Quote History Quoted:
@brian01
I figure if I’m buying a carrier & steel plates for it I might as well get something with some ballistic rating. Rogue plates are $85 a pair. I’d rather spend money and have some ballistic protection.
View Quote
I suppose if you aren't planning to actually wear them instead of your ceramics outside of physical conditioning, then I can see the logic of wanting your training weight plate carrier to be able to still serve as a crappy spare plate carrier if you're going to have another plate carrier around anyway.
Just be aware that even with the spray-on truck bed liner that steel armor companies use for spall/splatter protection, they still don't actually reliably stop bullet splatter after more than 1 or 2 rounds. It's still better than bare steel, but it's not comparable to legitimate body armor. Also don't bother buying trauma pads, those are a gimmick.
So as a set of training weights that might as well also be able to serve double duty as a shitty backup plate carrier, I'd get the CATI multicurve III+ with spall buildup coat. I just looked and they come out to $135 per plate and weigh 9 lbs 4 oz.
But just to reiterate, never wear these in an actual situation outside of physical training if you have the option of wearing your ceramics. Some people even think that wearing no plates at all is actually better than wearing steel plates, and they have some good reasons for that view.
CATI