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June 9, 2022 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
45:00
Revolutionary USA-made body armor: Hoplite Armor interviewed by Mike Adams
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Welcome to the Health Ranger Report here on Brighteon.tv.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighteon, and as you know, we built this platform and funded it with millions of dollars, literally, so that we can bring you interviews that you can't find anywhere else.
And today, we're joined by a very special guest, a new guest.
You've never seen him before on my channel.
His name is Lyman Bishop, and he's the founder and CEO of HopLightArmor.com.
We'll put it on screen for you if you want to check it out.
Now, he is an extraordinary individual.
Not only is he pro-America and pro-Liberty, but he's also a mechanical engineer, one of the few in the industry making extraordinary body armor products for civilians.
And I've got some samples here we're going to show you during the interview, and I'm just blown away by how light and yet effective these body armor products are.
They're the best I've ever seen, and I have a bit of a collection.
We're going to talk to Lyman Bishop.
Stay with us.
We'll be right back after this break with that full interview.
All right, welcome back, folks.
Mike Adams here, Breitian.tv.
Now we're going to welcome Lyman Bishop, the CEO and founder of HopLightArmor.com.
We'll put it on screen for you.
Lyman, sir, welcome to the show.
It's an honor to have you on.
Thank you very much, Mike.
It's an honor to be on your show.
Well, I'm just grateful that you're out there, that you are doing what you do.
You're designing and manufacturing extraordinary ballistic protection, well, body armor as it's traditionally known, for civilians to protect themselves from a world that is increasingly insane.
We've seen more shootings and stabbings and people being attacked with baseball bats and all kinds of things.
But give us a quick brief of who you are, hoplite armor, how you got into this.
Well, as you said, I'm one of very few mechanical engineers in the ballistics industry.
And that's actually how I was able to get into the industry.
Historically, this industry has been very closed to anyone that's not military or police or prior military or police.
But being a mechanical engineer, having expertise in 3D CAD design software like SolidWorks.
That's what I use.
I use SolidWorks too.
Oh, do you?
Well, it's a great format.
You know, there's other programs, as I'm sure you're aware, that, you know, take things a little bit further.
But for my purposes, SolidWorks is plenty good.
And, you know, it's widely recognized across multiple industries as sort of the standard.
So my expertise in SolidWorks Sort of served to open the doors to the industry.
I was able to bring things to the people in positions of, we'll say, influence within the industry that they had never seen before.
You know, 3D CAD models, 3D printing, various prototypes, and new and unusual designs.
You know, when I first got into this industry, and there's a bit of a story that goes with it.
So back in 2000, I was first attracted to this industry by way of a DARPA project that came out.
It was called Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation.
I remember that.
Yeah, we covered that.
You remember that?
Yeah, there were five goals here.
What they were trying to do was...
Increase a soldier's speed, lethality, carrying capacity, survivability, and endurance.
And so as part of that, I put together a white paper.
I put together some rough designs that outlined this exoskeletal system that did all the things they were asking for.
But by the time I was done with it, I looked at it and thought, gosh, I've sort of designed full-body exoskeletal armor.
You know, and this is way back in 2001.
The world was in no way ready for any of this.
But I created my prototypes.
I presented them to numerous companies within the industry, and starting back in 2005.
So this took multiple years, you know, just to bring things to the point where it was ready to present.
And of course, that wasn't the only thing I was doing at the time, so that adds more time to it.
But nonetheless, I brought these designs forward to numerous groups of people, starting with point-blank body armor out of Pompano Beach, Florida.
And I got to know the COO over there, a guy by the name of John Seamer, who was a colonel in the...
Well, he was serving, I think, in the Army, but directly in the Pentagon.
And one of the things he told me early on was with regards to shoulder armor in particular.
Yes, certainly it protects the vital organs against lateral impacts, right?
The shoulder can be the gateway to the heart and lungs.
But the other thing that he mentioned was save the joint, save the limb.
And I'll tell you, I've seen pictures of people who have taken a hit from a.308 to the shoulder, and it's an amputation scenario.
And that gentleman was lucky because it struck the bone, which fragmented the round and prevented more lethal damage.
But it was...
