The first Monday of September marks Labor Day for Americans. It's a long weekend to cookout, hang by the pool, or go shooting with the family. However, you choose to spend the holiday weekend, we can all agree that labor is something to celebrate.

American Labor produces things like grills and burgers. It fixes your AC unit when it goes out. It manufactures guns, ammo, and armor. And it's how you earn the money you need to trade for those things.

As Americans, we also have better labor conditions than much of the world.

"When you walk through our facility, you see the employees are smiling. They genuinely enjoy doing the work they do. And I think that's because it's an efficient environment, and they know their work matters."
-Todd Meeks, President, Spartan Armor Systems

Spartan Armor employees have safe and productive working conditions and do their work all in one place. We're about to show you how this affects the quality, lead time, and cost of ordering from Spartan Armor.

Spartan Makes All Our Body Armor In-House

We recently told you how American made body armor makes Spartan Armor the fastest in the industry. But we take it one step further.

✔ Yes, we get all our raw materials in our supply chain for Body Armor from American mills.

✔ Yes, we source all our materials for Body Armor from the USA.

✔ Yes, we manufacture all our Body Armor here in the US under one roof.

But the fact that we have the shortest lead times in the body armor industry isn’t just because the Made in USA label. It's also because we manufacture everything in-house at our nearly 30,000-square-foot Tucson, AZ manufacturing facility.

We're so focused on making everything ourselves that we take it to an extreme.

“For SHOT Show, we didn’t buy a booth. We made a booth… We take so much pride in what we do, including making our own booth. Just think of the amount of pride we take in developing body armor.”
-Todd Meeks, President, Spartan Armor Systems

But we didn’t just somehow land here. There were specific circumstances that led us to this point.

Spartan Has Been Expanding Since 2021

Spartan Armor saw record sales numbers during the chaos of 2020-2021. We had decisions to make as to how to manage those record sales.

We wanted to do 3 things:

1. Improve research and development
2. Maximize product quality
3. Reduce production times

At the right time, Spartan Armor chose to invest in infrastructure and technology while doubling the size of our facility. That extra space allows us to fit more machinery, like our multiple steel presses and an entire department dedicated to composite body armor manufacturing like autoclaves. It also facilitates inventory and shipping rooms to store surplus materials and finished inventory.

Spartan employees have seen ramped-up efficiency first-hand over the last few years. In some areas, we operate about 7 times as fast as before. We’ve been steadily moving toward vertical integration, something that benefits the consumer in several ways, which we’ll get to below.

What does it mean to be vertically integrated?

Put simply, it means we control our own local supply chain. That solves any issues that would arise from a more complex supply chain.

From the moment you place your order, Spartan Armor's skilled team of experts works tirelessly to manufacture, test, produce, and deliver your order in the shortest time possible.

Did You Know?

• Our Tucson, AZ facility receives steel by the truckload from a local USA steel mill.
• Every lot of steel is individually tested for ballistic integrity.
• Every sheet of steel undergoes a Brinell hardness test.

And that’s just the beginning. Look at some other specifics of our labor:

UHMWPE

As you may know, our Level IV plates consist of a boron carbide strike face on top of a polyethylene backer. Overheating is one of the worst things you can do to ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). That’s why we cut layers and autoclave our Level IV plates entirely in-house. This way, we can ensure we know precisely how high the temperatures are.

Steel

We also cut and bend our Level III ballistic materials in-house. Steel is brittle and doesn't like elevated temperatures. So, we bend and cut our own here at our facility using a fiber laser cutter in-house. Again, we monitor the temperatures, making sure they stay within range.

Frag Coating

We coat our steel armor in our facility with our base coat or our Encapsaloc™ fragmentation mitigation coating to limit spall and fragmentation. We do this specific to each order.

Below you can see in action of what our Encapsaloc®frag coating can do. Check out the full video on steel here.

Waterproofing

We wrap each Level IV plate in waterproof fabric on-site once the autoclave process is complete.

Cutting, Sewing, and Screen Printing

We cut in-house. We sew in-house. We screen print all our own products in-house at our Tucson facility.

How Do You Benefit?

Our capacity to buy raw materials in Rolls for UHMWPE and sheets of steel in bulk means we can pass the savings on to you.

Our massive in-house inventory lets us ship your order faster than other manufacturers.

Our in-house cutting and autoclaving make for a more uniform backer than if we were to press our Level IV plates outside.

Our emphasis on testing means you’re getting high-quality protection. We’ve worked tirelessly to achieve NIJ certification, though we could continue selling without it.

Our ability to maintain oversight during the cutting process ensures quality control.

Conclusion

Spartan Armor's manufacturing process is a well-oiled machine. We’ve carefully designed our process to maximize efficiency without compromising quality. That’s because our vertically integrated approach. But that's just a buzzword. The real story is how it benefits you, the customer.

We can closely monitor the production process by manufacturing our body armor in-house in Tucson, AZ, ensuring each piece meets Spartan’s rigid standards. We oversee everything from selecting premium materials to rigorous testing protocols to sending the final product out the door on time.

Want to see how we operate? Check out our virtual tour video and see for yourself how we’re the fastest in the industry.