[Update] Iron Filing Bbs Confirmed (Not Steel Cored)

[WarriorTed]

It is an interesting one. My friends and I were at a site in Scotland the other weekend and all of us have reports of being hit harder than anything we have felt before. Its all somewhat unsubstantiated and conjecture but honestly I got hit in the chops (wearing a facemask luckily) and it was not like a normal hit I have experienced before.

To add to my comment tho, as long as the Joules output is within site limits I suspect that it just carries more momentum and so feels harder at longer ranges. It does raise an interesting debate regarding minimum engagement distances as they are currently set up for standard ammo.

[Adolf Hamster]

16 minutes ago, WarriorTed said:

It is an interesting one. My friends and I were at a site in Scotland the other weekend and all of us have reports of being hit harder than anything we have felt before. Its all somewhat unsubstantiated and conjecture but honestly I got hit in the chops (wearing a facemask luckily) and it was not like a normal hit I have experienced before.

To add to my comment tho, as long as the Joules output is within site limits I suspect that it just carries more momentum and so feels harder at longer ranges. It does raise an interesting debate regarding minimum engagement distances as they are currently set up for standard ammo.

 

could just have been a hot gun.

 

as for the MED thing last time i ran the math on it a 0.5g bb fired at 2.5j worked out to be around 1.3j left after 20m, which isn't too far removed from what's generally considered for sniper/med/rifleman limits.

 

of course if it was even heavier than that it'd hold even more energy and hit harder, so yes if we started seeing dramatically heavier stuff being used it is a question that would need to be raised.

 

currently the heaviest i'm aware of for 6mm is 0.5g, although personally i preferr the 0.48's as a white bb is easier to track. however novritches full thrust goes up to 0.62g albeit with a larger bore diameter and associated drag.

 

although i'm guessing the mass increase for nov's bb's is going to be more of a factor than the diameter, as the drag will be a factor of the cross sectional area (square law) but the mass affected by volume (cubed).

[Rogerborg]

6 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

aside from curiosity, i'm not entirely sure how much it matters what they're filled with?

 

Only that with 0.5g BBs on offer now, at some point we'll have to draw a line on mass and density, and decide what constitutes "plastic".

 

If the argument is just about energy, then what's the objection to shooting 0.88g steel BBs as long as they're below 1.2J / 2.3J?

 

It steel isn't OK, then what is?

 

Personally, and on a knee jerk, I'd say 0.4g is as heavy as anyone needs to use.  I say this while owning some 0.43g, but I'm not entirely comfortable about it.

 

 

37 minutes ago, WarriorTed said:

My friends and I were at a site in Scotland the other weekend

 

Facebook is being cagey about where they were found, but it looks like a CQB site.  Biohazard, by any chance?

 

To be clear, I don't blame whichever site it was, because nobody checks the ammo people are playing with... yet.  It seems like they were only noticed because they're blue.

 

Maybe that will change, and maybe it should change, although it'd be sad if it had to.

[WarriorTed]

No, we were at our usual outdoor site (don't want to name them as they are great and this seems to be a bit of an unusual situation).

 

I do think ammo needs to be checked as personally at multiple sites I have never actually seen a proper off the cuff chrono taking place.

[Rogerborg]

Fair enough, I'm just curious - it's very definitely not the site's fault.

 

I'd also like to see a lot more in-game checking. I've only been chronoed in-game a couple of times, only at the defunct Depot, and even then they just trusted folk on BB weights.  I've never seen it done at any other site.

[Adolf Hamster]

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

Only that with 0.5g BBs on offer now, at some point we'll have to draw a line on mass and density, and decide what constitutes "plastic".

 

indeed, iirc 0.5g was the heaviest marketed ammo i could find at the time.

 

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

If the argument is just about energy, then what's the objection to shooting 0.88g steel BBs as long as they're below 1.2J / 2.3J?

 

this is an intriguing question.

 

i'm tempted to say an awful lot of it is perception, ie that people just assume steel is going to hurt more because it's steel.

 

certainly my logic is that with the flat 1j limit (ie no mucking around with med's) is that 1j point blank is gonna sting just as much if it's a .2g or .5g, and whilst the heavier ammo will hit harder at range than the lighter ammo, it will never hit harder than what's considered acceptable (ie the 1j point blank hit)

 

although we're straying into territory where there really needs to be more actual information, for example how much the current crop of bb's deform at our impact energies is going to play a very big part of wether or not there's an argument here.

 

if they do deform, then yes harder materials would present a problem, but if they don't then my above suggestion that perception is the issue would be more valid.

 

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

Personally, and on a knee jerk, I'd say 0.4g is as heavy as anyone needs to use.  I say this while owning some 0.43g, but I'm not entirely comfortable about it.

 

i'm kind of the inverse, my preference would be for heavier ammo and lower muzzle energy, as it's a flatter curve. with lighter ammo the closer you get the more it's gonna hurt.

 

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

nobody checks the ammo people are playing with... yet.

 

tell me about it, hell the number of times i've had to explain to sites that my gun is not underpowered after i've already told them i'm running X ammo weight.

 

the .48's are always fun when they see 200fps on the readout expecting 320.....

 

13 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

I've only been chronoed in-game a couple of times.

 

never happened to me, likewise i've never had a site question when you start the day with an m4 and finish with an ak......

[Rogerborg]

32 minutes ago, Adolf Hamster said:

i'm kind of the inverse, my preference would be for heavier ammo and lower muzzle energy, as it's a flatter curve. with lighter ammo the closer you get the more it's gonna hurt.

 

I'm struggling to find an arugment against that, but the physics agrees.  EN166 actually uses a 6mm steel BB for impact testing.  Granted, only at 0.9J for EN166F, but that's at least what the lowest rated safety glasses can take, and we know (from the lack of blind players) that in practice they can take bigger hits than that.