Still a terrible injury that this person suffered and really sort of demonstrates the purpose and effectiveness of extremity protection systems like this.
So we started with the shoulder plates and we moved from there into femoral plates.
I didn't send you a set of those yet because I wasn't sure if you had a belt that would carry them.
But the goal has really been to bring extremity protection, shoulders, Femurals and now even a groin plate to the market to civilians and only to civilians as you've mentioned before.
Well so let me interrupt you right here but of course we'll continue but to answer your question yes I've got full-on heavy-duty battle belts rigged up to carry like spare AR mags even when I'm not running a chest rig and so I can definitely handle that but Man, I mean, that sounds like a lot.
I mean, I don't normally hear guys talking about femoral armor plates or groin plates.
I mean, it's pretty much everything above the belt and actually pretty high because you got to be able to get to all your other waist mounted gear, right?
So you can't have body armor that goes down all the way to your belt line.
But why?
I mean, isn't that too cumbersome?
I'm just wondering to wear like femoral plates.
Well, I'll show you what they look like.
So it's really just this simple.
And this whole thing, including the carrier, weighs less than a pound.
Wow.
And the contours and geometry fit the body in such a way that it really is a seamless fit.
And the reason that this is important, and femoral plates in particular, is More and more, historically, what was always taught, shoot for center mass, right?
Right.
But more and more, people are wearing armor, so they've moved that target to the pelvic region.
True.
So now, anyone that really has been trained accordingly is going to be aiming for the pelvic region, because if they can shut down your hips, if they can put out a hip, they're going to put you on the ground, they've nullified the threat, or at least significantly.
Right.
That being the case, that whole area now becomes a threat zone.
And femoral arteries are, well, that's a big issue.
Femoral artery appears to any artery, right.
Yes, it becomes lethal very quickly.
So that was the goal.
The groin plates came as a result of people seeing the images that I put out and noticing a gap there in the middle where they were concerned about certain elements of their anatomy.
So that was designed to address those concerns.
But valid concerns nonetheless.
Certainly not for every situation.
I'll say that time and time again.
This is not the sort of armor you would wear running around the mountains or in the jungle or some other type of scenario like that.
This is primarily designed...
For urban combat scenarios, right?
Where you might be taking shots from multiple directions, multiple angles, and that's why it's important to protect the vital organs laterally, to protect the femoral arteries in as much as you can.
We've even made the dangler plate that hangs below the chest plate and covers part of the abdominal area.
And just an attempt to Provide options.
All of this is scalable, right?
So you might have a kit set up with everything.
Shoulders, femoral plates, groin plates, standard torso plates.
But depending on the scenario that you might be going into, you can adjust, scale down or up, depending on the situation.
Now, the armor that you have available, as I understand it, it is manufactured in the United States, is that correct?
That is correct.
Yes, and I meant to correct you earlier.
You said that I design and manufacture, actually design, develop, and distribute.
But I hire a company out of Wichita, Kansas, called Leading Technology Composites, also known as LTC. They really are the world's biggest and best.
And they have more engineers at their facility than every other company combined.
And that's really how I got in with them, being an engineer, designing new and unusual things, creating opportunities for their engineers to work on new and unusual products and broaden their scope of understanding and expertise.
That was the key to that door, so to speak.
Let me show this to people.
This is something that you offer or are about to offer.
This is a chest plate.
I was struck by how light this is.
And you told me it's even buoyant.
I mean, this floats in water.
I couldn't believe it.
But, you know, I am familiar with some sort of high tensile strength fibers like high molecular weight polyethylene.
Yes.
Or I guess, is that what it's called?
Yeah, I think.
What you have is high density polyethylene film.
Unidirectional, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers essentially bonded to that film.
I see.
Those are then referred to as UHMWPE fibers.
Right, right.
And so there's cordage also made out of that same fiber.
When it's braided, it has very strong tensile strength, and it's known for also floating on water.
So it's buoyant, just as your plate is buoyant.
But then you have this external coating here that's something unique.
Care to talk about that, or is it a trade secret?
No, it's no secret at all.
In fact, that's actually just simple line X. So there's two ways to finish a plate.
