What do most of you do? Pile it on the floor, a shelf, or hang it in the closet?

I'm thinking I'd like to hang mine up, but we have those HD style wire shelves - between those and the standard plastic hanger, I'm wondering about the weight when you have three sets of plates hung. I don't want the shelf or armor crashing down in the middle of the night.

My wife is tired of me turning the downstairs office closet into a mini armory.

Hang in the closet using one of these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Worlds-Strongest-Coat-Hanger-ONE-SINGLE-HANGER-HEAVY-DUTY-/151220409666

holy shit, do I have to hang a rainbow flag out front too?

just kidding dude, thanks for the recommendation

Not only did you choose poorly, you are also not abiding by the fucking rules.....

 

Edit:  I'm a dumbass who read "PC"  & thought computers and didn't read which section this was on. Sorry.

I think on the floor next to the bed or next to HD gun of choice sound goo

My little sandwich maker has her own thread somewhere in the botd archives if you're that interested.

My armory is in my bedroom, i want easy access to my gear if anything goes bump in the night. My armor carrier leans against the wall with one set of straps open and the other attached so i can slip into it quickly.  My wife cant complain because all of my clothes and gun stuff takes up maybe 1/4 of the closet. 1/2 of the closet is her clothes and the remaining 1/4 is her shoes so if anyone should complain its me

I have an apc, I put two thick pillows inside, and store it in a toughbox. It keeps it upright and maintains the general shape I guess.

I have my PC hang in a torso only mannequin.  The plates are wrapped in bubblewrap in the box they came in real close by.....

I use scuba gear hangers to hang some of my spare gear (I think it's for a regulator or something like that...) - plates out (where applicable):

http://www.amazon.com/Underwater-Kinetics-Buoyancy-Compensator-Hanger/dp/B001N4LFNI/ref=pd_sim_sg_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=1WWZ5J7EE41YT3746K1V


That being said, having tried multiple different solutions in multiple different environments, including the "gear cross" stands, I've come to the general conclusion that my favorite method of storage is still simply "heaped on the floor," at least for any kind of "go" gear.  

Any kind of "hanging" option generally comes with "sagging" issues - you can buttress weighted parts, but adding complexity to a stand or hanger just makes it that much more of a pain in the ass to remove the armor if you ever wanted to put it on.  

Meanwhile, the other storage options seem a little too "admin" for me, as I tend to wear my "something" as often as possible, the whole "train like you fight" thing, it makes for pretty decent PT, depending on what you're doing, too, and is more useful and more fun [to me] than "lift something heavy - put it down - lift something heavy - put it down" or "run to nowhere."  

Gear on the floor allows all of the heavy stuff to be supported by... the floor, and you can leave the straps/cummerbund, etc. open so that you just need to don it if you need to have it on "RTFN."  A strong shelf that was big enough would work better, maybe like a hardware shelf.  

~Augee

Lay it flat on a shelf.

That's what I've been doing. Seems to work well enough.

Take Plates out for long time storage

Mine lies flat on the carpeted closet floor.

Y'all make me feel bad

pulled the pic from online

In a pile

Not to question you, but what's the reasoning behind this?

Goal is to build a wood stand like pictured above, but currently it's mounted on an MRE box with my gun belt laid on too next to my bag,  it'll prob stay that way until I get plates and then it won't fit and I'll be forced to build a stand.

I wouldn't hang it, unless you're removing all mags and gear, my rod would probably snap.

In a pile on the floor. Belt is loaded with ammo and ifak and ready to go, all it needs is the G17. The carrier has plates and mags but no live ammo. I only keep 90 5.56 and 34 9mm rds at the ready, the rest in the big ammo boxes. Debating on loading up more mags but at the moment my current setup suits me fine.

Depends on which carrier/plates and length of storage. I've made a few stands, like the one from ITS, but that's better for the storage of something heavy like a kitted-up IOTV or similar. It makes for a cool "decoration" in a man cave or something, but it's a lot for just a plate carrier that's going to be deployed rapidly IMO.

I personally store my plates/armor separately just to reduce strain on the rack in my closet and I have more carriers than plates/armor. I personally don't need to have several fully kitted-up PC's just hanging in a closet. If I decide to wear/do something different than what I'm currently using, I have the time to configure it as needed. I store soft armor in a stack in a closet, same goes with plates.

Right now, I'm using a US Palm Defender with LTC 26225's with the Armor Express IIIA inserts for HD duty. It's way over-loaded and you wouldn't want to wear it for more than 60-90 seconds but it's stupid fast/simple to put on in a hurry. I'm sure there's better options but I've seen a few other guys run this setup and it works pretty well for around the house. I lay this one flat on the carpet and have no worries about it... I would like to store it vertically to save space but I notice that if I do that the soft armor can shift and the plate could cause it to "bunch up". Yeah, I know the plates are level IV but having the inserts in there makes it slightly less miserable to wear... If I was to store it vertically, I would take care to make sure it didn't fall over.

I prefer storing flat as I think I'm more likely to drop my PC off a hanger while trying to put it on and inadvertently break my foot.