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Jan. 24, 2023 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
01:12:42
Lyman Bishop on ballistic protection solutions for regular people facing DANGEROUS times
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Now we're going to jump into our interview with Lyman Bishop from hoplightarmor.com, which is a really practical and also fascinating, from a technical point of view, a fascinating interview.
I think you're really going to enjoy this.
So give it a listen, and then I'll wrap it up with that, because it's about an hour interview, and then I'll be with you again tomorrow, God willing.
We'll see what happens between now and then.
Be sure to check out censored.news in the meantime.
And of course, I've got articles posting on naturalnews.com and we've got other amazing hosts and shows and guests on brighteon.tv.
Brighteon.tv.
You can also join me on brighteon.social where I'm posting content throughout the day.
Check out all those channels, stay informed, and thank you for your support.
Here's the interview with Lyman Bishop from Hoplite Armor.
Enjoy.
Alright, welcome to today's featured interview.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighteon.com.
And as you know, I'm very much a prepper.
And I try to encourage people and teach about personal protection, self-defense, survival.
Just prepare this for the craziness that's happening in our time.
And we've seen Antifa kind of ramping up attacks and, you know, quote, peaceful protests and shooting at police and things like that.
And we have a huge spike in interest among even non-police and non, quote, tactical people in how to be safe and how to have personal protection gear, including ballistic gear.
And so our guest today is Lyman Bishop.
He's the founder of hoplightarmor.com, which is an occasional sponsor of our podcast.
The format today is I'm going to ask him some questions about some of the trends, and he's going to share some stories about some of the calls that he's received, which should answer many questions that some of you might have.
And then at the end, he's got a super special, unprecedented discount code to share with you that is, I think, the best discount that he's ever offered.
So, Mr.
Lyman Bishop, it's an honor to have you on.
Thank you for joining me today.
Thank you very much, Mike.
I do appreciate it.
Like I said in the pre-taping discussion, one thing I like more than listening to your show is being on it, so thank you for having me.
Well, in this case, you get to do both.
You're on it, and you can listen to the rest of it as well.
But look, I love having you on because you are a U.S. designer, an engineer.
You're educated as, I believe it was a mechanical engineer.
Is that right?
That is correct.
And you design and have manufactured in the United States these highly complex, multi-layered polymer plus ceramic plus other elements.
These Triple curve ballistic plates that I have come to love because for the protection they offer, they are the lightest things out there.
And that's why I love your company and I've heard a lot of great feedback from our customers.
So thank you for doing what you're doing and thank you for making it in America too, by the way.
Well, yes, certainly.
I couldn't do it any other way.
Well, I appreciate your commitment to that because there is a lot of stuff out there that's nowhere near as good, but it's kind of hyped up.
That is true.
Let's start with the premise that I kind of mentioned here in the intro.
My understanding from a lot of people, customers, feedback I get is that there is a massive increase in interest among what I call non-tactical people They're not military.
They're not National Guard.
They're not police.
They're not even, per se, survivalists.
They're just regular, everyday folks that are concerned about gunfire because it keeps happening more and more in the cities.
You're hearing from more and more people like that, are you not?
Oh, absolutely.
Yes.
In particular, I think, as a direct result of your show and your having mentioned Hoplite Armor on your show so many times.
I do tend to get a lot of phone calls from your listeners and that's one thing I really enjoy is the opportunity to talk to people who don't even know where to start and to be able to walk them through some of the basics and give them a little bit of an education about materials and levels and configurations and at the same time hear their concerns and And offer some advice along the way,
and as much as I can, even other than armor-related, lots of conversations about other ways to prep.
Certainly, personal protection is critical in preserving the things that you do to prep for yourself, but at a certain point, you may have to defend those.
Yes.
Self-sufficiency, really.
I think that people are seeing...
I mean, we don't have to convince anybody at this point that the world is becoming more violent and more unpredictable.
Turn on, I guess, TikTok on any given day and there's a beatdown at Walmart or some restaurant or a shooting in a cafe or an armed robbery.
It's everywhere.
It's every day.
Every weekend in Chicago, there's 20 or 30 people shot and killed.
There was...
Just over the last few days, there was...
I guess an Asian American guy in, I guess, kind of the Chinatown area or Monterey Park, California, shot 19 people, killed 10 or 11, and it was over a spat with his ex-wife.
And these other people are just on the dance floor, and suddenly there's gunfire in your direction.
So this is happening all over America, sadly.
Sadly true, yes.
It is becoming all too common.
And I hear from a lot of people about their concerns regarding that.
And I hear from some people who have witnessed some of these things firsthand.
And it's sad to see.
It's sad to see a nation as great as ours really sort of falling in on itself in so many different ways.
It is.
But I also want to mention, for the record, that a firearm is used something like 40 times more frequently to stop a crime.
I believe that if more Americans carried, you know, legally, carried concealed, we could stop more of these crimes.
And most of these shootings happen in gun control areas, which in this case is true again.
Absolutely.
But ballistic armor is still legal in most of America for people to purchase and to wear.
Now in New York, I think it's illegal at this point, correct?
That's right, yeah.
But outside of New York, is it legal everywhere else in America?
It is.
I read about a bill the other day in California essentially looking to mirror what they did in New York.
I've also read about, I believe it was a federal judge that was striking down some portion of the New York Firearms law in particular as unconstitutional.
My presumption is that they'll likely see the logic as it pertains to body armor as well, right?
I mean, the Second Amendment was, it's really armaments is perhaps a better translation of the intent behind the Second Amendment.
It's not just arms, but, you know, all of the tools required for self-defense, whatever they might be.
Well, right.
And also, just logically, although we can't expect Governor Hochul to understand this, body armor can't kill people.
Right.
It can only stop bullets.
100%.
Yeah, and there's really no logical reason why any state legislature or federal otherwise would in any way try to impede an individual's right to defend themselves.
Yeah.
In nonviolent ways.
I mean, like you say, body armor, you can't hurt anybody with it.
Unless you maybe smack them on the head with it, but there's things that are far more efficient at that than an armor plate.
Yeah, if you're running around trying to wallop people with body armor, there's something twisted in your mind.
You have other problems beyond your weapon choice.
That's right.
Very, very true.
So, share with us, if you would, please, obviously without giving out any names, we don't want to, you know, we want to protect the privacy of people, but share with us some stories, some true stories of what people have told you.
Well, you know, one thing I'll tell you, a phone call today, very encouraging.
A woman called me, 70 years old, 5'2", you know, 115 pounds, little lady, but she's out there, you know, she's She can do two pull-ups, she told me, which I thought was really impressive.