You can do it with a fabric, like, I don't know if you can see it very well, but there's a fabric finish on the femoral plate, as is the case with a number of different plates, or a Line-X finish.
Now, the benefit of the Line-X finish is that it does provide a little bit of external protection to the plate, a little bit above and beyond the fabric itself.
But what's really interesting about it is that it's chemical-resistant.
So let's spill gasoline on it.
It's going to be easy to rinse it off, wash it off.
You know, I know that there's some agencies that use plates like that because they might come in contact with certain chemicals, drugs in particular, right?
So they want to be able to clean the plate and so on.
Wow, some hard drugs if they're eating away your body armor.
I mean, and people are injecting that stuff.
Meth labs and things like that.
Okay.
Wow.
Not the sort of thing that civilians are going to run into.
Of course, that's who I deal with.
But nonetheless, the Linux coding makes a lot of sense in many applications.
So what I'm used to is these plates, and I've got other sort of probably lower cost plates that are maybe not quite this thick, but man, they're heavy.
And if you put those on, you know, I live in Texas, you not only get heavy, you get hot and you get sweaty and you can't cool down with a big heavy chest plate.
And that doesn't even consider the plate on your back as well.
If you've got plates on both sides, man, you're just bogged down.
So what was amazing about your plate was just how lightweight it is.
I really couldn't believe it.
That's maybe a three-pound plate right there.
Wow.
And that is comprised entirely of the HDPE armors.
In fact, specifically Dyneema is the company that manufactures the materials.
I know that name.
Yep.
Yes.
Owned by DSM is the company.
And then you have their competitor Spectrum Shield owned by Honeywell.
Both make excellent materials.
Dyneema tends to work with my providers more so.
We lean in that direction, and I'm more familiar with their product.
So that helps when coming up with various blends of materials that will affect performance.
Well, I want to ask you then about the protection level of this because body armor is rated, but there are a lot of subtleties about the ratings.
But first, you've been kind enough to give our audience a discount code that I want to share with people.
And I always give a disclaimer.
I want people to understand...
You have not paid us anything for this interview, but you have sent me a set of body armor for review, which I have not worn yet, but I've got it in my hands.
It's pretty awesome.
So that's the extent of the relationship that we have.
But I'd like to pass along your discount code to our audience so that they can save money.
Even these days, it's good to find something in inventory.
So can you give us that discount code they can use at your website?
Brighteon.
B-R-I-G-H-T-E-O-N. Perfect.
I had initially made that cap sensitive, but I will remove that feature.
And so all lowercase brighteon will get you 10% off all items.
Okay.
Unlimited usage.
Great.
Well, thank you for that.
10% off everything.
Use discount code BRYTEON at hoplightarmor.com.
And real quick, also another concern people have is that body armor, of course, is being increasingly banned.
I think Governor Hochul out of New York has, I don't know if she signed it or not.
She did.
She did sign it.
Yesterday.
Wow.
Okay.
So that means as a civilian, you can't buy body armor in New York?
Is that the whole state?
Is that what that means?
I'm no attorney, so I cannot necessarily give you legal advice on that.
But I will tell you that in reading the legal description that they put out for what they call a body vest, and you can find this when you look up their statute, it defines legally, again, The legal definition of a body vest, according to the state of New York, is a, quote, soft armor vest.
Well, this isn't soft armor.
No, it's not.
And it demonstrates how their lack of understanding and their arrogance has led them to a position where they have made illegal something that really isn't in demand and certainly something that I don't even deal with.
Yeah, so a soft, just clarify this, but a soft layer, which is very lightweight and very pliable, it's only going to stop some handgun rounds and that's it, right?
Yeah.
That's right.
Typically, so you've got different levels there, 1, 2, 3A. 3A will stop up to 44 Magnum, but nothing more.
If you want to get into stopping rifle rounds, you need to move into the higher levels of protection, which are NIJ Level 3 and 4.
And so it's probably a good time to talk about that a little bit.
What you have in your hand is technically Level 3.
That's an all-polymer plate.
And it will stop 5-5-6, 7-6-2 by 39.
That's the AR and the AK rounds as well as the 3-0-8.
All in their ball round configuration.
That's the lead core version.
Now, level 4 essentially covers all of that and then all the way up to 30-06 AP, armor piercing.
