballistic protection standard are deviated from because the client of a certification wants this. This may, for example, involve special ballistic protection, i.e. additional ballistic protection that goes beyond the requirements of the protection class actually tested.

This is where the “+” comes from that buyers see on some protective vests. An SK 1+ therefore usually means that a special test was carried out in addition to the SK 1 certification. Modified test conditions with regard to temperature or an additional shot can also be added.

As the reader can now imagine, such extensive ballistic tests at a state proof house or private institute are not inexpensive. Ballistic tests according to the TR (Technical Guideline) for ballistic protective vests cost several thousand euros, depending on the ballistics authority, and several tens of thousands of euros according to the American NIJ 0101.06 standard.

Proper certification of a protective vest is therefore expensive. For this reason, only established manufacturers usually fully certify their ballistics.

Dealers, especially of cheap ballistics imported from outside the EU, often do not go to the trouble of full certification. Just because a ballistics dealer states that the ballistics have been tested in accordance with SK 1 does not mean that the full prescribed test has been carried out in accordance with the technical directive.

Often only simple single shots are carried out with just one shot pattern for a few hundred euros in order to sell ballistics as “tested”. The fact that a single shot is not sufficient in terms of statistical variance to confirm a guaranteed level of protection remains to be seen. Other test conditions such as angled shots, temperature shots and the aforementioned durability tests are also omitted.

There is therefore no guarantee that the protective vest really offers the necessary protection and ultimately represents a deception of the customer at the expense of their physical integrity.

Even if we have a properly tested NIJ IIIA vest, mis-selling it as SK 1, to use the example above, can still have consequences.

One of the main differences between the TR and the NIJ standard are the different trauma values. The NIJ standard prescribes a maximum trauma value of 44 mm¹ without differentiating between the type of protective vest. This is the maximum indentation that a hit can leave in the body. It is generally stated that trauma values between approx. 20 – 40 mm ensure survival and removal from the danger zone and trauma values below 20 mm ensure continued operational capability.

In plain language, this means that a protective vest with a trauma value of over 20 mm only ensures the survival of the wearer. However, the wearer is

then no longer fit for use. Only with trauma values below 20 mm is it possible to maintain operational capability. The TR therefore distinguishes between underjackets with trauma values up to 40 mm and overjackets with trauma values below 20 mm² in order to take this fact into account.

If, for example, an official customer buys an NIJ IIIA vest that was sold to him as “complies with SK 1” in the expectation of remaining combat-capable despite being hit, he may be in for a nasty surprise. Because such a vest will not keep the wearer fit for combat.

1) NIJ 0101.06 Table 4. P-BFS performance test summary
2) TR Ballistische Schutzweste Nr. 4.4

When purchasing ballistic protection products, it is therefore extremely important that the ballistic test protocol is requested from the dealer or manufacturer beforehand and that the customer ensures that all necessary tests and firings have been carried out in accordance with the respective ballistic protection standard. Established manufacturers also often make these available for inspection directly on their website.

Since 2018, the new EU regulation for personal protective equipment VO 2016/425 has also introduced new regulations regarding the product safety of ballistic protective equipment¹. Ballistic protective equipment is now category III PPE (personal protective equipment).

For ballistics that have been sold to purely private individuals in the EU since 2020 at the latest, a complete EU type examination must also be carried out by a notified body in the EU². The ballistics are then marked with the CE mark and other information. Only then may a ballistic be sold to purely private

customers in the EU. If a ballistic is sold to purely private customers without a type examination, this constitutes a breach of European and German product safety law and the manufacturer or dealer is liable to prosecution.

However, private customers with a certificate from the authorities can continue to purchase ballistics that have not been type-tested³.

To summarize, a proper and complete ballistic certification, preferably from a state certification authority, offers the greatest guarantee that the protective product on offer is a high-quality solution.

The buyer should always check the ballistic test protocol before purchasing to ensure that all tests have been carried out.

1) Appendix I VO 2016/425
2) Art. 19 c) VO 2016/425
3) Art. 2 a) VO 2016/425

If a protective vest or ballistic is properly certified, certain information must be provided on the ballistic label in accordance with both the ballistic protection standard and the above-mentioned EU PPE Regulation¹. Various information can be obtained from these details. For this reason, here is an example of the information that a manufacturer or retailer must include on ballistics:

1. Manufacturer
2. Year and month of manufacture
3. Production number
4. Protection class
5. Number of the test report
6. Name of the test centers
7. Model name and size chart
8. Care symbols
9. Expiry of warranty period
10. Body side
11. The CE mark (for type-tested ballistics)
12. The number of the notified body that carried out the type examination (for type-tested ballistics)

Based on this information, the user can gain a comprehensive impression of the quality of the ballistics and check almost all of the points mentioned so far. Does the ballistics come from a well-known manufacturer? Does the protection class match the advertised class? Does the ballistics have a type examination? Correct labeling provides information on these and other questions.

1) Appendix II Nr. 1.4 VO 2016/425

Another important fact that buyers of ballistic protective equipment should pay attention to is the stated guarantee. Not only does the manufacturer’s warranty say something about the quality, as longer warranties usually go hand in hand with higher quality, but also about proper certification.

For ballistics certified according to the German TR for ballistic protective vests, the manufacturer must provide a 10-year guarantee¹ on the protective

properties. The American NIJ standard does not specify the length of the warranty. The manufacturer only has to specify a warranty period.

Therefore, a long warranty period is not only a sign of quality, but also an indication of proper and complete ballistic certification.

1) TR Ballistische Schutzwesten Nr. 4.2

The world of ballistic protection can be a confusing one at times. This short guide is therefore intended to help you find high-quality ballistics for both professional users and private customers among the numerous products on offer, ensuring that you always return home safe and sound.