My wife's the same size, and I don't know if she could do two palm-forward pull-ups.
And so it was encouraging to hear from, and I hear from so many different people from so many different walks of life, and it's encouraging to see that, as you say, you know, people who are not tactically minded, they're not, you know, overly into guns and tactical equipment, they just recognize the need to be safe.
And it's good to see such a, you know, a broad cross-section of society recognizing that and taking steps to protect themselves, as you say, because there's such an increase in violence everywhere and with no sign of getting better, of course, right?
So, you know, there's one story for you, you know, that I found encouraging.
Well, tell me, though, what did she describe Her particular fears or circumstances in which she thinks she might be at risk?
Well, she's in a rural area, so her main concern is protecting the things that she's done to prepare for herself and her family, chickens, gardens, etc.
In her words, she's more concerned about the zombies, right?
That term was meant to describe the mindless hordes of people who have not prepared in any way, shape, or form and are going to have to confront the pending catastrophe head-on without any preparations.
And it's really those people that this woman in particular was preparing to protect herself against.
And I thought that was a very wise approach, a very sound-minded perception of the world around her.
And I hear very many stories similar of people.
Mostly, I will say, I have heard from people in rural areas, but that's not to say that I don't hear from people in the cities.
And I do want to remind everybody, by all means, feel free to call to ask any questions you have because we really do try to take the time to walk people through this, give them a little bit of an education, help them understand materials and the different options.
Do you have a number that you can give out here?
Yes, yes, a very easy number, 855-422.
855-ARMOR-01.
Oh, okay.
855-ARMOR-01.
Very simple.
Okay.
Yeah, so they can call that, and I'm doing my best to answer as many phone calls as I can, but the other people that answer the line are likewise educated in these things.
Okay.
People tend to get me on the phone and keep me there for a while because I really do genuinely enjoy the process of teaching people about these things, explaining it.
You know, the less they know, the better, honestly, in some cases, because they don't have a head full of bad ideas.
Well, actually, yeah, let me start with a couple of basic questions for you that might help bring our audience up to speed.
Explain, what's the difference between a single curve, a double curve, and a triple curve geometry on the plate?
Yes, okay, that's a good question.
So, single curve essentially means that the plate only bends in one direction, left to right.
It's vertical otherwise.
So for most people, that's obviously not going to be the best fit geometrically.
It does, however, tend to cost less.
And the reason that plate is only bent in a single direction is that it uses a lower grade ceramic that's only capable of bending in a single direction.
So there's the pros and cons.
It doesn't fit as well, but it costs less.
It does do the same job.
It'll stop the same threats.
But it does tend to weigh a little more.
And then, of course, the single curve is not going to be ergonomic.
We'll see.
And can I add that part of the problem with a single curve plate not exactly fitting correctly is you get these weird gaps, especially where your clavicle is.
And then when you have gaps, you get rubbing and you get blisters.
That's true.
Yeah, that's very true.
So wherever that contacts your body, you have fewer contact points, so you get more friction on those contact points.
That's absolutely true.
And the more contact points you have, the better that weight is distributed across the body.
And the lighter it feels, right?
Exactly.
So that is a very good point.
And that's where the triple curve, or what we sometimes refer to as multi-curve plates, come in.
And those tend to be considerably more ergonomic.
They'll have a greater radius at the lower portion of the plate where it meets up with the lower portion of the ribcage and the upper part of the abdomen.
A little less curvature up towards the clavicle and then in between it sort of morphs from one to the other.
And that does tend to fit both the chest and the back of course much better than a single curve.
And sufficient to As you say, make good contact, prevent chafing, rubbing, etc.
gaps.
And it does also, with greater contact points, help distribute the weight over a larger area, which of course in turn reduces wear stress.
And that is important.
And can I also add that if you actually take a round on this plate, you also want the greatest contact area with your body because that's going to distribute the kinetic energy of the impact across a broader number of bones where you're less likely to suffer a fracture underneath the plate, correct?
That is very true.
Yes, absolutely.
And the way that these plates work, essentially when you've got a polymer ceramic composite, you've got a ceramic strike face and a polymer backer.
One is stacked on top of the other.
The polymer sits body-side.
The ceramic is the strike face.
That's what gets said first.
And essentially, the bullet fragments on impact, and that polymer material catches what's left.
And that polymer material, having been made of a series of plies, pressed under heat and pressure to form a cohesive plate, it uses the process of delamination to distribute that energy.
And in so doing, it'll leave a little bit of a dimpling on the body side, which is what we call backface deformation.
And it's that energy, that back face deformation that could conceivably cause some secondary injuries, of course, significantly less than they otherwise would be.
Yeah, right.
You don't have any holes in you, but you might have the roots.
That's right.
Yeah, no doubt.
And the better the plate fits, the better the plate will perform.
It's one of the reasons I tell people not to do these backyard tests where they'll duct tape it to a tree or something, because that's not representative of the real world.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Okay, so then another major question that I think a lot of people have about these is, The older plates were just seemingly solid steel, heavy, like crazy heavy.
And then your plates are seemingly insanely lightweight.
I mean, they still have some thickness to them because that's necessary even using the polymaterial.
But the plates of yours that I'm familiar with are even buoyant.
They float on water.
That is true.
Yes, we do have several plate options that are buoyant.
Yeah, so can you explain...
The state of the art of how did we go from heavy metal plates to your advanced polymer lamination layers?
You know, what...
How did that transition happen?
Well, interesting story how I came across it.
So back in 2001, I was working with a gentleman who was a business partner of mine at the time, still a very good friend, Dr.
Brian Grady, chemical and engineering professor at the University of Oklahoma.
And he and I were exploring different ballistic solutions.
And in the process, we came across some information related to a product called SpectraShield.
That's made by Honeywell, and essentially you have two main players in the United States with regards to this type of armor material.
You've got Honeywell and Dyneema, and essentially both use a very high tensile strength fiber.
It's called an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber.
Ah, yes, and they make fishing line out of that.
They make high-strength survival lines, all kinds of things.
Even lines for gigantic ships to tie them up.
And they're able to do that with much smaller ropes in terms of diameter as compared to what they used to.
And it's that tensile strength, which is actually a result of the dense molecular chain.
That's maybe a little too much science, but effectively, you've got these very strong polymer fibers.
Now, polyethylene doesn't want to stick to anything but polyethylene, so what they do then is they apply these fibers in unidirectional rows onto a very thin sheet of high-density polyethylene.