The industry, especially on the manufacturing side, has come up with a couple of additional levels to sort of fill in the gaps between the two, because there really is a wide range there.
You know, to go all the way from a ball round 5.56 to a 30-06 AP is a huge leap, and there's a lot of rounds, intermediary rounds.
That really haven't been addressed properly by the NIJ. So what the industry has done is to create two additional levels.
Now, most retailers don't know this, and they will just call it 3+.
And some use that as a way to sort of skirt the truth, I suppose, in terms of what they're selling, right?
So steel plates, they'll call it 3+.
Well, that's convenient because 3 +, isn't actually an NIJ rating.
In fact, there's no official term to define what 3-plus is other than what we in the industry have created.
And so when a company says something is 3-plus, make sure that you look very carefully and read what it stops.
So steel will say that they stopped 5.56 and, you know, even the M855 variant.
Well, it's kind of interesting the way ballistics work.
That AR500 steel plate will pretty easily stop M855. That's the round that has the steel core penetrator.
But a 5.56 ball round going fast enough will punch right through it.
Really?
Something to be concerned about.
Anything going faster than 2700 feet per second will go right through a steel plate, an AR500 steel plate.
So, let me ask you something.
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
First of all, but what thickness of AR500 were you just referring to there?
Like a three-eighths or something?
I believe it's something on the order of three-eighths of an inch thick.
Okay, okay.
And then the other thing that people need to know watching this is that the velocity of bullets...
It diminishes very, very rapidly after they leave the barrel of the firearm.
So as the velocity diminishes, the foot-pounds of energy is also diminishing at the same linear relationship there.
Or maybe it's not linear.
Oh, wait.
One-half mass times velocity squared, isn't it, right?
So force...
Is going down very dramatically as velocity gets reduced.
So then, first question to you is, sort of, at what distance are these plates tested, you know, or certified?
You know, I guess somebody is shooting 50 feet?
Yes.
Oh, okay.
I think it's actually 51 feet, but yes, call it 50 feet.
That's where most testing takes place.
And, you know, all NIJ standardized testing would take place at that distance.
Okay.
And then you would test against a variety of different rounds.
But I do want to explain a little bit more about levels.
So we've got 3+.
We talked about that.
That's...
Level 3, we talked about.
Level 4, we talked about.
Level 3 plus is the first intermediary phase, okay?
And that's, or level.
And that's capable of stopping all your level 3 plus 7.62x39 mild steel core.
That played in your hand.
Stopping all those threats, but it will not stop M855. For that, you need a ceramic breaker plate component.
And to that end, I've designed a plate working with LTC. We came up with a custom solution.
The plate number is 19513, and you can search that and find it on my website, or you can go to the SAPI plate section and click level 3++.
But that plate in particular is exceptional.
And I'll send you one of those, too.
I sent you what I sent you because it is so light, and I really wanted you to see the full potential and understand, too, that those are buoyant.
This other plate is neutrally buoyant.
What you have in your hand is positively buoyant.
It will sit on top of the water.
The 19513 being sort of neutrally buoyant, it's going to hover just below the surface, but still maintain buoyancy.
That plate has a very thin ceramic breaker plate, and that's used to break apart the round on impact, whereas then the HDPE or the polymer material behind it catches what's left in sort of this delamination mechanism, which results in what they call back face deformation. whereas then the HDPE or the polymer material behind it And so that's the bubbling that you'll get on the body side after impact.
NIJ requirements state that that back face deformation must be less than 44 millimeters.
In the case of the 19513, so think about that, that dimple, that bubbling on the back cannot exceed 44 millimeters, or it's considered lethal, even though it probably might not be lethal.
That's the limit they've set.
That's still quite a lot.
I mean, I'm thinking roughly about an inch and a half or so, but if you take that kind of deformation against your sternum or something, you're going to hurt.
But I guess it depends how much energy.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
But as you're stating this, I'm thinking, you know, a whole lot of that energy is being dissipated in the delamination process because those fibers are absorbing energy and dispersing it, correct?
Right.
Yeah, well, each individual layer is comprised of all of these ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers that have incredibly high tensile strength.
