Doing our bit for the environment and the argument for bio BBs

[LightningCh]

i have ordered a bag of the bio bbs i linked in a previous post, and will get them tomorrow. Then i will test them and i will trial them at my next game and we will see how they work, if these are really bio then that's a bonus. As these are some cheap bbs, especially for BIOS and the "expensive" argument

[TheFull9]

If someone makes bios that are at least 95% as good as non, they're commonly/easily available but they cost 10-20% more.. pff.. no f**ks given either way.  The amount of BBs I shoot per game/year the difference would be so close to zero it makes absolutely no odds.  Personally though I often crack a bottle of 3k and don't finish until about 18 months later, so I'd not want them to expand or degrade in storage.

 

Once that availability is there I'll make the change, genuinely could not be less fussed in either direction.

[Wo1f]

^that

 

its not even about the price. I probably shoot a couple hundred shots in a full day’s game. So a bag of 3000 is going to be opened and closed constantly and not be used in months. I’ve got a bag of airsoft surgeon bio .3 that redwolf sent me by mistake. Shot okay when I first got them. 2 months later, they have lost their accuracy and I’ve had one break apart. 

 

I dont mind paying double the price, but until someone smarter than me tests on in the weight I need that doesn’t deteriorate until it’s in the ground and is just as hard or consistent then I’ll stick with what I know. I’m not breaking an expensive gun to keep a tree hugger happy. 

[richmt11]

@LightningCh 

[callumbagshaw]

Not read every reply (brace for flaming) but here's my two cents

 

This has probably already been mentioned but the two problems with bio BBs are (where players are concerned)

1) They (in my experience, correct me if wrong) are generally much more expensive than non-bio BBs.

2) They are known for swelling causing all sorts of jams & problems to your expensive RIF (or they were a few years ago when i looked into this).

 

That aside, yes in an ideal world it would be great if everyone used bio BBs but looking at it as a whole, the remains a few thousand skirmishers pew-pewing each other on a Saturday is a drop in the ocean compared with the impact on the environment caused by big-time industry. 

[Duff]

1 minute ago, callumbagshaw said:

Not read every reply (brace for flaming) but here's my two cents

 

This has probably already been mentioned but the two problems with bio BBs are (where players are concerned)

1) They (in my experience, correct me if wrong) are generally much more expensive than non-bio BBs.

2) They are known for swelling causing all sorts of jams & problems to your expensive RIF (or they were a few years ago when i looked into this).

 

That aside, yes in an ideal world it would be great if everyone used bio BBs but looking at it as a whole, the remains a few thousand skirmishers pew-pewing each other on a Saturday is a drop in the ocean compared with the impact on the environment caused by big-time industry. 

 

Not to mention that using bios over standard probably doesn't even actually offset the impact of manufacturing them in the first place.

[proffrink]

10 minutes ago, Duff said:

 

Not to mention that using bios over standard probably doesn't even actually offset the impact of manufacturing them in the first place.

So we're meant to use even more harmful BBs? Wat. I think for most people the concern is plastic being buried in a patch of forest, not the manufacturing cost itself. Anybody looking for a carbon neutral BB is going to be disappointed and even bio BBs are - as an example - made from extracts from corn (which of course has to be planted somewhere). However, cleaning up those issues is far easier than getting plastic out of the ground, that's tainted a water-table or is sitting out at sea. Is that better than a petrochemical derivative though? Perhaps. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the bio BB brands still use fractions of crude anyway.

 

I'll certainly accept that bio BBs are too expensive and they do need to be used in ~6 months (even the good ones), but there are performers out there if you look. Laser Dots and Green Devil are good examples of this. Nuprol and BB King white-labels gave heavy and bio BBs a really bad name not too long ago though, so scepticism is understandable and if you're playing at an urban site I just can't see bio being worth doing at all.

 

[Tiercel]

55 minutes ago, richmt11 said:

@LightningCh 

 

 

Are bioBB users the airsoft equivalent of vegans?   