So it still has high-density molecular chains, but just not as dense as the ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene.
So infusing the two together, you now have a platform that you can use to stack the material and press it under heat and high pressure, as I described before.
And at the right temperature and the right process, effectively what you get is a crystallization, a bonding between layers, forming them into a cohesive sheet.
Now, armor can be made out of just that, right?
And you can do that in a number of different levels.
You could do a level 3A, which would protect you against pistol threats all the way up to.44 Magnum.
Or you can make it a little bit thicker and make a rifle-rated solution.
But there are some limitations.
There's pros and cons.
That need to be considered with all of these things.
But in the case of an all-polymer plate, you can achieve what's called level three in a buoyant configuration, which would allow you, number one, very light.
That's the stuff that's extremely light.
We're talking a medium 10 by 12 plate being three pounds or less.
And level 3 will stop 5.56, that's your AR-15.
7.62x39, that's your AK-47.
And.308, all in their what we call ball-round configurations, lead-core.
Okay.
I have another question for you about that.
Oh, sure.
Go ahead.
But, of course, and that also stops 9mm in most of the pistol rounds.
All lesser threats, yes.
Okay, yeah.
Now, you mentioned that's ball ammo, so, of course, some people have...
What is it?
The green tip 855 rounds that are out there, and there's also kind of hunting rounds for different kind of cartridges, you know, like the 7.62x51 hunting rounds, ballistic tips, expanding tips.
How does that all factor into this?
So, effectively, anytime that you have a steel core, technically you're going to need a ceramic component to defeat it.
Now, oddly enough, In the case of the 762x39, you're able to stop that round with an all-polymer plate.
It just has to do with the mass and the proportions of the round.
It is standard at this point that a good Level 3 polymer plate will also pick up that 762x39 mild steel core round.
I believe that's the M1943 is the technical designation for that round.
Okay.
And, anyways, those are not terribly common.
They're either Russian or Chinese made.
That's like that wolf ammo or toll ammo type stuff?
Yep, absolutely.
Yes.
Okay.
So, and, you know, I'm sure that there's other manufacturers of it, but typically we see the M1943 coming from China or Russia.
Now, can I ask you, I'm sorry to interject, but...
Our audience is very sophisticated.
They know that the muzzle velocity of these rounds, of course, is at its maximum right when it leaves the barrel.
And of course, air friction causes the velocity of the bullet to slow quite rapidly.
These are tested at sort of what standard range from the barrel?
The standard range is just about 50 feet.
Oh, okay.
50 feet.
So if you're closer than 50 feet to a shooter, it's obviously going to have more kinetic energy and it could defeat something that it's rated for, theoretically.
Is that correct?
Well, so not so much, right?
Because we engineered these things in such a way as to defeat the round, the given round, at its worst, right?
At its highest velocity.
So we can dial these things in in the lab just by way of making the round hotter, right?
You know, so essentially the speed is measured at about the halfway point.
And, you know, you're not going to lose a whole lot in velocity over that remaining 20 or 25 feet.
But nonetheless, the spec sheets detail the velocities of every round and what they were tested at.
Oh, I see.
And all of those will exceed NIJ standards.
Okay.
And by the way, a lot of people out there, especially criminals, are running illegal SBRs, so they have shorter barrels and they're going to have lower velocities anyway.
That's true.
That is very true, yes.
One of the things with steel plates is not only do they fragment the round or cause spall that can be dangerous in itself, but You know, a round, just a standard ball round, 5.56 going fast enough, really faster than 2,700 feet per second, which is not hard to achieve.
We'll penetrate a standard AR-500, I'm not calling the brand, but the type of steel, it'll punch through that type of plate.
AR-600 steel will give you a little bit more protection.
Essentially, you need to be going a little bit faster than 3,000 feet per second to penetrate that, but also still very achievable.
Even with an 18-inch barrel, but of course, the longer the barrel, the easier it is to attain faster velocity.
Yeah, okay.
That's really good technical information.
Thank you for sharing all of that.
Now, let's talk about level four.
Okay, so Level 4 is the other extreme of the rifle-rated certifications under the NIJ. You've got Level 3, which I described, and then Level 4.
And Level 4 essentially uses mostly ceramic and less of the polymer backer, making it heavier, making it not buoyant, negatively buoyant, we would call that.
But it gives you the ability to stop armor-piercing rounds all the way up to 30-06.
You know, the AP M2, armor-piercing M2 round.
Not a lot of those flying around, to be honest with you.
Thank goodness.
Right?
The Russians have a variant that is similar for the Dragunov rifle.
And effectively, a level 4 is good against that as well, but still...
None of those really floating around.
I mean, my price on a sample round 30-06 AP is right around $60, I think, if not more.
Per round?
Per round.
That's great.
So someone has to really want to bankroll killing you.
They have to invest a lot of money just in the ammo.
That's true.
Didn't Chris Rock have a comedy routine about that a few years ago?
Like, every bullet should be $50,000?
Right, yeah.
But so, for most people dealing with just kind of the societal, you know, collapsing Blue City violence, it's level 3A is pretty much...
Is that going to cover most of what people are probably faced with?
Well, 3A is, again, just a pistol plate.
So, on the streets, probably, right?
I mean, I guess it depends.
These days, anything can happen.
Historically, you know, inner-city violent crimes would be committed with pistols, more so than anything else, the overwhelming majority.
Easier to conceal, easier to utilize in that kind of a situation.
I have a chat question from a Mr.
Pelosi wondering what the hammer rating is.
Are they hammer resistant in case?
They are drop resistant and they are tested accordingly.
So this is kind of cool what they do.
They've got, and it sounds a little bit odd and maybe somewhat non-scientific, but it's a functional test.
essentially you take a six foot steel pole with a hinge at the base and you put the plate up on a stand at the top of the pole 10 pound weight behind it and they just let this thing drop wow right just pivot all the way down drop onto hard cement with that 10 pound weight behind it two drops is the NIJ drop test certification requirement so effectively what they do is that that's one of the first things they do they'll drop it twice they'll x-ray it
if it's cracked it failed yeah LTC who makes all of my stuff out of Wichita Kansas they do 10 drops for every variant they're That's their internal requirement.
10 drops, then the x-ray.
They've got their own x-ray machine there.
They throw it in there, and then it goes into the environmental testing, which is humidity and heat, etc.
Runs for an extended period of time there.
Then it faces the ballistic test.
And only when and if it passes all of the tests, Do they then pass it on to have it certified accordingly under the same protocols?
Okay, that makes sense.
