The company
Protection Group Danmark is a small manufacturer of ballistic helmets, hard-armor plates, and stab-proof vests. It was founded in 2013 in Randers, Denmark. Their products can be purchased directly from them or via one of the 12 distributors in various countries. They also have the capability to design and develop vests, helmets, and ballistic plates according to a companies specifications, depending on which threats the solution must stop. Protection Group Danmark offers products with quality materials from manufacturers like Teijin, DSM, DuPont, and Honeywell. at a much lower price while having their production in Europe.
Affordable European quality
What makes Protection Group interesting is that they produce their helmets in Europe and make
them available half to a third of the price in comparison with the well-known helmet manufacturers like Ops-Core, MTEK, or Team Wendy. The helmets are €447/$505 and can be found in the USA for as low as $450.
In Europe, helmets like the Ops-Core FAST SF are more difficult to obtain as they do not sell to civilians in Europe due to ITAR restrictions. These companies also have often a long lead time and as most of us are used to same-day delivery, I can imagine not everyone has the patience of waiting for 4 months or longer on a helmet.
Over the last years, there has been a rise in ballistic and blunt trauma head protection in the civilian market. This creates a demand for more affordable helmets as civilians do not always have the deep pockets as some governments do. This especially applies to the High-Cut helmet style that gained more popularity over the full-cut helmets after its introduction on a larger scale by Ops-Core in 2008. For this reason, their helmets have been spotted in various defense forces around the world, mainly due to personal purchases by soldiers to replace their issued helmets, often full-cut style helmets.
Comfort
The helmet comes with ten memory foam pads with a zebra type print instead of the normal plain black, four Dureflex buckles, and a BOA-dial system. The inside of the helmet is covered with fifteen 4.5cm (1.8 inches) velcro-hook discs. This allows the user to customize the placement of the padding, for example leaving space in the middle for a headset. The pads are a bit thicker than most and that helps with the comfort as you want to avoid pressure points when wearing a helmet for a long period of time. The foam technology of the memory foam pads also reduces blunt force trauma from projectiles and blunt force impacts.
The helmet is made out of kevlar from DuPont and that reflects back in its weight at 1.45kg/3.2lbs In comparison, the Ops-Core FAST SF ballistic in the size large weights 1.08kg/2.3lbs with the worm dial. Weight is to be considered if you would be wearing multiple hours a day for an extended period of time as you want it to be as light as possible to reduce the chance of head strain.
Modularity
As with most modern helmets, it comes with a shroud for a rail system to mount various accessories. The rail sections, shroud, and shroud interface are made out of polymer. The shroud is low profile and has smooth edges to reduce snag hazard. Utilizing a full polymer shroud is one of the cost-down features of Protection Group Danmarks's helmet as the high-end brands use Wilcox shrouds with anodized aluminum inserts. However, there was no play after mounting the Wilcox G24.
Protection
The ARCH helmet has a v50 of 720m/s.
v50 / STANAG 2920
The v50 / STANAG 2920 is the fragment value, which indicates the extent to which the helmet stops fragments. The v50 ballistic limit is the velocity at which a specific projectile (bullet) is expected to penetrate the armor half of the time. The objective of this test is to fire a total of 10 projectiles at various velocities to obtain 10 impacts; five of which penetrate and five of which do not within an overall velocity range of 125 ft/s. The V50 ballistic limit is then calculated as the average velocity of the 10 test rounds.
Specifications
Made in Europe with Kevlar from Dupont.
10 Zorbium® foam pads
NIJ IIIA; V50 ballistic test according to STANAG2920, 17 grains 720 m / sec
50% BFD reduction mod 9 mm (HPW-TP-0401.01B IIIA)
1,45 kg / 3.2 lbs (incl. Side rail and front shroud)
Size L (54-60 cm) (XL 60+)
Colors: Black, Multicam®, Multicam Black® OD Green, and Coyote Brown.
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