So on impact, that resistance coupled with the delamination is the mechanism by which the round is defeated, or at least the fragments, depending on the level, right?
If we have a ceramic component.
That's there to fragment and stop the armor-piercing segment, the steel core, the steel tip.
What's interesting about that plate I was just talking about, the 19513, not only will it stop M855 with a backface deformation of 9 to 11 millimeters, by the way, which is far below standard and far below the allowable limit, It will also stop M855A1, if you're familiar with that.
That's the one that has the, the M855 has like a little pencil core steel pin inside of it.
The M855A1 has more of a Christmas tree tip that is entirely comprised of steel and has far greater penetrating power.
But the 19513 will stop it with back face deformation in the 15 to 16 millimeter range.
Is that the round?
I think I've heard military guys refer to it as EPR, like an enhanced penetration round or something.
Is that the same?
I'm unfamiliar with that acronym.
Okay.
I'm unfamiliar with that.
55A1 is the standardized term.
Okay.
And you have another variant of that for 308 called M80A1. Okay.
All right.
Wow.
Now...
Lots of info there, but I'm trying to break it down into something digestible.
Yeah, absolutely.
And this is why I love talking with you, because we can talk about the science and the kinetic energy and how this works.
I've got a lot of questions for you, but we've got only 30 seconds for this segment.
Stay with us, Lyman.
We're going to continue in an extended interview.
But let me just remind people, your website is hoplightarmor.com, and that's H-O-P-L-I-T-E, armor.com.
We'll put it on screen.
And the discount code to get 10% off everything is Brighteon, B-R-I-G-H-T-E-O-N. Take advantage of that, folks, while you can.
And I want to thank you, Lyman, but stay with us for the extended conversation.
But thank you so far for this Brighteon TV interview.
Thank you, and you're welcome.
So now, welcome to the extended interview with Lyman Bishop of hoplightarmor.com.
Just an amazing guy and an amazing company with some just breakthrough body armor.
You've actually...
Now I'm frustrated because the body armor I currently own is obsolete.
Thank you, Lyman, for doing that.
I'm going to...
Go ahead.
Because I've got more tricks up my sleeve.
Oh boy, okay.
I am about to begin the process of developing a whole new line of armor plates for a couple of reasons.
Number one, we are facing and will continue to face a massive, overwhelming global shortage of aluminum oxide ceramic, which is used in the majority of body armor level 4 plates.
That is the most common ceramic, and that has a lot to do with why there's such a shortage.
Everyone in the world is kind of ramping up for the inevitable.
And as such, there is a shortage.
Now, luckily, LTC being one of the bigger companies in the world, if not the biggest, tends to get supplied pretty easily.
But we are still looking at lead times for most things at this point.
A couple months ago, I was sitting on a huge amount of inventory.
And, you know, ever since things began to heat up on the political scene internationally, we've seen inventory levels drop significantly.
So, unfortunately, there are lead times right now in just about everything.
But I update those frequently, and I do have more inventory coming in regularly.
But something to be aware of.
You know, I just want to throw this out there, too.
There's a lot of demand, at least in my opinion, and I am connected.
I'm tuned in to a lot of sources and a lot of people.
There's a very high demand for sort of civilian outfitting with body armor that doesn't look tactical.
And so the first rendition is going to be backpacks that have a ballistic plate, and those are all sold out everywhere since Uvalde.
But there's also a lot of people, professionals, who live in cities like L.A., and they have a bug-out plan.
They know that L.A. is not survivable in many scenarios, and they know they're going to have to bug out, but they don't want to attract attention as if they're, you know, like a soldier or a SWAT team or whatever.
Is there any, do you know, I mean, maybe your company is doing this, any attempt to kind of integrate ballistic protection into civilian-type clothing?
Well, so one of the things I've done is create a carrier that is a little more concealable, so easily worn under a windbreaker.
And with that, you really don't see any imprinting.
You wouldn't know that the person's wearing armor.
That's what we call the rogue carrier.
R-O-G-U-E. That carrier is minimalistic, is sort of the term I use for that, and concealable.
We have another carrier called the Mark II carrier that's a little more what you might refer to as battle-ready in the sense that it's a bit more durable and rugged and thicker and designed to carry that weight for a longer period of time.
But something that I'm working on alongside the new plates, and let me talk about that for a minute.
So I told you about the shortage of alumina oxide, and that's sort of what led to pushing this other project forward.
Something that I've worked on for a very long time is...
The idea of combining the best of both worlds, right?
So some plates hold a very extreme curvature that really hug the bottom.
And that's ideal for situations where you wear it long term.
And by long term, I mean more than 30 minutes.
After that, you will begin to feel the wear stress of a single curve plate, whereas a double curve, triple curve, or even what I sometimes refer to as a multi-curve plate, We'll fit the body that much better.
So the surface area of contact with the body, the greater that is, the better it fits, it feels, it wears, right?
So what I'm trying to do is combine the best of both worlds.
This extreme geometry, as was the case with a plate that I used to sell but is now discontinued, The 26135 was extremely popular for a very long time because of that curvature.
I want to couple that curvature with the performance of a boron carbide ceramic core backed by the latest Dyneema HDPE background material.
This would make a plate that is on par with And I've got to be careful what I say because we don't want to tip our hat to the enemy.
But our top tier military groups are using armor of this style and material configuration.
But they are ridiculously expensive.
So I have something similar to this on my website.
It's the 28590.
I get it from LTC. I pay through the nose for it.
I sell it for $5,000 a set.
I don't sell very many.
Wow.
Yeah, I know.
It's out of control of the price.
And keep in mind, not everything on my website is priced anywhere near that.
The 26605 Series NIJ06 Certified Latest and Greatest Aluminum Oxide, you know, that's priced from $750 to $850.
So, before a set.
This other stuff I'm talking about is ultra-high-end.
The only guys that buy this are doctors and lawyers and You know, maybe people that are extremely into body armor for whatever reason.
But what I'm working on is a plate of that caliber that I can retail for less than half.
So about $2,000, I can sell very high-end plates.
And the other thing I'm working on is a carrier, very similar to what you see back here.
This is the Cry ABS, and it actually uses a harness underneath to help distribute that weight and to increase your carrying capacity.
So the two things that I'm really working on in the future are this new carrier and these new plates that go with it.
And, you know, being a small company, we're nimble and we have low overhead.
It gives us an opportunity, a big advantage in being able to provide people with very high-end stuff at a reasonable cost.
Well, we would really, just on the record here, we'd really like to help support your company in doing that.
So one of the things I'll do before we tie this up today, I'm going to send you my phone number.
You can keep me...
Or no, I think you already have it.
You keep me posted, and we'll talk to you again about that.
I love this conversation we're having right now.
I wish we had more time.
But this is already fascinating.
And, you know...
Look, in years past, I'm sure you experienced this, in years past, people like you and I sometimes had to convince people that you might need to consider body armor.
I think those days are gone.
Now everybody's like, oh my gosh, you know.
Yeah, I had a 70-year-old woman call me the other day and asking questions, and I helped her get fitted into the same plates you have there because they are light, right?
This poor lady wouldn't be able to carry around 20 pounds on her back.
You know, between two eight-pound plates and a carrier and magazines, I didn't feel that would be a benefit to her.
And another woman out of Texas recently purchased a set of those as well.
They're proving to be very popular.
For people that don't want to carry around excessive weight.
And, you know, I think as I said in the pregame, you know, there's always this tradeoff between weight and coverage and mobility.
And that's one thing that I can help with.
And so if people have questions, and I'm sure they do, I've put up a document on my website.
And I shared that document to our Facebook page for easy reference.
So if they go to, you know, at Hoplite Armor, or is it at Hoplite Armor LLC, either way, you'll find it on Facebook very easily.
And I've posted a link to this Body Armor 101 document that explains a lot of these things in detail.
And that will help people to make some, you know, decisions for themselves.
But we are always happy to take phone calls.
There is no such thing as a stupid question.
The only stupid question is the one that isn't asked, right?
So we love to take phone calls from people.
We'll spend as much time as we have to to help them gain an understanding of what's out there and what they might need.
Well, let me ask you then one question that I've always had as someone who has purchased body armor products.
And I understand that there's no promise of fitness of the materials after even a single round is taken by the plate.
