Personal protection—and, especially, the topic of protective vests—is becoming more and more important. However, not all protective vests are the same. Threat levels for ballistic vests are defined according to different standards. In this blog we don’t offer a definition of ballistic but rather address U.S. standard NIJ.
NIJ (short for National Institute of Justice) is the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). The NIJ is focused on the development of technology for application in the criminal justice system. Its goal is to improve the operation of law enforcement, corrections facilities, forensics, and court processes. NIJ also conducts research in the areas of criminology and criminal justice.
NIJ sets standards for various types of protection and communications equipment used by law enforcement agencies. The agency also sets and maintains standards for body armour.
For more informations about NIJ, please visit the official website: Home | National Institute of Justice (ojp.gov)
The NIJ conducts independent testing of body armour (bullet-resistant clothing and bulletproof material) to ensure that ballistics products sold on the market can stop bullets as promised. These independent tests are important because they align manufacturers and brands that otherwise would rely on their own standards. The result of NIJ testing is a body armour rating system that lets consumers reliably compare and contrast products across brands.
To ensure that products made of bullet-resistant material and sold as body armour meet the highest standards, the NIJ created the Compliance Testing Program (NIJ CTP) which is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice. NIJ product testing occurs at independent laboratories accredited by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and that meet the objectivity standards established by the NIJ as well as by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Owing to this accredited independence, the testing labs are free of conflicts of interest even when manufacturers and suppliers use the labs‘ services to evaluate products submitted for certification testing.
The five ballistic protection levels explained in this post are, according to NIJ body armour standard 0101.06, categorised by threat. Which ballistic products occupy what protection levels depends on the type and velocity of the projectile they can resist. These are Level IIA, Level II, Level IIIA, Level III, and Level IV. The body armour performance standards help users better understand how much protection they can expect from the body armour they have chosen to wear.
Level NIJ IIA is a minimum standard for bulletproof vests. It is often the standard applied in the production of soft body armour made up of layers of high-strength fibres. Examples of these fibres include para-aramid (Kevlar, Twaron) and high-performance polyethylene (Spectra, Dyneema)—for more information about these two bullet-resistant materials, please read our previous blog article.
Compared to level NIJ II, vests rated NIJ IIA are lightweight and flexible. Because they are easily concealable under clothes, NIJ IIA vests are well-suited for day-to-day civilian and law-enforcement use. However, NIJ levels IIA and IIIA offer no protection against rifle ammunition, only some handgun rounds.
9 mm and .40 Smith & Wesson handgun ammunition is currently among the most widely available.
Level NIJ II body armour is also referred to as soft armour. It offers more blunt-force protection than does level IIA and can resist a larger variety of ammunition types. NIJ II is heavier than NIJ IIA, although overall it’s still relatively light and flexible—which is why NIJ II is increasingly obsoleting NIJ IIA when it comes to the manufacture of concealable vests.
NIJ IIIA is the most common soft-body armour protection level. It provides protection against almost all common handgun rounds. NIJ IIIA body armour is considerably heavier than NIJ IIA- and NIJ II-rated products.
NIJ III is perhaps the most familiar body armour type. It is starting standard level for rifle round protection and stops all handgun caliber rounds. Consisting mainly of hard armour-plate inserts, NIJ III protects against all low-rated body armour threats.
Body armour in this category can be bulky but also lightweight depending on the material used.
NIJ IV is the highest-rated level of protection, capable of resisting armour-piercing rifle bullets. Body armour in this category is the heaviest on the market and therefore not as comfortable as lower-rated products. It’s also more expensive than NIJ levels IIA, II, IIIA and III.
Full certification in accordance with the NIJ 0101.06 standard offers the unrestricted spectrum of sizes. On the other hand, a limited certification, even in conformity with the standard, cannot offer the full range of sizes.
To summarise, each NIJ body armour level is meant to match a specific need or situation.
*conditioned = loading process in laboratory under the influence of mechanical stress with simultaneous exposure to elevated temperature as well as humidity.
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BALLISTIC PROTECTION LEVELS EXPLAINED - CAST
These standards include evaluation procedures for rating the ability of waistcoats to protect primarily the upper body from attack by knives, spikes, and bullets. While ministerial responsibility for the standards resides with the Minister for Defence Procurement, much has been done in practice and in a technical sense to develop test procedures that better correspond to end-user deployment scenarios.
