So guys,, what stuff do you wear for head and face protection?

[M_P]

Thanks Marcus. That really is pants.

What percentage of people do we think have the foresight to check out helmet/visor combos on forums before buying, compared to those who just buy?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say a good 4%.

 

[Fumps]

Thanks Marcus. That really is pants.

What percentage of people do we think have the foresight to check out helmet/visor combos on forums before buying, compared to those who just buy?

Yes I'm thinking the same thing
Guys thank you for this thread I'm looking for these exact facts its helped loads.

I'm now happy I'm going for mich helmet, mesh mask & good quality mesh goggles

 

[Cheeky vimto]

Thanks Marcus. That really is pants.

What percentage of people do we think have the foresight to check out helmet/visor combos on forums before buying, compared to those who just buy?

The worrying % is how many kids get their parents to buy them one. If the helmet is advertised as being safe I bet most parents would take the sellers word for it. Safety isn't usually top priority for kids, just as long as it looks good.

 

[Namaco]

As you can see me in the picture above, a Patrol Cap from Helikon and ess crosshair glasses.

Not really scared of being shot in the face... No pain no gain.

Already broke multiple trees on the site by headbutts :'|

I have a wz.93 helmet cover ready, one day might buy a helmet, who knows.

 

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

Mesh glasses(Cheapo ACM ones) It's hard to f*ck up perforated steel but the chinese can surprise you.

If it's cold I'll fire on a balaclava and I usually have a bandanna or soviet military cap for MILSIMS as part of team ID but otherwise it's bare skin,I don't really care for looks anyway. The KLMK hood doesn't count for protection because that shizzle's wafer thin.

Planning to bodge up my own glasses with a steel frame and stronger wire mesh,.Need to finalize the drawings and get moneh though.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Mesh glasses(Cheapo ACM ones) It's hard to f*ck up perforated steel but the chinese can surprise you.

If it's cold I'll fire on a balaclava and I usually have a bandanna or soviet military cap for MILSIMS as part of team ID but otherwise it's bare skin,I don't really care for looks anyway. The KLMK hood doesn't count for protection because that shizzle's wafer thin.

Planning to bodge up my own glasses with a steel frame and stronger wire mesh,.Need to finalize the drawings and get moneh though.

My research so far indicates that, of the meshes commonly available, the SS316 #8 0.71mm wire is the minimum necessary for safety. It's the stuff I have in those ESS Advancer V12's of mine. However, it will not stand up to more than a single full auto burst. After that you'd have to retire to the safe zone and change lenses or complete eyewear. It is so good for vision though that I'm determined to find a way to make it work.

There is one type that I haven't been able to get hold of to test yet - I forget the specs exactly, but something like SS304 0.86mm #7 - that may well be strong enough that a simple slight convex shape and bending the ends of each wire around a single perimeter wire (to resist deformation that results from pulling the wires out of their grid) would do the trick. Visually, it would create dots no bigger than 1.22mm at their longest dimension - my guesstimate is that approx 1mm is the threshold for invisibility, so this stuff should cause slight shadows, but it still ought to be clearer than that standard small hole perforated sheet stuff...

I really need to get around to trying out my quench hardening idea. I did mean to a couple of weeks ago but my fucking coalman didn't turn up - eh? In the 19th century are we...!?! No, but with a butane torch it would be difficult to make the entire finished 'lens' glow at the same orange colour so that when I drop it into oil, it all hardens the same.

If this is a soon-medium term plan of yours, I can have a trawl through my receipts & shite and let you have some links/company addresses, specs, etc. but some of it would have to wait until I go home, which could be 10 days yet.

Oh yeah, I tested a pair of those ACM perforated mesh goggles to destruction a while ago - they can't handle more than one full auto burst either.

 

[bornleverpuller]

I'm quite happy with mesh, I know people worry about splinters but I see it as a marginal worry more risk of breaking your ankle down a rabbit hole.

 

[Cheeky vimto]

As you can see me in the picture above, a Patrol Cap from Helikon and ess crosshair glasses.

Not really scared of being shot in the face... No pain no gain.

Already broke multiple trees on the site by headbutts :'|

I have a wz.93 helmet cover ready, one day might buy a helmet, who knows.