However, I want to ask you...
You know, you're the mechanical engineer.
What do you know about that?
I mean, I've seen stories of cops taking many, many rounds and the plate stopping them all.
But what's the real story on that?
If you take one round, how functional is the rest of the plate?
We took one of our shoulder plates, right?
Very small, 6x8.
We hit this thing with 10 rounds, 5.56, the M193, just your lead core ball round.
First shot went straight in the middle.
We then, you know, gave about a one-inch space as much as we could for every subsequent shot.
The last shot we literally put right on top of the first shot.
And what ended up happening was you got a little bit of a tooth coming out the other side Literally hit the other.
But it did not go any further than just a little poking through on the other side.
That's a very rare circumstance.
So I'll give you an example.
In the laboratory at LTC, they had guys from SOCOM come in and do some testing.
And they were firing full auto on the range.
And the tightest group that they could get, and keep in mind these are the best trained guys on the planet, was three shots over four inches.
So what they call a two- That's two inches between each shot.
That was the closest they could get.
So, you know, bear in mind that it's unlikely that one shot would hit on top of the other.
And that being the case, you know, if you're talking even a one-inch stitch, you can pack this thing full of rounds until it's beat up and looks like a crushed tin can.
It will stop.
And the question is, you know, how many will it stop?
I don't know.
It reminds me of the old Tootsie Pop commercial.
You know, it depends on the circumstances.
But hold on.
Next question, though, being that I'm in Texas, this is black.
What happens if I leave this in my car and the sun is hitting it and this sucker heats up to 150 Fahrenheit or whatever?
Does it start to melt?
No, no.
The newer materials, especially high-end materials, and believe me, there's some people out there that are making and producing and selling some things that are very subpar.
But everything that comes from LTC is very top-tier, high-end materials, you know, standardized processing protocols.
And you will not see any delamination, any melting, any disfigurement of any kind with a plate like that.
I still really don't recommend necessarily putting it in your trunk where it's going to be extremely hot, just because putting it on is going to be extremely uncomfortable.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, it's already, you know, 120 degrees out there in the summer.
You don't want to put on a heater.
You know, I keep mine under my backseat.
I've got a Ford pickup truck, so the backseat lifts up and a little better climate control in there and a little easier to access for me anyway.
Okay, next question, because we're almost out of time, but I know that some body armor companies offer different cuts here that are sometimes referred to as swimmer's cut, for example, which is a more generous cut for more arm motion.
Do you have different types of cuts, or what do you offer?
We do.
We do, yes.
So what you have in your hand is what's referred to as a sappy cut.
Now, SAPI is an acronym for Small Arms Protective Insert, but that name became synonymous with that cut that you have in your hand with the two 45-degree angled cuts at the top.
A swimmer plate drops that down such that the cut runs lower on the side of the plate.
And you've got it exactly right.
What it's designed to do is enhance your mobility, give you greater ability to put your arms out in front of you holding a pistol or anything you might imagine, that swimming breaststroke motion.
Shouldering a weapon, you've got more space.
I personally run the swimmer sappy combo.
So I'll put a swimmer plate in the front.
And give myself that extra mobility, and I still feel like I have plenty of coverage.
And I'll put the sappy plate in the back where I don't need the mobility, so I get more coverage that way.
And let's talk a little bit about sizing, right?
So I'm 6'2", 20.
I wear a medium swimmer sappy combo.
And I put some sizing information in that Body Armor 101 document to help kind of guide people.
But height is the most important thing, and medium is designed to fit the 95th percentile.
95% of the people out there should be wearing medium.
Huh, I didn't know that, so I might have been kind of oversizing my plates before.
Very possible.
Yeah, it happens a lot.
You know, people think maybe match shirt size, right?
If I wore an extra large plate, I'd look like a ninja turtle.
Yeah.
It really does look that way.
I can wear a large and feel comfortable.
I can wear a small and still feel like I'm covered.
But the medium is perfect.
And the swimmer, again, gives me that additional range of motion that I feel is so critical.
And yeah, so I highly recommend that for everyone.
For 95% of people, swimmer, sappy, combo, size, medium is the way to go.
Wow.
Okay.
That's great information.
