and some raiders will jump you at some point. The leader is usually wearing reinforced leather armour which is pretty good! it can be fixed with standard leather armours which is handy and cheap.

Also u can walk towards New Vegas and when u reach the grub 'n gulp u can speak to the vendors there and ask them about a doctor and they'll refer u to the New Vegas Clinic. Go from there towards the Clinic and watch for a raided caravan location, there u will find some excellent black combat armour. It's what I use mostly during the early/midgame period.

Before that u can basically only try vendors at the Mojave Outpost or Novac to see if they sell armour, but I don't think u will find anything stronger than leather armour with those. Also, if u have the caps the gun runners in Vegas sells Combat Armour mark II's which is expensive but one of the best early game. I just think it's frigging fugly though!