What do you gain from being shot in the face, Maybe a welt? You could lose a tooth, which is no gain at all.

 

[bornleverpuller]

What do you gain from being shot in the face, Maybe a welt? You could lose a tooth, which is no gain at all.

the only thing you'd gain is the ability to look down the sites easier. I have found that the rentals I have been using very difficult to do that when using face protection.

 

[jcheeseright]

I have no problem looking down sights with a sansei style mask on, the plastic face guard fits very close and it's flexible enough that pushing your cheek against it will allow it to bend.

 

[Hendy]

I'm quite happy with mesh, I know people worry about splinters but I see it as a marginal worry more risk of breaking your ankle down a rabbit hole.

Couple of times with the full face mask I use I have had splinters come through, went to the safe zone only once to check as I could feel something around my eye. I plan on changing to goggles once I can afford a good pair don't like mesh at all.

 

[Fumps]

Interesting, the job I do I often refer to BS EN ratings as well as CE standards & ISO regulation.

So I'm looking into the impact rating of BS EN 166 (the impact rating that most goggles conform to ) and I have to say in terms of airsoft the rating is a little worrying. Most goggles are impact rated to BS EN 166 F this rating does not look adequate for airsoft to me as type F is only 140 fps (correct me if my math is wrong).

That actually makes the traders correct in their claims because they are conforming to the minimum standard required to claim impact rating.

The ratings are explained in the two links below.

http://www.nothingbutsafetyglasses.com/advice/standards

http://www.safetyspecs.co.uk/BS%20EN%20166.htm

I personally think there could be an issue as the standards (as usual with BS standards) are not clear enough to the user.

There could be a gap in the market there.

 

[Zak Da Mack]

I've read somewhere that they used metal ball bearings to test the strength of the lens. If so, the metal ball bearing will be carrying a lot more energy behind it than a plastic BB at the same FPS.

Also, if something is an F rating, I think it could be anything between 148 fps (the rating for F) and just under 400 fps (the rating for B ).

EDIT:

strength F is tested using a ballistic test - firing a 6mm steel ball weighing 0.86g travelling at at least 45 m/s at the time of impact.

 

[M_P]

Simple. ESS glasses can stop a point blank shotgun

 

[jcheeseright]

Simple. ESS glasses can stop a point blank shotgun

fact.

ANSI z87.1 is the absolute minimum I would trust my eyes with, it'll stop buckshot so BBs won't even leave a smudge.

I work on the basis that although mesh is probably sufficient to be completely safe in 99.999999% of situations that you can get into in airsoft, a polycarbonate lens is 100% proof against BBs. I'm risk averse enough that the 0.0000001% chance of possible eye damage bothers me, so I deal with occasional fogging and just get on with it.

As a side note, I'm unfortunate enough to have seen what happens when a BB hits a person's eye without any form of eye protection. Marui M4 firing at 270fps hit my friend Alex in the eye from approximately 20 metres. He lost 50% of his cornea instantly, spent 3 days in an eye infirmary and needed to have a cataract operation because his lens was too badly damaged to ever recover. According to the doctors at the eye infirmary the only reason the BB didn't pierce the eyeball and completely destroy it was that it hit dead centre on the middle of the lens which is the strongest part.

That was a low (by todays standards) powered airsoft gun at a not inconsiderable distance which caused permanent eye damage to a close friend of mine, if it were a 350fps gun shooting at a similar distance instead of wearing glasses he'd be wearing a patch.

Take your eye protection seriously.

 

[two_zero]

Not really scared of being shot in the face... No pain no gain.

I got no issue with face hits. It's the eyes and teeth that I'm concerned about. I'm actually a bit annoyed that face is covered, but it's simply not worth the risk. I don't trust teeth guards to protect me from BBs, and as seen in a thread recently, lower teeth get shot out as well.

 

[Ian_Gere]

I'm quite happy with mesh, I know people worry about splinters but I see it as a marginal worry more risk of breaking your ankle down a rabbit hole.

Couple of times with the full face mask I use I have had splinters come through, went to the safe zone only once to check as I could feel something around my eye. I plan on changing to goggles once I can afford a good pair don't like mesh at all.

