New NIJ Armor classification 0123.00, Dec 2023

[Librarian]

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2023/12/05/nij-releases-new-classifications-for-body-armor/

NIJ 0123.00

Most people will care more about 0123.00 as they are shopping for new armor. There are five types of armor rating. HG (for handgun) 1 and 2, and RF (for rifle) 1, 2, and 3.

First up we have the handgun levels. The old system was, in order of increasing protection, IIA, II, and IIIA, which makes almost no sense. Moving to only two ratings makes sense because IIA is fairly uncommon these days.

....

Turning to rifle threats, there are now three options instead of two. RF1 is the lowest level and offers protection against 7.62 NATO, 7.62?39 with a mild steel core, and 5.56 M193.

RF2 keeps those threat levels and adds 5.56 M855.

Rounding out the list is RF3, which is only tested with .30-06 M2 armor piercing (aka black tip) ammo.

[TrailerparkTrash]

Just before recently retiring, I was issued a new vest the year before. Brand new in the box and my (ex)-employer still only issues a level IIA. I was shocked and thought for sure they’d have upgraded from that bare bones dismal NIJ vest rating.

Nope.

[Maltese Falcon]

Odd thought brings up a point . I was a QA Manager at an Environmental testing lab for decades. Interesting in that I see the testing protocols are quite specific and are /shall/ heavy rather than other criteria. I assume this is done by a single source facility? Who accredits them? DoD audits are ridiculously rigorous.

EDIT1: It is a published ASTM method. Easy enough (Read: You have a standard, now follow it) once you get the details right.

EDIT2: ERROR: Oof, after more careful reading, it looks like they developed a hybrid method from multiple sources....

The primary purpose of this standard will be for use by the NIJ Compliance Testing Program (CTP) for testing, evaluation, and certification of ballistic-resistant body armor. It will also be used by ballistic testing laboratories and body armor suppliers participating in the NIJ CTP.

This standard will be included in the Law Enforcement and Corrections Equipment Laboratory Accreditation Program (LAP) of the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) to accredit ballistics laboratories.

NIJ Standard 0101.07 is divided into fourteen sections and eight appendices and differs from NIJ Standard 0101.06 in several important ways. Among these are notable structural changes between the two documents, as well as the introduction of several improvements to test methods and laboratory practices.

An overview of these differences is provided in the following paragraphs.

First, unlike previous versions of the NIJ standard, NIJ Standard 0101.07 references a suite of standardized test methods and laboratory practices published by ASTM. NIJ, the U.S. Army, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), ballistics laboratories, body armor manufacturers, materials suppliers, and other stakeholders have been working collaboratively for several years within ASTM Committee E54 on Homeland Security Applications to harmonize, where possible, laboratory test procedures and practices relevant to ballistic testing.

The result of this collaboration has been a suite of test methods and laboratory practices developed within ASTM Subcommittee E54.04 on Public Safety Equipment, many of which are referenced in this document.

Incorporation of relevant ASTM standards into U.S. government standards and technical requirements affords the opportunity to harmonize laboratory test procedures and practices for both law enforcement and military ballistic-resistant armor and other ballistic-resistant equipment where the same general testing methodology otherwise applies. This also provides those end-user communities ultimate control over product specifications, such as the specific threats against which their equipment must protect.

Second, the ballistic test threats are no longer listed in NIJ Standard 0101.07 as in past revisions of the standard. These have been moved into Specification for NIJ Ballistic Protection Levels

NIJ Standard 0101.06, Ballistic Resistance of Body Armor, National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, July 2008, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/223054.pdf.
“Law Enforcement and Corrections Equipment LAP,” National Institute of Standards and Technology website, https://www.nist.gov/nvlap/law-enfor...-equipment-lap, accessed June 12, 2023.

