Unissued German Police Ballistic & Anti Stab Vest (Mehler)

“Costume Use Only”

Back in black, we’ve got more Polizei vests.

This low profile yet also extremely effective concealable vest weighs in at around 5 pounds including its protective inserts, and doesn’t bulge out from your body like typical hard armor does. It hugs you closely with its non-obtrusive elastic adjustment and fits perfect under jackets, hoodies, and even shirts with a little wiggle room.

If you’re looking for a high-quality concealable vest with pedigree, these are made by Mehler, a prolific and trusted riot gear manufacturer. They’re made to type-A German standards, and include ballistic inserts rated at Germany’s SK1 rating (roughly analogous to NIJ Level II) and Trauma pads. With this in mind, these are technically “expired” inserts. This is by Germany’s standards for expiration, which is when the 10-year Manufacturer’s warranty has ended. As such, the performance of these vests to those standards cannot be guaranteed legally, so you need to purchase responsibly. 

If you’re not familiar with armor ratings, this means that the vest is designed to stop common ammunition up to a certain point. SK1 essentially Means it has been tested by strict standards and procedure to stop common loads of 9x19mm. (more info)

To clear everything up a bit, we decided to have a little fun and do a rough test of the vests ourselves, expired inserts and all.

The Test

For our test, we stood 5 Meters away from our target and fired common handgun loads to test penetration firstly, as that is the armor’s primary function.

That’s not the end of the story for any armor test, however. Backface deformation, or essentially how much the armor inserts bulge when a bullet hits them, tells you how well the armor distributes the energy when hit. Less deformation means that the armor is better at reducing injuries from the impact alone in addition to stopping the round from penetrating. By SK1 standards, this means the impact cannot cause the armor to deform more than 41mm or about 1.6″.

As mentioned, these do feature trauma pad inserts. These aid against stabbing, blunt force trauma, and bolsters the armor for less backface deformation where it covers. We left them inserted in the vest during our testing.

Our Results

In our testing, the vest did not allow common loads of 9mm or .38 Special to penetrate at all, which means it met it’s armor rating. .40 S&W, and .44 Magnum also surprisingly did not penetrate, which meant it exceeded its standards here.

For both 9mm and .38 Special, the vest performed well as far as deformation goes and appeared to meet the standards it was manufactured for. You’d likely end up with a cracked rib and some nasty bruising, but you’d live and recover.

Both .40 S&W and .44 Magnum are technically ‘out of spec’ for this vest. Although there’s more nuance to this than you might expect. In terms of muzzle energy a surprising amount of .40 S&W loadings overlap with hotter 9mm. So while .40 S&W is definitely pushing things, it’s not too concerning.

However true magnum rounds, like .44 have an order of magnitude more muzzle energy than the threats this vest was designed for—really crossing the bridge into oww my ribs broke and I’m bleeding on the inside territory.

All of our testing aside, once again, these are expired and legally we can’t guarantee them for anything more than “costume use only”

Vests like these have historically been very popular here, grab one while supplies last.

Specs

• For costume purposes only
• low-pro velcro secured elastic shoulder and side straps
• Comes in Black, It’s the new tan.
• Zippered front and rear soft armor pouches
• SK1 (Roughly NIJ Level II)  rated protective inserts in the front and back
• Trauma pads also included 
• Inserts range between 3.2lbs (M), 4.2lbs (L), and 6.2lbs (XL) depending on size of vest.

Sizing

Velcro on the vest allows a wide range of sizing to be accommodated. Vests will be able to fit a size larger, or smaller than as noted.

Condition

Vests are in unissued condition with no markings, stains, tears, or blemishes.