I've had a piece of shattered BB hit me in the eye through my Hero Sharks, which is not that surprising when you consider how big the perforations are in the sheet that the mesh is made from - much bigger than most perforated mesh, a bit bigger than the stuff used in full face plastic masks. Despite the fact that HS's must allow larger fragments through, which therefore must carry more energy, when it hit my eye the fragment was moving so slowly that it felt just like getting sand in my eye from wind on a beach. A pain in the arse, yes, but amazingly enough I had the foresight (see that? hohoho!) to refrain from rubbing my eye, which may have scratched it creating a 3-day annoyance, and back in the safe zone simply blinked as fast as I could for a couple of seconds to get my eye watering, which carried it to the outside corner where it was easily finger poked out - no damage at all. A cupped clean hand full of water splashed in there would have done the trick too. Ed has had something similar, iirc.

Physics wise it makes perfect sense - to shatter a BB takes considerable energy, much of which is converted from momentum into heat and sound. What remains is then divided between all the fragments, so it's no wonder that there's no significant momentum left in any one of them.

As bornleverpuller says, there's more risk of hurting yourself against the environment, especially if you can't see properly because your polycarbonate lenses are fogged. I live in hope that I'll find some lenses which don't fog, which is why I've acquired some Bullet Ants, because James is right, there must be some infinitesimal risk (although it may be that there is a greater statistical likelihood of an accident occurring as a result of goggles getting knocked off than as a result of a BB fragment penetrating mesh - I don't know, but we do know that nobody has ever had an eye injury of any description sufficiently serious to warrant a news story due to goggle failure, it's always like James' mate - no eyepro), but more importantly, any mesh is a partial opaque barrier, lenses have got to be better to see through, so long as they do not fog at all. Don't be surprised to find me selling my new gogs in about 2 weeks though :lol:

Simple. ESS glasses can stop a point blank shotgun

Yeah mine could have stopped me seeing somebody aiming a shotgun at me point blank!

the only thing you'd gain is the ability to look down the sites easier. I have found that the rentals I have been using very difficult to do that when using face protection.

It's not necessary to squash your cheek against the stock to aim over iron sights, you can shoulder the rifle slightly closer in towards your centre against your pectoral muscle and rather than leaning your head just over "/" lean it further and bend your neck to make your head more upright "_|" - or cut the right lower cheek off your 1/2 face mesh mask.

 

[Cheeky vimto]

the only thing you'd gain is the ability to look down the sites easier. I have found that the rentals I have been using very difficult to do that when using face protection.

True but let's be honest, they're toy guns. They're not 100% accurate so as long as you can see the direction on the barrel you're good. Or get a raised rail?

 

[Cheeky vimto]

fact.

ANSI z87.1 is the absolute minimum I would trust my eyes with, it'll stop buckshot so BBs won't even leave a smudge.

I work on the basis that although mesh is probably sufficient to be completely safe in 99.999999% of situations that you can get into in airsoft, a polycarbonate lens is 100% proof against BBs. I'm risk averse enough that the 0.0000001% chance of possible eye damage bothers me, so I deal with occasional fogging and just get on with it.

As a side note, I'm unfortunate enough to have seen what happens when a BB hits a person's eye without any form of eye protection. Marui M4 firing at 270fps hit my friend Alex in the eye from approximately 20 metres. He lost 50% of his cornea instantly, spent 3 days in an eye infirmary and needed to have a cataract operation because his lens was too badly damaged to ever recover. According to the doctors at the eye infirmary the only reason the BB didn't pierce the eyeball and completely destroy it was that it hit dead centre on the middle of the lens which is the strongest part.

That was a low (by todays standards) powered airsoft gun at a not inconsiderable distance which caused permanent eye damage to a close friend of mine, if it were a 350fps gun shooting at a similar distance instead of wearing glasses he'd be wearing a patch.

Take your eye protection seriously.

That's really unfortunate, sorry to hear that. I'd feel horrible if I ever did that to someone. It's only a game, if you want to permanently disfigure someone join the military.

 

[Cheeky vimto]

Couple of times with the full face mask I use I have had splinters come through, went to the safe zone only once to check as I could feel something around my eye. I plan on changing to goggles once I can afford a good pair don't like mesh at all.

Goggles or glasses?