Let me ask you too then about, I'm not sure what designation you use, but 3A plus is something that we hear in the industry, right?
3 plus.
3 plus.
So you've got 3A, which is your pistol category.
That's the top tier of the pistol category.
Then you've got NIJ level 3 and NIJ level 4.
Now what's interesting there is the industry decided...
Those two certification standards are just too far apart.
There's too much in the middle that we're not covering.
So you'll hear a lot of retailers talk about Level 3+.
That means one thing to one retailer, one thing to another retailer.
On the manufacturing side, we actually split it up into two additional categories.
So you have Level 3 +, which is the same as Level 3+.
But it will stop 7.62x39 mild steel core, which, as I said earlier, any good Level 3 plate will do now using modern materials.
Nonetheless, it is, according to us on the manufacturing side, its own separate designation.
From there, you have Level 3++, and that gives you the ability to stop one of the rounds you mentioned earlier, a green tip.
Which is the M855, the SS109 is the European designation.
Same round, 556, steel penetrator.
That has the ability to punch through a polymer plate, but maybe I shouldn't use the term punch through.
What ends up happening is the jacket gets stripped, and the steel penetrator finds its way through the other side, typically still somewhat attached to the plate, so it's...
Well, let's just say if you want to stop a green tip, let's give you a ceramic component.
But if you're wearing a polymer plate, probably not a life-threatening scenario.
I guess it sort of depends where you get hit.
And there's maybe only a couple reasons why you would go with a 3-plus plate.
The lightweight and the buoyancy.
Oddly enough, a Level 3 or 3-plus plate is going to cost more than a Level 4 plate, which is counterintuitive, but the reason that is is that ceramics cost considerably less than polymer armor materials.
So to go with that lighter plate, the buoyant plate, even though it's a lower level of protection and stops fewer rounds because of the materials it's made from, it does cost more, sometimes considerably more.
So that, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because that's counterintuitive.
It is.
People think higher protection, higher cost, but that's not the case.
But is the 3 plus, can that be buoyant?
Yes, yeah, 3 plus.
Those are buoyant, okay.
Typically, I mean, now it depends, right, you know, who you're talking to because, you know, AR500 is going to tell you that they've got a 3 plus steel plate.
Well, that's going to sink like a rock.
Yeah.
And I doubt that it even stops a true level 3 test.
But by giving it the designation 3 +, They're not actually claiming any certification.
And because that term means anything to anyone, well, they can go ahead and say it.
So this is kind of like, for our audience that they follow the food industry, so this is kind of like using the word natural.
Right.
Where organic is certified by the USDA, natural is not regulated.
That is a very good example.
Okay, so 3 plus is not certified by NIJ. No, no.
NIJ only recognizes Level 3 and Level 4.
The intermediary levels are industry standards, and that's where things get a little murky, because, you know, there are some companies out there doing some very...
Immoral things.
There's one company that talks about how light their plate is, but the ceramic doesn't come all the way to the edge.
It sits sometimes even as much as two inches in from the outer perimeter.
Well, sure, of course it's going to weigh less, right?
Because you've got less of the ceramic in there, but you also have less protection.
Right.
That's an issue.
And then you've got tons of companies who are getting stuff from China.
I told you about Dyneema, right?
We joke in the industry about the stuff they make in China called Chynema.
That's good.
And it is what you would expect.
Sometimes it works.
Well, it's interesting you say that because we've been sourcing some of this ultra-high weight...
Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene cordage.
And we had received samples from three sources.
And China's the only place we could find that even makes this stuff.
Oh, sure.
And we sent these three samples to a laboratory for tensile strength testing.
Out of the three, two of them failed their own rating.
Only one even met the rating.
No kidding.
Now that's not surprising.
Not surprising.
Yeah.
A lot of level four plates that come from China are made using hexagonal segments that just butt up to each other.
And they try to sell it as, hey, well, if one gets hit and it cracks, all the others around it don't crack.
Well, they fail to mention that if a round hits that seam, you can have issues as well.
So that's where I mentioned earlier.
It's almost better if people come into this not knowing anything because they don't have a head full of misinformation.
And there's a ton of it out there.
You know, steel armor just scares me.
I've never sold a steel plate in my life, never will.
Could have made a lot more money if I did, but...
Why does it scare you?
Well, steel armor, because, you know, you can punch through it very easily, or it can cause spalling.
Fragmentation, right?
When the round hits it, if it doesn't go through, all those hot bits have to go somewhere.
And, you know, they'll spray it with Linux coating and tell you that that's going to do the job.
Some companies have made some additional coatings that probably do a better job.
But in the end, why?
You know, they go through all this to make, I guess, a cheaper plate.
It's still single curve, so if you're going for a cheap single curve plate, you might as well just get a polymer ceramic plate that's certified that you know you can count on.
You know where it's made.
Life-saving stuff, it's so important to really make the right choice.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have learned that the hard way.
I get a lot of people that come to me regretting that in the beginning they bought steel plates, but here they are ready to upgrade.
Sometimes that's what it takes.
We have to make the wrong purchase before we make the right one.
I've done that a lot.
I have a lot of wrong gear.
It's all too easy.
It looks cool on your phone or your computer and maybe it's affordable.
If you're like me, sometimes after midnight you get a little easy with the spending and that does happen.
Yeah, I've got I've got guns I regretted purchasing, too.
It's like, no!
What was I thinking?
Okay.
You bet.
You bet.
Talk to us about concealability, though, if you would, because, again, moving out of this realm of tactical type of customers, a lot of everyday folks, they do want the protection of these, but they don't want to advertise like, hey, I'm wearing body armor.
I agree.
Right.
Talk to us about what's easy to throw a jacket over or conceal so that if you're getting gas or, I don't know, maybe you're going to a grocery store, you've got protection but nobody really even knows it.
Well, and I'll tell you something else.
When it comes to concealability, it's not always about being able to cover it up.
Sometimes it's about just making it look a little more subdued.
And one thing that I've seen in Ukraine is that people go over there to do humanitarian aid, but they bring, you know, some gear to protect themselves.
They've got a plate carrier.
Well, you know, what ends up happening on the Polish border, the Ukrainians see them, you know, wearing camouflage, and no, you go back to the fight.
And I think, well, okay, you know, what does that mean for us here in the States if things, I should say, when things really kind of come to a head?
And what I have been recommending for people ever since that whole thing broke out and I first caught wind of what was going on over there was to tell people, you know, go for solid colors, green or brown, depending on where you live, you know, more so maybe than multicam.
Some people want the multicam.
Great, go for it.
But multicam and black both do have, I would say, a more aggressive look to them, right?
