Point Blank Enterprises

Point Blank Enterprises has been making body armor since 1973, when it started as Point Blank Body Armor out of Florida, and it has grown into one of the largest suppliers of soft and hard armor to the US military and American law enforcement. The company is headquartered in Pompano Beach, Florida, with roughly a thousand employees, and it has been through more than one round of private equity ownership over the years, including a stretch under Sun Capital Partners and, since 2015, JLL Partners. The center of Point Blank's defense business is soldier body armor, and its most consequential program is the Interceptor Outer Tactical Vest and its successor, the Improved Outer Tactical Vest, or IOTV, which the company was chosen as a sole-source supplier to build for the US military. That vest family became the standard torso protection system worn by American soldiers through the Iraq and Afghanistan era and remains in wide use today, combining a soft armor carrier with hard ceramic or polyethylene plate inserts to stop rifle rounds and fragmentation.

Point Blank builds both the soft armor panels and the hard armor rifle plates that go into systems like this, along with ballistic shields for entry teams and ballistic helmets that round out a full head-to-torso protection package. Beyond the flagship military vest programs, Point Blank sells a broad line of tactical systems and duty gear built for law enforcement customers, including plate carriers, load-bearing vests, and accessories designed for daily wear by patrol officers rather than combat deployment. That law enforcement business runs in parallel with its military contracts and gives the company a second, steadier customer base beyond DoD procurement cycles. Point Blank's core competency is soft and hard armor engineering, meaning the ballistic materials science, pattern design, and testing that goes into making a vest that stops a bullet without making a soldier or officer too encumbered to move.

That expertise is what has kept the company as a recurring supplier on major military body armor contracts over five decades, even as ownership has changed hands and competitors have entered the market. The company primarily serves the US military, federal agencies, and domestic and international law enforcement, and body armor for individual protection remains the identity of the business even as its tactical accessories and duty gear lines have grown around it. The long sole-source relationship on the Interceptor and IOTV vest lines also means Point Blank has spent years refining production at scale for a single, high-volume military contract, a different discipline than the shorter, more varied runs that law enforcement customers typically order. That combination, deep experience on one of the military's largest individual body armor programs alongside a steady commercial law enforcement business, is what has let Point Blank stay a recurring name in US body armor procurement through multiple changes in corporate ownership.