Input on Stab Vests

[Alex Haddox]

I'm looking for feedback and recommendations on Covert Stab Vests (knife-protection worn under clothing). The application is civilian (average Joe) and private security personnel.

Does anyone have experience with these devices?
Are they worthwhile?

Most of the searches I have conducted returned companies from the UK, which I found fascinating. I understand they have more knife attacks than we do.


Thanks for the help!

[Doc Wesson]

Alex,
I developed Kevlar material that is going into Stab protection.  Yes they are worthwhile.  I am 230#, leaped at max jump height from a chair and couldn't get an ice pick through it.  It is multiple layers of very fine denier, very tightly woven, multi-filament, Kevlar yarn.  Not as thick a vest as ballistic protection vests are.  I am now working on a chemical treatment to make it even more puncture resistant.
If you are interested, I will ask the head of the DuPont protective fibers division, who is best US retail. Most of this stuff goes into correctional... for obvious reasons.
Yes they do indeed work.. it bent the ice pick.... for real.. (I thought it broke my wrist)

Doc

[Alex Haddox]

Yes, please let me know.

Does it work as well against slicing as puncturing?

[BikerRN]

Yes, please let me know.

Does it work as well against slicing as puncturing?

It depends on the design.

I wear a stab vest at work, given that my LEO employment is correctional in nature. For what I do, I find them worthy. For protection on the street, not so much, unless one is working a security detail or some such, but then I'd tend to favor bullet resistant and stab resistant over just stab resistant.

Vest are hot, no way around that. Also, even with a well measured vest people will know you have a vest on. That would be abnormal for the average Joe or Jane Q. Citizen. I fail to see where a knife would be the most common weaponry threat here in the United States outside of a correctional setting. Thus I find their use limited, while very good, for the setting they were designed for.

Biker

[Chris]

+1 to Biker. Vest use is situational. And  which type of vest you use depends on the circumstances under which you are using it. 
Chris Christian

[Alex Haddox]

Use would be primarily for retail security ("Loss Prevention"). Dress would be uniformed and plain clothes (covert).

Edged weapons are the most common for shoplifting and petty theft as they are already in-hand for slashing open merchandise (getting items out of packaging and into pockets or cutting off security devices). A black belt at my studio worked security for a retail chain and his company considered carrying a knife onto the premises as "intent." I interviewed him back in Episode 8.