[AndyDynamic]

Ease up on the meme trolling there guys 

 

I certainly won't be getting all preachy to other players, that's not my style. If you want to stick with plastic BBs, that's fine - I'll encourage others to switch, but I won't go around with a sign shouting "REPENT PLASTIC SINNERS!" or switching out their bottles when they're not looking.

 

 

[richmt11]

Nah I’m just messing. I read his post about saving electricity feeling good and instantly thought of that.

 

im not bothered either way. I don’t have the experience of bio bbs to comment. But if there is agreement they won’t good, I’m happy to use them...

[proffrink]

1 hour ago, AndyDynamic said:

Ease up on the meme trolling there guys 

 

I certainly won't be getting all preachy to other players, that's not my style. If you want to stick with plastic BBs, that's fine - I'll encourage others to switch, but I won't go around with a sign shouting "REPENT PLASTIC SINNERS!" or switching out their bottles when they're not looking.

 

 

I'd go further than that and say that if you play urban sites or snipe a lot then just don't bother with bio BBs. They're just not reasonably priced enough or perform well in heavier weight categories and it's not like they're going to degrade much if they're sitting on concrete indoors.

 

But if you play a lot of woodland and want to be able to kneel in a ditch without feeling like someone's torturing you with lego bricks, then bio BBs might be worth a shot. Added bonus is that you might get better at aiming.

[callumbagshaw]

24 minutes ago, proffrink said:

But if you play a lot of woodland and want to be able to kneel in a ditch without feeling like someone's torturing you with lego bricks, then bio BBs might be worth a shot. Added bonus is that you might get better at aiming.

Or better at shouting "Hit"  

The theory behind using bio bbs is surely not under any scrutiny - nobody can argue against that fact that it's a good idea, we just need some company to figure out how to make them stand up to non-bios in both cost and performance.

 

Perhaps somebody should get Elon Musk into airsoft.

[Rogerborg]

2 hours ago, proffrink said:

if you play urban sites [they'll be] sitting on concrete indoors.

 

Until eventually they get swept up, binned, and go into landfill.  I know most of what goes in with them will be plastic as well, but then we're back to the "No point in just me doing it" argument.

 

I'm going to give some cheapo Rocket bios a go, both for how well they perform at pew-pew and how readily they break up / rot down.

[proffrink]

10 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

 

Until eventually they get swept up, binned, and go into landfill.  I know most of what goes in with them will be plastic as well, but then we're back to the "No point in just me doing it" argument.

 

I'm going to give some cheapo Rocket bios a go, both for how well they perform at pew-pew and how readily they break up / rot down.

That's a fair point. I suppose I'm less concerned about the long-term impact elsewhere than I am of the plastic ruining woodland sites by saturating the ground.

 

Rockets are some of the mid-range stuff and they're okish. So long as you don't leave them open for more than a month or so.

[Tiercel]

Personally Id avoid rockets like the plague, I used a bag of their non-bio as it was the only ones available on a site, they jammed in all my guns, caused a piston to sheer its teeth and were only fit for the bin. I cant imagine their bios being any better.

[proffrink]

There was a time when they used a BB King rebranded BB. Whether they're still made in the same factory isn't known but they did improve significantly after they (and Nuprol) had received quite a bit of negative feedback on this in 2016.

[snuff]

2 hours ago, Tiercel said:

Personally Id avoid rockets like the plague, I used a bag of their non-bio as it was the only ones available on a site, they jammed in all my guns, caused a piston to sheer its teeth and were only fit for the bin. I cant imagine their bios being any better.

Unfortunately I can also say the same for Blasters,we use them all the time and they have never caused issues.My brother inadvertently purchased a box of their Bio's by mistake..and it was a massive mistake,they would not work in his main due to the tightbore so he had to use his back-up.They were inconsistent and lacked any accuracy.. he couldn't even give them away.

