Hardcore Defense was founded with the goal of providing innovative ballistic shields specifically designed to face modern-day threats. We are a U.S.-based manufacturer, not a reseller. We strive to offer the toughest ballistic shields available, bar none. Whether for law enforcement operations, workplace protection, or home defense, our shields provide superior ballistic protection and durability.
Other companies have been offering the same ballistic shield designs since the 1980s - bulky, top heavy, and overpriced slabs of resin-fixed ballistic fibers with a window. These pistol-rated legacy shields were designed to protect a SWAT team advancing to a building for a tactical entry, where the shields are typically abandoned since they are too cumbersome to use indoors, and the window dangerously restricts field of view and situational awareness. In the modern world of rifle-armed active shooters, violent drug gangs, and home invasions, these shields fail to make the grade.
Hardcore Defense shields are designed to provide the maximum feasible coverage while remaining compact and maneuverable enough for easy indoor use. Our typical shield is 15” wide x 25” long, and covers the user from the lower face to the waist. We offer a couple of larger shields for operators looking for increased coverage. None of our shields have windows, which we consider a liability in most circumstances. A trained officer with a sidearm can spot and eliminate a threat in seconds – unless he’s trying to reach around a shield and sight through a window, in which case bullets may be flying in both directions for considerably longer, greatly increasing the risk to the officer, his teammates, and bystanders.
We also manufacture body armor, backpack inserts, and specialty products like the Sentinel ballistic whiteboard using the same design philosophy and robust materials that have made our shields so successful.
All of our shields use ballistic metals which are superior to resin-fixed ballistic fibers for rigid applications. All products have a ballistic steel core, and one model supplements that with a titanium strike face for even greater ballistic protection!
Rifle Protection Most of our shields use grades of steel carefully tempered to be able to withstand rifle fire.
Ballistic Coverage Metals are tough, capable of stopping hits much closer to the edge of the ballistic panel than a ballistic fiber shield, which requires a mesh of fibers to catch and distribute the strike energy. Multi-hit performance is similarly superior to ballistic fiber shields.
Blunt Trauma Metals will flex and deform when hit as they absorbs the energy of a bullet strike, but the amount of backface signature and potential blunt trauma is minimal compared to that of a ballistic fiber matrix.
Shelf Life Unlike shields made from Kevlar, Dyneema or similar ballistic fibers, metals do not deteriorate with time. Our shields will continue to provide reliable protection for decades.
Storage Conditions Steel and titanium are insensitive to the storage environment, in particular the heat and humidity that rapidly degrades high performance ballistic fibers. Want to store your Hardcore Defense shield in the back of your car trunk in Florida or Texas? No problem. As long as the shield is stored such that the protective polymer coating stays intact to prevent corrosion initiation, the shield will be ready whenever you need it.
Ease of Storage All of our shield panels are flat, since the material is strong enough to provide complete rigidity without needing to add curvature. This makes it easy to stash the shield in a car trunk, under a bed, behind a door, or anywhere else desired for discreet storage but easy access.
We use only premium ballistic steels in our products. This is not AR500, AR600, or some other off-shelf-commercial grade also used in bulldozer blades and the like. Our chief product developer has a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and decades of industry experience. We thoroughly understand the science behind the materials we use and the ballistic threats our products face. The metals we use are designed to meet particular real-world threats, which may or may not align with the standard NIJ threat levels. We offer standard and custom products in the following threat levels:
