Cut rate ballistic equipment made in China with suspect testing and QC?

If you need a helmet but don't ever see yourself using one get a surplus ACH. At least it was manufactured by a reputable company in accordance to standards with proper testing.

If you want to play cosplay, get an airsoft helmet. It'll look the part and at least you won't be lying to yourself that it's PPE.

Also, no customer reviews mean anything. Unless they've taken a round to the head and lived their opinion on how nice their Chinese helmet is means nothing. Lots of testing data and real world saves with established helmet companies, none with these branded Chinese shells.

ETA: A Revision Viper is the same cost at TNVC and is made by a legit ballistic helmet company. You won't get the knockoff airsoft grade accessories though....

Also, what's not heavy duty about the OpsCore? It has actual impact ratings to back it up.

this ought to answer your question. Backface deformation is a big concern. The opscore shrugged it off like it was supposed to with 0 backface deformation. The other 2 while stopping the bullet, had backface deformation to the point where the user would probably be dead.

A lot of these off brand come with these little plastic shroud that are NOT to spec.

So in other words, you will try to put a mil spec Rhino mount in the "shroud" on the chinese helmet and their will be an ass ton of slop!

Truth be told you can remedy that easy enough with some sticky velcro- put the loop inside the shroud and the hook on the backside of the mount and it will tighten that up where it isn't as sloppy.

Still, all things being said... Avoid if you can.

Guy ordered a 14 from me and told me he already had a helmet, just needed the rhino mount. OK what type of helmet I ask so I can be sure he's getting the right thing. He doesn't know, finally tells me "Condor."  OK, Condor doesn't make helmet, how much did you pay for the helmet?  $69. he replies.  OK, that's an airsoft replica type deal, probably a Rothco special, just to be crystal clear upfront WHEN you have a problem with the Rhino mount not fitting in the shroud, understand that it's the helmet  and shroud NOT the Rhino mount which is military issue. I got the blow off on that last part, but made a note on his order. Sure enough he called a few days later when everything arrived- "This Rhino mount is sloppy in the shroud on my Rothco helmet"- and I reminded him exactly that I told him upfront that it would be. "But the surplus store owner assured me that the Rothco helmet was mil spec" was his reply. LOL

I've encountered the same slop with the supposed "ballistic" hi cut helmets coming in from chinwachoo land as well. Got two of them a couple years back to test and was not impressed.

Moral of the story, you may save a few bucks on these off brand helmets but the quality is dubious, I would not trust the "ballistic protection" as far as I could throw it and you'll likely have problems mating military spec Rhino mounts up to the little cheap shrouds they have on there.

"But Bubba shot one on slewtube and put a video up"-  don't care, show me a NIJ certification (not "compliant" BS) and we'll talk.

Like  others mentioned, ACH's are cheap enough and you have real ballistic protection and any mil spec accessory should work fine.

With pretty much any of these “unauthorized replica” Ops-Core helmets, you’re at best getting a kevlar helmet that’s been made to look like an Ops-Core FAST, at which point you may as well get a MICH/ACH, Revision, or Gentex TBH-II.

In addition to having dubious ballistic ratings, for many civilian users, a reliable impact rating is often overlooked, but a much more important factor than ballistic protection, and it’s hard to say with many of these helmets whether they’re tested for impact at all with the full pad suite, etc., versus simply shooting the shell alone. Getting shot in the head may be a relatively rare occurance for civilian users, but hiking terrain where you could have a bad fall and break your brain box, riding four wheelers or ATVs around, etc., makes impact protection an actual factor, especially considering even the best NV still degrades your vision and situational awareness relative to broad daylight applications.

Finally, as mentioned, none of the accessories can be guaranteed to be “in spec” with these unauthorized replica products—not just the shrouds (often plastic to begin with, don’t remember whether the HHV is off top of my head) to which you’re hanging and expensive piece of NV equipment, but also the rails, not to mention off-brand velcro that’s often poorly appliedand will begin to peel off with use, and crap suspensions. If you were going to use one of these shells just as the basis for headborne systems, the best thing to do would be to replace all the accessories with authentic Ops-Core parts anyways—something that even airsofters often do with their knock-of helmets, think about that...

It’s not about needing to spend big bucks on a helmet, either, the Ops-Core Bump has real impact ratings and authentic accessories, and there are enough surplus ACHs out there to last a lifetime, with lower cost ballistic options from Gentex and Revision among others that will do the job without breaking the bank, and are not pretending to be something they’re not.

~Augee