I doubt I'd use them if I was given them tbh..what else can ruin your day easier than crap bb's?

[GiantKiwi]

On 16/02/2018 at 8:01 PM, Tiercel said:

Personally Id avoid rockets like the plague, I used a bag of their non-bio as it was the only ones available on a site, they jammed in all my guns, caused a piston to sheer its teeth and were only fit for the bin. I cant imagine their bios being any better.

 

Sorry, you got a bad bag, doesn't mean they're sh*t in general. My friends and I have used nearly 250 kilos of them in the past 3 years, of both variants, we've only encountered 2 bad bags in that (both of them were 0.4's). We switched to them after having trialled Geoffs (we were given those by the distributor to play with before they went on the market, those were too soft to use with anything other than LPEG's, as they shattered when impacted by the loading nozzle) to replace the blaster's that had gone to being incredibly inconsistent in weight, size and strength.

[Tiercel]

1 hour ago, GiantKiwi said:

 

Sorry, you got a bad bag, doesn't mean they're sh*t in general. My friends and I have used nearly 250 kilos of them in the past 3 years, of both variants, we've only encountered 2 bad bags in that (both of them were 0.4's). We switched to them after having trialled Geoffs (we were given those by the distributor to play with before they went on the market, those were too soft to use with anything other than LPEG's, as they shattered when impacted by the loading nozzle) to replace the blaster's that had gone to being incredibly inconsistent in weight, size and strength.

 

I had 2 bad bags! What are the chances?  First tried their .25g as thats what I always use, they caused tonnes of issues, jams and were generally shite. The site gave me a free bag of .2g to try and fix the issue as thats all they had left, and they caused exactly the same issues! Thats a 100% failiure rate for me, I'll never use them again or reccomend them to anyone! Wheras Ive been through dozens upon dozens of bottles of ASG Blaster Red Devils and never had an issue with them. 

 

Now admittedly all my guns are running madbull black python 6.03mm tightbore barrels, when I gave the junk Rockets to my friend to try in his stock AK with whatever diameter barrel a Cyma AK has, they fed fine. That makes me think the problem is the BBs diameter/finish isnt very consistent/good which doesnt fill me with confidence in them.

[GiantKiwi]

8 hours ago, Tiercel said:

madbull black python 6.03mm tightbore barrels, 

 

There is the problem, not the bb's. Those bastard things are unbelievably inconsistent with internal diameter, courtesy of the crap anodised coating.

[Tiercel]

I'd disagree, I've used those barrels in all of my guns for the last 10 or so years Ive been airsofting, used many multiple other brands of BB and had no problem with them. 

[LightningCh]

Aren't bbs supposed to be under 6mm in size for the most part anyway?
Pretty sure they alll say 5.95mm +/- 0.01 or something similar? Or are bios just generally bigger anyway? (I have no idea)

[Markuz]

Remember that your mates can all chip in together and bulk buy from a retailer. 

 

We ended up buying 48,000 and paid 7.50 per 3000 which I think is a good deal. 

 

Find a decent brand within a sale, then call retailer and ask for extra discount.  

 

Everyone's a winner...you, environment and the retailer. 

[LightningCh]

4 hours ago, Markuz said:

Remember that your mates can all chip in together and bulk buy from a retailer. 

 

We ended up buying 48,000 and paid 7.50 per 3000 which I think is a good deal. 

 

Find a decent brand within a sale, then call retailer and ask for extra discount.  

 

Everyone's a winner...you, environment and the retailer. 

 

What about the lone wolves (well, i play like a kitten sometimes but shhh, minor details lol) like me who are still looking for an airsoft team to play with? 

Also im unfortunate enough to have my entire social circle built around Americans and Brits who have moved as far away as Scotland lol.

Guess it means no bulk buys for me lol.

[Markuz]

There should be a thread mentioning  a nearby site where you can let people know you want to team up. Once you get to know them you might get a chance to bulk buy.