So that's one way that you can help kind of subdue your visual imprint on the world around you.
So if you've got a green carrier, wear it over a green shirt.
Get something that matches.
Now from a distance, I can't even tell.
But with any of the carriers I sell and any of the plates I sell, provided you don't put magazine pouches on the front, it's very slick and slim, and you could throw a windbreaker over any of that stuff and be very well concealed, regardless of what color it is or what color you're wearing.
You know, underneath it.
So certainly all very concealable.
Where it starts to really imprint is again when you clip in, and both of the carriers I saw have female quick-release buckles on the front, and that's where a placard-type That's what they call it, a placard.
Essentially, it's just this rectangular block of material that you can attach various accessories to, like magazine pouches, and it just clips in and then velcros down over the cummerbund.
But that does, of course, start to grow, right?
And that's Where it starts to imprint, even if you try to cover it up.
But if your goal is really just to stay safe, get out of the way, you don't need to put a placard on there.
You don't necessarily need your magazine pouches.
Of course, I have magazine pouches on my carrier.
As does my son.
But my wife and my daughter, both of the carriers that I've put together for them, and of course I've put together a couple for everybody.
One using the polymer plates, one using the level fours, because given different situations.
But with the females, we don't put magazines on them.
They have belts that they can keep magazines on and just keep their profile that much slimmer.
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.
That actually brings me to the question, which I'm not going to beat around the bush, breasts.
So women wearing the plates, what are the strategies that women can use to feel comfortable wearing these plates?
Tell us, how do you resolve that?
Well, and one thing I'm working on is a female-specific plate.
So that is actually a design that I've put together.
I don't make them in a wide range of sizes, just enough.
The materials have certain limitations to them as far as the amount of curvature that you can give them.
So I'm trying to push the limits on that and give these plates as much curvature as we can without pushing the limits of the materials themselves.
But without question, when it comes to women and what's available now, I absolutely would say a triple curve plate regardless.
And quite honestly, a sappy plate is better than a swimmer plate.
You may recall from our previous discussion the difference between the two.
I'll quickly visually try to give you a visual anyway by describing it.
I find it's always hard to describe 3D things with words, but I'll give it a shot.
So, in a sappy plate, the top two corners, left and right, are cut at a 45-degree angle, about three inches in from the sides on the top, three inches down from the top on the lower side, right?
So you just get this 45-degree cut left and right, and that's a relief for your arms to have a better range of motion.
The swimmer plate is designed to help accentuate that motion that we would think of with swimming, right?
That arm-over-arm type motion.
Or, to give you a different example, right?
Holding a pistol out in front of you.
The swimmer plate, instead of a 45-degree cut, is more like 60 degrees.
And the coverage area difference between the two is so minimal, it's almost...
Shocking when you lay one on top of the other.
You think, gosh, swimmer plates sure looked a lot smaller.
But in reality, it's a difference of just a couple inches in surface area.
But it does make a difference in terms of your ability and your range of motion.
But I do find with females that because of their build, that tends to interfere a little bit.
Whereas a sappy plate helps to maybe keep everything contained.
Mm-hmm.
This is always a difficult subject, how to word things, because you want to be professional.
So that's the best way I can verbalize that, is that a sappy plate just tends to keep things contained a little bit more.
Whereas otherwise, with the swarmer plate, we might see, depending on the build of the woman, Expansion around the plate, which isn't necessarily life-threatening, but it's perhaps uncomfortable and probably works against the concept of a swimmer plate as it was intended.
It's intended to increase the range of motion, but if we're smashing body parts and pushing things out to the side, we find that it has the opposite effect.
So a sappy plate Which is the one with just the two 45 degree angle cuts left and right that looks a little more rectangular.
We find that to be more effective for the female body.
Well, that's really good to know.
I've got another question for you about women, but just commenting on that, we've Sometimes men have trouble with the belly.
So we've all been at a gun range before where there's a big guy with a little tiny plate that's riding way up high on his chest and he's got a massive belly, you know, kind of underneath the plate.
From a tactical or medical point of view, you can actually survive a shot in the belly much more than obviously you can survive a shot in the lung or the heart or anything like that.
So it actually, tactically, there's nothing wrong with that.
Do people, though, I always notice, but I want your reaction, I always notice that people tend to wear these things too low.
Like they don't ride them high enough to cover the clavicle area.
Is that what you find as well?
Yes.
Especially in the back, and I will see that with police, with, you know, FBI agents, you know, they take a photo, they got their backplate riding three, four inches too low.
So the way that this should be properly fitted...
And we'll talk about size in a minute, but just as it relates to positioning, you want the top of the front plate to sit about an inch or an inch and a half below the top of your sternum there, where you have that dimple in your throat.
Right from there, about an inch and a half below is where you want the top of that chest plate to be.
And then when looking at you from the side, ideally, You want that back plate to be riding about an inch and a half above the chest plate.
And if you adjust your carrier in such a way that you've got a position that way, and then you close the cummerbund in position, it will tend to stay in that position.
There's a carrier I'm working on that's going to help to maintain the position of that just by way of reinforcing these shoulder straps almost a little bit like a clothes hanger.
Where there's a little bit more rigidity, padded, but rigidity in the structure of it, such that it hangs on the body in the proper position without really having to be manipulated or coerced into position.
But that is something to keep in mind, and it is something that I see a lot, like I said, even with so-called professionals wearing their body armor incorrectly.
And it's really odd to see But it is true.
So pay close attention to that.
And, you know, you might feel like maybe you're not giving yourself enough room.
Maybe things are too tight and that's sort of the tendency, but it is right.
If you follow the general instructions that I'm laying out, you will have fit the armor to your body properly.
Yeah, and I recommend to people that you get the right rig, you get it set up, you get it to fit, and then if you have a place where you can Walk outside, you know, do a little bit of hiking without attracting undue attention because you're wearing this chest rig.
Then go walk around in it a lot.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
The only way that you're going to get a sense of where the rub points are, how the weight distribution works.
You're going to be sore maybe the first couple of days from just the shifting of your muscles and so on.
But that's the only way you're going to get used to it.
And even just sitting around the house, right?
You're sitting there on a Saturday, put your plate carrier on, sit down on the couch, wear it, you know, get up, you go make food, go to the fridge, walk around the house.
Just having it, getting used to it, making it feel like a part of your body, an extension of yourself.
It's time well spent.
And, you know, something interesting on that note, you know, I've got these femoral plates and I made these carriers that go on the outside of the pants, right?