So swimmer cut for the front, sappy cut for the back, medium size for most people.
And again, you said you're six foot one.
Is that what you said?
Or six foot?
I used to be six foot one.
I'm like six foot now, probably.
Okay.
Okay.
Too many hard hits over the years, I think.
But yeah, six foot 220.
And the medium fits me perfect.
So, you know, again, if people are uncertain, there is some general sizing information primarily focused on the height of the individual to be used as a gauge.
Some people measure from the clavicle to the belly button and nipple to nipple.
I don't feel that that's an effective means of measuring.
Well, I was just going to ask you, actually, since we're in that area, pardon the interruption, but what about women?
What about breasts?
How are breasts handled in the curves of the plates?
Yes.
Yeah.
So, well, and the short answer is they're not.
That has not been addressed by the industry.
It is actually something that I haven't designed for, that I'm working on.
But in my own experimentations, using my wife as the, you know, the test dummy, what I've found is that the plate tends to seesaw over a woman's chest because of the anatomy.
And so one simple fix is a pad underneath the plate along the abdominal section where it intersects.
And so what that does is it prevents the seesaw.
And it just kind of kicks the plate off the body a little bit, especially down, you know, around the upper abdominal region in such a way that it provides for a better fit.
But I am designing a plate specific to women.
I'm not going to make a full range of, let's say, cup sizes.
I'll just make something that's more curved, about as curved as I can comfortably make it, giving modern manufacturing processes and material limitations.
And I'll use that to come up with a solution, like I'm describing here, that will fit women better.
All right.
Well, that's fascinating information.
And I'm sorry to even cut this short because I feel like I could ask you all kinds of questions that we could go on.
But we've got to do this again.
And I really appreciate what you're doing and the fact that you support civilians being able to defend themselves.
There's a lot of manufacturers.
The government will come to them and buy everything, like night vision companies and so on.
Just buy them out.
And then they have nothing left for we the people, you know?
But you're not like that, so I appreciate what you're doing.
I'm not, and there's a reason, and we talked about this a little bit, you know, there are 80,000 SWAT raids, no-knock raids in this country every year.
And everything we're talking about represents my life's work.
And I do not want to see my life's work used against the people in support of an ever-growing, tyrannical government.
I just can't allow that.
So I do not sell to departments or government agencies of any kind.
I really have no issue with the military other than whatever I sell them would become surplus and would end up on the backs of SWAT teams kicking down the doors of American families, and I won't have them.
Just can't tolerate that.
I've heard too many stories from these people, and it's forged my opinion in such a way that I will always hold to that, and I will always put principles above profit.
Yeah, well, there's far too many no-knock raids on the wrong house, by the way, that end up getting innocent people killed because, hey, if somebody breaks in my door in the middle of the night, I don't know who it is.
Of course I'm going to grab my rifle just out of self-defense.
Yes.
I mean, any reasonable person would.
And the idea of no-knock raids is extremely unconstitutional.
The constitutional requirement is knock and announce with an actual warrant signed by an actual judge, which these days typically they just rubber stamp these things.
And as you've seen, people can get, you know, quote-unquote, swatted as a prank.
Something is terribly wrong with our system when a phone call can send a SWAT team to your house and create a potentially deadly situation for them and you.
So, yeah, my moral position is, as I've described, and because of that, I only sell to civilians.
Well, I would say God bless you, Lyman.
I really appreciate what you're doing and your motivations for doing so.
I love the fact that you took the time with us today to do this interview.
Thank you so much.
And I want to encourage our viewers.
You can share this interview.
You can repost it on your own channel.
The website is hoplightarmor.com.
Use the code BRYTEON to save 10% off of everything.
And we're going to talk again, especially when you have that new line coming out that you were kind of teasing us with.
I can't wait to see that.
So we'll do this again.
But thank you for joining us today.
You're welcome.
And thank you for having me.
I look forward to coming back again.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Well, stand by Lyman, too.
I've got one question for you off camera.
But for those of you watching today, thank you so much for watching.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighteon.com.
And hey, support Americans like Lyman Bishop.
Support his company because it's all made in America for the American people.
Thank you for watching today.
God bless you all.
all.
Take care.
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