[M van Dongen]

Any opinions, I'm debating whether I should buy it. For the price what you get seems unbeatable.
I'm about 1.82M tall, wondering if that means medium size or large size.

[Matthijs Witsenburg]

I assume you are talking about this product, but probably from another supplier since you refer to sizing, which I do not see at the paul chen website.

Wow for the generic name BTW. It looks like something milanese with the fauld missing. The shape is pretty ok, especially for such a budget product.

For sizing, you want the weight of a breastplate on your hips (slightly higher actually) and not on your shoulders. Quite similar to a hiking backpack. because there is no backplate, you can probably flex the breastplate a bit so that it fits snugly around your waist and rests only very lightly on your shoulders. When in doubt, I would tend to go with a smaller size as most budget armour is made ridiculously large.

[Quinn W.]

I bought one for myself, and the quality is in my opinion quite good. I never used it for combat, but the straps admittedly looked a little wimpy so i don't know how much I would trust them under stress.
It ended up not working out for me primarily due to size issues. I'm 6'0" and usually bounce between a size M and a size L in normal shirts, so I went with a medium and it was way too big. It's supposed to sit on the hips, but I had to let it rest at normal pants height or else it would choke me. That meant all the weight rested on the shoulders, and it meant the globose part reserved for the chest fell at my stomach, which was very unflattering to the figure. So my guess is "medium" refers to people who are about 6'3" and 250lbs. I could have done some tweaking and flexed it so it was narrow enough to sit on top of my hips, but it would have made it very uncomfortable at the neck. I'll second Matthijs' comment on size tendancies, because this thing was way too big for me.
So final verdict on the product...
Quality: High for the price.
Fit: Unpredictable.
I made a similar comment about it on this thread here: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p...ht=#209908
And a picture of me wearing it can be found here. Notice how low it's riding on me. This was the size M. http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...;start=726

[M van Dongen]

Thanks that was most helpfull Quin, I think the M might be ok for me over a Jack. I'm probably a bit heavier than you so it might work.

[Sean Flynt]

The length might be a good thing in this case because the plackart should be higher on the plastron for a late15th c. breast. Take it apart, move it up and re-rivet it. This assumes that the pieces are not so closely matched that they can't be easily taken out of register.

[M van Dongen]

I was planning to use it for a 3r'd quarter of the 15th century persona. I'm also looking at the various crossbow makers around the internet. Not that there are so many to choose from...

[Jean Thibodeau]

Mine was too small at the waist level but I am that 250 / 260 pound guy but at 5"9" .

I managed to spread it open by standing on it and luckily it didn't buckle or crumple up except at the bottom rim/flange that ended up with a bent crease in it, but I managed to hammer this back to the right shape.

The upper chest was fine as I bought it but the too narrow for me bottom didn't allow a close fit and dug painfully into my sides.

I think this breast plate works best if it's bottom is just at waist level so that one can bent forward easily: Too long a breast plate makes the upper body difficult to bend.

I have it on in this pic. Note: The belt is hidding the last couple of inches and the flange

[M van Dongen]

Talk about happenstance...this is up on herman historica : http://www.hermann-historica.com/?gclid=COO0s...3godaFgNdw

The may auction anyway, 2nd armor page 2x similar BP's.

Seems the GDFB version is very tall on the upper plate.