A doctor friend of mine said, you know you should try putting those in a football girdle.
And I thought, well, we talked to somebody once about making underwear for these things, but they didn't have the right equipment, and life goes on, too much going on to really seek it out.
But I got online, I purchased a Under Armour seven-pocket football girdle.
You Google that term, Under Armour seven-pocket football girdle.
It's got two...
Compression sleeve pockets in the front for the thigh pads.
I put the femoral plates in there, and I put my pants on over it.
I wore these things, I kid you not, 10 hours a day, two Saturdays in a row, and I routinely forgot I was wearing it.
I'd be sitting at my desk, and I'd put my hands in my lap, and I'd say, oh gosh, I still have the plates on, because I could feel them once my hand touched it, but I would forget that I was wearing them.
Wow.
And when I took them off, this is interesting too, and this has a lot to do with that surface area contact.
When I took them off, my legs felt cold.
What does that mean?
Those plates were absorbing body heat and reducing my heat stress.
So, something interesting to consider.
That is interesting, yeah.
And so, as a result of that, we're actually designing and having custom-made a football girdle specific to our plates, because that football girdle worked great for the 3A plates, but the 3-plus femoral plates were a little bit too heavy.
And once you put the pants on, it kind of negates it, but A little bit too heavy and causing some sag.
And so what I noticed was that, and this is going to sound crazy, but my Cry combat pants have very deep front pockets.
I mean the front pocket, right where you would put your hands in.
I put the plates in those things and it held it.
The whole plate sat in there.
It maybe wrote an inch higher than I wanted it to, but it was still comfortable and it was super effective.
That's interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know how we got on that tangent, but it's really annoying.
Well, but it's interesting that our audience needs to know you have more than just chest plates.
You have shoulder plates and you have immoral plates.
Is there anything else that...
Yes, yes.
So femoral plates, as I mentioned, shoulder plates are actually making an undergarment to hold those as well so that you would wear your shirt over it.
When you do that, you have less chance of these things snagging on brushes or this or that.
So I always say this, on a long enough timeline, shoulder plates and femoral plates, 100% guaranteed will be standard issue for every military on the planet, without question.
Well, yeah, and people take rounds from the side.
Oh, yes.
And as Colonel John Seamer told me back in probably 2005, with regards to shoulder armor, save the joint, save the limb.
And I've seen pictures of shoulders having been hit with a.308, and I can promise you the arm had to be removed.
It was terrible.
Absolutely devastating injury.
Now, thank you for spending so much time with us, by the way.
And we are, folks, we are going to give out the discount code that Lyman here is offering.
But I've got one more question for you, which is almost a piece of advice to the listeners.
Even if you don't plan to wear something like this every day or on every Saturday or on certain outings, you need a bug-out setup.
For that day, I mean, for example, the whole country of Pakistan just lost its power grid like 12 hours ago from when we're recording this.
Literally 220 million people had no power.
Now, in Pakistan, they didn't lose their minds and go insane.
But if that were to happen in certain U.S. cities, an hour after the grid goes down, it's looting mayhem, right?
No question.
You're not going to have an opportunity at that moment to go online and order your chest rig and get it and then fit it and practice.
You need to have that ready to go.
You need to have a system that you can put on, boom, in an emergency.
You're in it.
Absolutely.
Is that one of the uses that people explain or share with you?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
You know, especially the people that live in the cities.
You know, they talk about their plan to get out of the city.
And for many of them, body armor is a critical component to that strategy.
You've got to be protected.
The minute you leave your home, you're that much more vulnerable.
And You know, armor certainly is a critical component to surviving that sort of mayhem.
And there's that project I've been working on that you asked me to work on some time ago, and that's what I call the backpack panel.
But it's also effectively a shield, a rifle-rated level 3 +, so all-polymer shield.
And this fits in a backpack.
This fits in the back pocket of your car seat.
And we're making a carrier for it.
So a very simple type carrier like I use.
With the shoulder plates and femoral plates, which uses this very thick, I shouldn't say very thick, but this thick, rugged fabric material.
It's actually two plies of fabric sandwiched around a polymer sheet fused together into one fabric, so much so that it's most effectively cut with a laser, precisely cut, and effectively we've got This cover over the front of the shield, this beaver tail that folds up from under it, side flaps that come around it and Velcro down To hold the plate in position within this bag, you might call it, or this carrier.
And with that, there's a little forearm strap.
You slide your arm under it.
It rests just above the elbow.
And that's your forearm strap.
And then you've got your hand grip, your handle.
And what's great about that is...
I'll tell everybody you really should have body armor.
Plate carriers, plates, the whole deal.
But a shield is something else entirely.
It's...
Imagine in the middle of the night someone breaks into your house.
Do you have time to throw on your body armor?
Not really.
I mean, you could just pick it up and hold it in front of you like a shield.
Certainly no problem doing that.
But all the better if you had this shield next to your bed.
And the front part of that fabric has little molly slits in it so you can mount pistol magazines to it, right?
Or even a holster.
So you've got your pistol mounted to the front of the shield.
You've got your extra magazines there.
So it makes everything very convenient.
Good for vehicles, right?
Something that you could put in between you and the car door.
I'm glad you mentioned this.
I didn't know that you were already open to talking about that publicly, but since you have, any idea of the timeline of when these are going to be ready?
I've got the carriers in the works.
I actually have the shields waiting for us in the warehouse.
I've got the carriers being made.
I'd say that they'll be ready in, oh, I don't know, call it two weeks probably on the way to me, if not sooner.
Maybe I'll just go ahead and make those available on the website now.
Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
And also, I would normally say this off-camera, but I'll just share it with the public.
I have a major partner for you that's setting up a really strong online presence that would want to carry these.
And that's fantastic.
We do have a number of dealers across the country.
Different gun stores and sporting goods stores or online retailers.
You did mention that to me the other day, and I'd be very happy to get them set up.
Really, for me, it's all about getting more people protected.
That means more to me than anything.
I treat this business other than a business.
This is really a calling for me.
This is something that I felt very led to do on behalf of the people in particular.
You know, even going back 10 years ago when I first started HopLite, and even before that, my goal was really to protect the people in as much as I could and to do whatever I could to help them prepare for the inevitable.
I didn't really think it would come around this quickly.
I'm a little surprised at the rate that things are deteriorating, but nonetheless, this is what I planned for and what the business was built to do.
Well, I think there's no doubt your efforts have already saved some untold number of lives out there.
You've probably heard from some customers.
Yes.
Yes, I have.
Absolutely.
Security guards, military personnel, all sorts of people from all walks of life.