“Subcommittee E54.04 on Public Safety Equipment: Matching Standards Under the Jurisdiction of E54.04 by Status,” ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, https://www.astm.org/get-involved/te...sdiction-e5404 and Associated Test Threats, NIJ Standard 0123.00, which is a new standalone document that defines ballistic threats identified by U.S. law enforcement as representative of current prevalent threats in the United States.

NIJ Standard 0123.00 was designed be used in conjunction with other standards like NIJ Standard 0101.07 to test and evaluate specific ballistic-resistant equipment, such as ballisticresistant body armor, against contemporary ballistic threats that pose a life-threating safety hazard to U.S. law enforcement officers.

The test projectiles and reference velocities in the inaugural version of NIJ Standard 0123.00 have been updated from section 2 of NIJ Standard 0101.06 to reflect the current threats faced by U.S. law enforcement end users, including a wider range of rifle threats.

Third, protection level nomenclature has also been moved into NIJ Standard 0123.00 and has been revised to be more descriptive of threats and to reduce confusion for users of body armor.

• NIJ Level II and NIJ Level IIIA have been replaced with “NIJ HG1” and “NIJ HG2,” respectively, to represent handgun (HG) threats.

• NIJ Level III and NIJ Level IV have been revised to three protection levels representing rifle (RF) threats — “NIJ RF1,” “NIJ RF2,” and “NIJ RF3”:

o NIJ RF1 and NIJ RF3 replace NIJ Level III and NIJ Level IV, respectively.
o NIJ RF2 is a new intermediate rifle protection level that includes all the threats at the NIJ RF1 protection level plus an additional threat.

NIJ Standard 0101.07 references the new ballistic protection levels in the inaugural version of NIJ Standard 0123.00 rather than defining the levels within NIJ Standard 0101.07 itself, as was done in NIJ Standard 0101.06 and previous versions.

Fourth, this standard contains improvements to the test methods for armor designed for women, including new clay appliques (e.g., build-up of clay) to ensure better contact of nonplanar panels with the clay backing material and new shot requirements to assess shaping features. Shot placement has also been reconfigured to exploit potential vulnerabilities due to unique construction elements in the panel and nonzero angles of incidence in the proximity of edges.

Earlier drafts of NIJ Standard 0101.07 initially referenced ASTM E3086, Standard Practice for Creating Appliques for Use in Testing of Nonplanar Soft Body Armor Designed for Females.

This ASTM standard specified a procedure for creating appliques for use behind nonplanar soft armor panels and affixing the appliques to the clay block. The purpose was to specify critical parameters for creating appliques in order to improve consistency of the test setup between laboratories. The practice described a single applique shape applicable only to nonplanar, soft body armor designed for women.

Implementation of this laboratory practice proved more challenging than expected, including difficulty creating the specific applique shapes described in ASTM E3086 and ensuring proper contact with the armor panel once mounted on the clay block.

These challenges required reconsideration of how to build up clay behind nonplanar soft armor panels.

A more simplified applique was developed to ensure that the panels are fully filled in with clay before mounting on the clay block. This applique is more monolithic in form and better supports armors designed for female wearers during testing. It is created using one of two standardized mold sizes along with a procedure to shape its form once affixed to the clay block.

The result is a better substrate to ballistically test nonplanar armor, replacing the procedure in ASTM E3086. The electronic files containing the drawings of the molds to make the clay appliques described in Appendix G are freely available to NIJ-approved testing laboratories and other organizations upon request.

Fifth, NIJ has updated perforation-backface deformation (P-BFD) testing to include an additional shot on soft armor panels. How soft armor responds to handgun projectiles striking very near the top edge of a front armor panel has been explored by an adjacent U.S. Government agency through experimental testing efforts.

This involved mounting a ballistic vest with soft armor panels in an external carrier onto a model female torso made of molded ballistic gelatin.

In this configuration, the top of the panel is naturally slanted back toward the torso in the carrier, creating an angle of obliquity between the armor panel and the trajectory of the incoming bullet.

Shots striking the top-center edge at angles of obliquity in excess of approximately 40? have been demonstrated in some exploratory tests to not fully engage all layers of the armor panel and deflect off a middle layer into the neck region of the gelatin torso.

For soft armor, NIJ has added a shot located at the top center at the minimum shot-to-edge distances (2 in. or 3 in.) for the respective NIJ HG1 and NIJ HG2 threats at a 45? angle of
obliquity between the shot and the armor test item. This added shot applies to all soft armor tested, both planar and nonplanar.

• For planar soft armor, the clay block is rotated a 45? angle of incidence to introduce the obliquity for the shot striking the armor.

• For nonplanar soft armor, the built-up clay of the applique introduces an approximately 15? angle of obliquity by slanting the top of the armor panel back toward the clay block. The clay block is rotated an additional 30? angle of incidence to yield the required 45? obliquity for the shot striking the armor.

This new shot will provide minimum performance for soft armor for handgun projectiles striking that location.

Finally, NIJ has also reconfigured P-BFD testing on hard armor plates to include striking the crown on curved plates. The crown is defined as the location of the highest point of the strike face of the plate when the plate is lying horizontally on a flat surface, at the intersection of multiple different curvatures.

The placement of a shot on the crown probes the performance of hard armor in a location that may be more vulnerable to penetration due to characteristics of the materials or construction methods used to manufacture plates.

This shot location is consistent with testing conducted by the U.S. Army on hard armor to meet its specifications, bringing the NIJ standard into better alignment with U.S. Army testing of hard armor plates.

A previous draft of this standard was published for public comment in the Federal Register.

This document uses the following in accordance with international standards:

— “shall” indicates a requirement.
— “should” indicates a recommendation.
— “may” indicates a permission.
— “can” indicates a possibility or a capability.

Please send all written comments and suggestions to the Director, National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, 810 7th Street NW, Washington, DC 20531.

Nothing in this document is intended to create any legal or procedural rights enforceable against the United States. Moreover, nothing in this document creates any obligation for any individual or organization to follow or adopt this voluntary standard nor does it create any obligation for suppliers, law enforcement agencies, or others to follow or adopt voluntary NIJ equipment standards..

.

[Maltese Falcon]

Throw this quote out there to bumpy.

NIJ 0101.07 is 87 pages long and is full of interesting details about how armor will be tested. If you wear armor or are in a position to buy armor that other people wear this is worth a read to understand what armor is tested to do. It is also really important to know what kinds of things are not tested.

Truer words were never spoken...

.

[TrailerparkTrash]

Post #3 was too long to read. Can you sum it up in two sentences or less please?

[Maltese Falcon]

Post #3 was too long to read. Can you sum it up in two sentences or less please?

The previous testing standards were a hodgepodge of procedures developed over time used by two distinct entities, Military and Urban Law Enforcement.

The new standards allow both entities to properly select their equipment based on their level of need and functionality.

.MIL would like high level rifle models. (don/t we all). More everyday usage, a lower level would be appropriate.

More importantly they added protocols for angle / edge shots and multiple shots so meeting those new guidelines address as best it can what users may likely encounter.

No such thing as a /bulletproof/ vest, only what it was designed and tested to meet.

EDIT1: I seem to recall some meme of a Golden bullet, the one that finds you or the target no matter what…Oof!

.

[TrailerparkTrash]

The previous testing standards were a hodgepodge of procedures developed over time used by two distinct entities, Military and Urban Law Enforcement.

The new standards allow both entities to properly select their equipment based on their level of need and functionality.

.MIL would like high level rifle models. (don/t we all). More everyday usage, a lower level would be appropriate.

More importantly they added protocols for angle / edge shots and multiple shots so meeting those new guidelines address as best it can what users may likely encounter.

No such thing as a /bulletproof/ vest, only what it was designed and tested to meet.

EDIT1: I seem to recall some meme of a Golden bullet, the one that finds you or the target no matter what?Oof!

.

Thank you.