Jerm_G wrote:Steve, you need to look at plate carriers in Size small (SAPI plate size). For a straight chest rig the T.T. Mini-MAV is a good minimalist rig. You need to decide what you need quick access to, what you don't need, or if you are setting up an "impressionist" kit. I think I did some stickies a while ago on the topic.
Generally speaking the rule of buy once, cry once applies to airsoft as much as a cars. Get cheap crap, and you will keep buying cheap crap. SKDtac.com, OPtactical, and a few others have good deals form time to time. Bookoo (closed on sun) is like Craigslist for military bases and you can find kick a$$ kit there too for a steal if you know what to look for.
Sadly, my plate sets are medium and large.
5.11 Tactical used to make an amazing MOLLE chest rig. It was basically their mesh leg rig with chest straps. Fairly small, remarkably light and amazingly breathable.
The best "middle ground" I can think of for most new players between cost and functionality is one of the prebuilt Blackhawk! cross-draw pistol vests. It's pretty cheap, does most of the stuff you want it to do, and is pretty darn rugged. The problem is that they don't cinch down a ton. I can wear one, but I'm at the very edge of the size range.
I've had decent luck with the Condor modular plate carriers for Airsoft use. That is to say, I jacked up the first one I got. The second one got fake plates instead of steel (my chiropractor chewed my a$$ for carrying the unnecessary weight with bad shoulders and back) and it's held up just fine.
For somebody just getting into the game, low-cost isn't necessarily terrible (as long as the quality is decent). It takes a good bit of time and effort to figure out what actually works. Getting "good enough" until you figure out what "good" is means that you have spare gear to loan to friends. That and, as my garage can attest, even when you know what right looks like, you still end up with a metric ass-ton of random tac gear eventually. I keep telling the missus that my retirement plan is to start a surplus shop using my garage as inventory. That, and having a library is remarkably useful when guys are trying to figure out what will or won't work before buying it in this weeks' camo pattern.