I have heard a lot of stories, and you know what I do in that case.
I say, send me your plate.
I'm going to send you a replacement for free.
And I don't do it to market.
I don't talk about these people online.
I don't share their names or information.
But I will always replace the plate.
Now, don't put it on and shoot your friends.
Yes.
People get arrested for that routinely.
So don't do that.
They do, yeah.
I saw an arrest recently.
Oh, yeah.
It's, yeah, well, we don't need to say any more about that, but kind of winning the Darwin Award right there, too, if you jerk the gun when you're firing or something.
Anyway, yeah, but folks, you know, Follow all manufacturers' directions on what to do with this and use it appropriately.
Now, could you share with us?
You got a discount code.
You texted me that you were going to announce this.
It's the best discount that you've ever given our audience.
Tell us about that, if you would.
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, the standard discount that we've given your audience has been discount code Ranger, all lowercase, typically 10%.
I bumped it up to 20.
I doubled the discount.
And the code is the same Ranger, R-A-N-G-E-R, all lowercase.
And, of course, the website's hoplitearmor.com, hoplite armor, hoplite like the ancient Greek citizen soldiers to whom we owe our very form of government and King Leonidas and what he did to ensure that that form of government remained.
Yes, but this discount code has an expiration date.
It does.
It expires on my birthday.
So last year on my birthday, I ran the biggest discount I ever ran.
Prices had gone up, but I had some leftover inventory.
So back then, I did a really big discount.
When I turned 50, I did 50% off on a particular plate.
I really can't do that or I'd lose money, but 20% I can do, and I'm trying to move some inventory and direct some money towards...
One of these other projects we talked about last time, which I might as well mention quickly, the lightweight level 4 project that I talked to you about before is underway.
The plates, I've got some production samples moving through now that after doing some initial testing, we think we know exactly exactly The ingredients we want to use on this plate.
And I decided to take it one step further.
So I've got the lightweight level 4.
That's a boron carbide ceramic.
That's the lightest ceramic you can get.
And when we talked earlier about level 4 plates typically costing less, well, there's another category of level 4 plates that cost more.
And that's the lightweight level 4, the boron carbide in particular.
And so I've got this whole line of There are eight different plates, four sizes, two cuts, swimmer and sappy, small, medium, large, extra large, and every one of those configurations.
But where I took it a step further, the new Army 6.8 AP round, I thought, you know, I'd really like to make a plate that would stop that because the Chinese have developed something similar, and it won't be very long until these things find their way on the street like everything else does.
So to that end, we are developing a separate plate.
Which uses a slightly different ceramic.
It's a little bit heavier than boron carbide, but still lighter than the standard aluminum oxide.
And that's a silicon carbide plate.
Well, silicon carbide ceramic plate, ceramic core.
And that, we believe, we know it's going to stop the M993. That's the tungsten armor-piercing.308 round.
Oh, whoa.
Yeah, I know about those rounds.
Those rounds chew up steel plate, steel target plates.
Oh, they chew up everything.
They are incredibly tough to stop.
There's only one plate I know of that can reliably stop that round, and we are able to take it one step further with a couple of different techniques that we use and some interesting concepts that we've developed over the years.
So these things are going to roll out over the, I'd say, in about three months.
Okay, wow.
So just to review what you've got coming here, you've got the shields that you mentioned.
Do you have the dimensions on roughly how big are they?
10 by 16.
Oh, okay, wow.
And are they semi-rigid?
They are rigid.
It is a hard plate.
It is a pressed polymer panel, 10x16.
All four corners are cut to 45 degrees, but much smaller than the cutouts on a sappy plate, just enough to give it some relief if you put it in a backpack.
So yeah, we've got that.
We've got the new lightweight level 4.
We've got the 6.8 M993 plate.
We've got the shoulder plates, the femoral plates.
Two things I didn't mention previously.
We just got to talking about other things.
The dangler plate that I made sits in what's called a lower ab pouch, or some people just call it a dangler pouch.
And this just velcros onto your plate carrier, right about the point where the cummerbund is, and it As the name describes, dangles, essentially, below the front plate.
And people have been wearing these for years, but I finally said, you know, I'm just going to make a plate that fits this thing.
And it was funny, because it must have been the single quickest product development process that ever happened, because I... I sat down one morning and ten minutes later it was done and five minutes later it was at the manufacturers with a purchase order.
So that's probably a record, I think.
But it's so simple.
But it's also very effective.
It's a three-plus solution.
We did not add a ceramic component because that's a whole other process and we wanted to get it out in the market quickly.
And something else that I made, when guys saw pictures of the femoral plates, they thought, boy, there's a big gap right in the middle.
So I made them a groin plate.
And I've got the carriers being made right now alongside the shield carriers.
And I decided, you know what, I'm just going to go ahead and put these things out there for the guys because they've been asking me about it.
And that first batch of groin plates went in the first 36 hours or whatever it was.
So people were very excited to get their hands on those things, and for obvious reasons.
That's a critical part of the body that you want to preserve.
Well, it's the easiest thing to market to men.
You just have the slogan, Got Balls?
That's it.
That's all you need to say.
That's right.
That's actually very good.
I might have to use that.
Feel free, yeah.
So, lots of new stuff coming and other new things that I've recently released, the dangler plate, the groin plate, even, you know, the different ways of carrying the femoral plates and the different ways of what we're working on now for the shoulder plates.
That's one thing that we do that no one else does, and that's, you know, something that...
I don't want to use the word out of context, but something that I'm proud of, right?
Not pride like arrogant, but proud in the sense that I consider myself very fortunate to find myself in a position where I'm able to do these things and to have the education.
We're blessed to have you, too, by the way, because you know this stuff.
You're so supportive of our community, and I've heard so many great things from people who are your customers.
I'm just really happy to be able to connect you.
You've been a huge help to us and I greatly appreciate everything you've done just to help educate the people.
It's like I tell people, I don't care where you get your armor, just get real armor.
And that's sort of the trick because there's so much misinformation and disinformation.
One thing that I'm known for is telling the truth and putting it out there.
Most of my ads are just spec sheets with data.
Everybody's got the cool guy photos, whatever.
I'm just giving you the facts.
More often than not, that's what I'm posting is the facts, the data sheets.
Maybe that's because I'm an engineer and that's what I, of course...
No, best is details, facts, numbers, tests.
But, you know, I just try to give people...
You know, this is velocity.
This is mass.
This is distribution of energy combined with anatomy.
You know, we talked about a lot of body parts today, and that's inescapable.
This is to protect the physical body.
So, of course, we're going to talk about the body.
And I love the solutions you have.
I'm really interested in this.
You mentioned a silicon carbide ceramic plate.
Me, personally, I want to know what is the lightest That is coming, you know, because I feel like the lighter the plate, the more frequently I'm going to wear it.
That's true.
Right?
No question.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so the lightest we can get level four is about four and a half, five pounds.
That's really great, actually.
That is very good.
For a level four plate, that's phenomenal.
Something that would normally weigh eight pounds, you know, we're able to almost cut that in half.
Yeah, that's amazing.
And now those are still quite thick.
I mean, the thickness is...
Three quarters of an inch.
Not bad.
Yeah, that's not bad.
Because I've also had plates before where you put one on the front and the back, and then you try to get in your car, and suddenly you're way thicker than what your seat is rigged for.
Right, that's true.
A vehicle mobility with all of this can be quite tricky if it's overly bulky.
Yeah, no, that is very true.
And that's why I always try to keep things thin, light, easy to maneuver in.
And all the products are all kind of designed with that in mind.
And plates used to be a good bit thicker, too.
But, you know, with the advances in materials and fabrication techniques, we are able to make them thinner and lighter all the time.
And, you know, it'll be interesting to see where we are 10 years from now with all this stuff.
But for now, something that's three-quarters of an inch thick to even an inch thick is considered standard, really, depending on the level.
And the materials.
And they come in some variations as far as weight and buoyancy and things like that.
But, you know, and something I meant to mention earlier that maybe I didn't emphasize enough is that most people really do opt for Level 4.
Because it does protect them against everything, and it does tend to be more cost effective.
There is another plate, though, that I've developed.
It's the 19513.
That's the SKU number, 19513.
That is the best performing level 3++ plate on the planet.
LTC, when we put this thing together, they compared it side by side with their previous iteration of a 3++ plate, and this thing outperformed it not only in terms of weight, but In terms of stopping power, not only will it stop the M855, which we talked about, the green tip, it will stop its big brother, the M855A1. That's the new variant.
No.
Yes, multiple hits and with minimal backface deformations.
Isn't that the tungsten alloy?
I mean...
It's not a tungsten core round.
It's a steel core, but not a tungsten.
But it's more like a Christmas tree tip instead of just a pencil-led core.
Oh, okay.
And, you know, initially this was designed as an...
Of all things, a more environmentally friendly round, if there is such a thing.
But it was developed with that in mind.
But it does have significantly increased stopping power.
Or, I should say, man-stopping power.
That round is pretty mean, and it does have a tendency to penetrate a wide range of armors that are short of Level 4.
But this 19-513 plate...
Really, it only costs about $50 more than the same plate in a Level 4.
Same size and cut, medium sappy.
A set of those is $800.
But in my mind, that is the perfect civilian plate.
It's 5.5 pounds.
So only a pound heavier than that really advanced lightweight Level 4 plate that I'm working on.
It won't stop as...
Powerful of a round is a level 4.
It's not going to stop the.30-06 AP, but it's $60-80 apiece like we talked about.
Nobody's throwing those things around.
No.
I mean, if people are aiming at you with a.30-06, you've done something probably really wrong.
Yes.
Yes.
You've violated some international law, and there's a team looking for you.
Right.
No question.
Yeah.
The average person is never going to have to contend with that.
Great.
Yeah, that's the other question everybody needs to ask.
Like, if everybody's trying to shoot you, who have you pissed off lately would be one question.
How did I get here?
Right.
And could I exfil this location before things get worse?
Yes.
Okay, so again, thank you for your time.
I mean, I'm sorry to hold you over so long, but you and I can talk.
So I really geek out on the data on this, too.
I find it really fascinating.
Armor is one of the coolest things ever.
It really is.
It really is.
And also, when you understand it, you also, if you are attacked by a Mad Max zombie gang, And you may be able to understand what are their armor limitations or properties as well, which can factor into your strategic defense, like, is my rifle big enough?
I'll leave you with this, what I call pro-gamer tip, right?
You know, I mean, that's what they always say on the internet, pro-gamer tip, right?
So here you go.
I stack my magazines.
And now, of course, in so doing, your accuracy long distances is going to vary.
And so, you know, for me...
Defending my 10 acres, nothing's really further than 200 yards away.
So I stack my magazines with tracer rounds, tracer incendiary rounds, ball rounds, M855, M855A1, so that if I'm facing a threat, more than likely I've got a round in there within three or four shots that's going to penetrate whatever he's wearing.
That's an interesting take, yeah.
And you're going to frazzle them, like, whoa, how many different people are shooting at me?
Yeah, I know, yes.
And those tracer incendiary rounds, I mean, when they hit, it looks like a Star Wars blaster.
Right, right.
They're always fun.
It's like a red phosphor streaking across the landscape and setting things perhaps on fire.
Well, that's interesting, but yeah, I would imagine...
Yeah, your longer range ballistics are going to be all screwed up, but you already mentioned that.
That's right.
For close encounters, that seems like a good idea.
Well, very cool stuff.
So again, folks, the website is hoplitearmor.com, H-O-P-L-I-T-E, hoplitearmor.com.
The discount code is RANGER, and it saves you 20% through which day?
February 22nd.
Of 2023.
My birthday.
That's right.
All right.
So almost one month.
Okay.
All right.
And then folks, also do not forget that I believe that body armor is going to be one of the best barter items as things get crazy.
Who doesn't want body armor when the supply chain collapses and, you know, You might be able to trade body armor for chicken eggs at some point.
Or the other way around.
I mean, eggs are going to be so expensive.
Body armor is going to be hard to get.
Did you hear that they found there are egg smugglers now crossing the border?
Yes, I did read about that.
Yes, I did.
I guess they're hiding the eggs in the marijuana now, you know, too.
Oh my gosh, yeah.
It's like, oh, cannabis, that's perfectly legal, but eggs as well.
You've got to put a stop to that.
You can't have the raw milk either, whatever you do.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
It's crazy.
I know.
But thank you for joining me, Lyman.
It's always a pleasure.
I really appreciate it.
Anytime.
No, thank you.
The pleasure is all mine.
All right.
Well, thank you.
And for those of you watching, I hope you enjoyed this.
I hope you found it as fascinating as I did.
As always, feel free to repost this interview.
You can copy it, put it on your own channel.
Just give credit to Lyman Bishop at hoplightarmor.com.
And thank you for listening.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of brighteon.com and a proud owner of some hoplight armor, I will say.
So thank you for listening.
Take care, everybody.
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