 

The real issue might be Joule creep, or just a super hot gun cheating chrono by saying "Yeah, mate, twos, mate" while slinging 0.9g of steel.  But it's not like it's hard to cheat or just avoid chrono anyway, especially at a big, busy site. It all comes down to trust, and if there are folk out there willing to completely take the piss to the point where it's not just unfair but actually hazarous, then I guess we'll have to get used to having our balls fondled.

[Adolf Hamster]

 

23 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

 

I'm struggling to find an arugment against that, but the physics agrees.  EN166 actually uses a 6mm steel BB for impact testing.  Granted, only at 0.9J for EN166F, but that's at least what the lowest rated safety glasses can take, and we know (from the lack of blind players) that in practice they can take bigger hits than that.

 

 

there are some good reasons to not actually use steel (is it actually illegal or is that just an urban legend? i've honestly never looked it up), i can see it playing merry hell with magazines, feeding etc then scratching the hell out of the barrel as a goodbye present.

 

and as already mentioned MED rules would need revamping, for example to maintain a given MED you'd need to drop the power, which might not be the worst given poor range judgement, accidental close range strikes and kicking mustang are a thing.

 

however it might ironically solve one problem- it'll be more biodegradable than "plastic".

 

of course as i'm writing that the idea fairy strikes.... lead- quite possibly softer than some of the bb's on the market currently.....

 

although there is gonna be a point where the velocity drop would be so much it'd be impractical, you'd probably draw the line when you had to wait until after lunchtime before all the shots you'd fired that morning actually landed.

 

needless to say this is all entirely hypothetical with a lot of big citation needed stamps all over it, but it's fun to ponder these things every so often.

 

51 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

The real issue might be Joule creep, or just a super hot gun cheating chrono by saying "Yeah, mate, twos, mate" while slinging 0.9g of steel.  But it's not like it's hard to cheat or just avoid chrono anyway, especially at a big, busy site. It all comes down to trust, and if there are folk out there willing to completely take the piss to the point where it's not just unfair but actually hazarous, then I guess we'll have to get used to having our balls fondled.

 

the issue with joule creep is when not chrono'ing on game weight, if you chrono on game weight (without lying) then it's not a problem (compared to say stuffing .2's in, passing and not realizing the power jumps when they put their game .4's in), of course chrono'ing on game weight opens up for liars. i don't think there's any decent field expedient solution that which doesn't invoke the joule creep issue. at least as long as chrono's are just measuring velocity compared to say a ballistic pendulum that can actually measure energy (and would be immune to bb weight liars)

 

of course anyone who lies about ammo weight to cheat chrono, or indeed exploits any other method to do the same well, you said it best:

 

On 09/06/2021 at 22:06, Rogerborg said:

"Ban em, ban their mum, ban their kids, ban them unto the 7th generation"

 

 

[Rogerborg]

9 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

there are some good reasons to not actually use steel (is it actually illegal or is that just an urban legend? i've honestly never looked it up),

 

I understand (informally, since I don't really care enough to look it up) that paintball "markers" only escape categorisation as firearms or even air guns because they use frangible ammunition.

 

Ammo doesn't effect the categorisation of airsoft toys one way or another, since for once we actually got a very sensibly written definition in PCA 2017 S125.

 

57A Exception for airsoft guns
(1) An “airsoft gun” is not to be regarded as a firearm for the purposes of this Act.
(2) An “airsoft gun” is a barrelled weapon of any description which—
(a) is designed to discharge only a small plastic missile (whether or not it is also capable of discharging any other kind of missile), and
(b) is not capable of discharging a missile (of any kind) with kinetic energy at the muzzle of the weapon that exceeds the permitted level.

 

(2)(a) is what protects us. (2)(b) is what we like to ignore, particularly HPA or anything over-volumed which could Joule creep to infinity and beyond with heavier ammo.

 

Hopefully that will never be an issue, but if it gets out that some throbber really is slinging steel, potentially from a hot gun (I use "gun" deliberately here), and most particularly in Scotchland of all places, then I can see it ending badly for us.

 

As to whether the act of shooting someone becomes illegal if you use steel cored or steel BBs, I guess it comes down to consent.  We consent to be shot with plastic / "plastic" up to the site limit, although that's rather implicit.  For all that sites waste their time and ours with meaningless waivers and disclaimers, I've yet to see one that actually serves as an explicit consent form listing exactly what to expect, i.e. being hit with said BBs at said energy.

 

If someone's shooting at higher energies, I don't consent to that, but then again, I don't want it to become a legal issue either, given the potential consequences from the attention. I'd rather that the culprit was just permabanned out of the game, everywhere.

 

As to being shot with steel-core or steel, I'm fairly relaxed about that as long as the energies are within the site limits.  Although there's the issue of 2.3J snipers carrying more energy out to the point of impact, but we've already covered that the way to deal with that is lower muzzle energy to compensate for higher mass.

 

And maybe that's something that sites should already be considering.  Is it reasonable to have the same muzzle energy and MED for two players, both of whom are shooting 2.3J at the muzzle, but one is slinging 0.5J and the other 0.2J (and sadly I have seen a new sniper player doing that)?

 

I imagine it's not something that sites want to think about, but if not then maybe they should be coming up with some harder rules about maximum and minimum masses, or just binning off higher energy toys altogether.  POW airsoft, for example, has got rid of DMRs entirely because of the potential for shenanigans, require 2 games on site before you get to snipe, and have a 2.17J maximum energy for bolties.

 

 

 

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i can see it playing merry hell with magazines, feeding etc then scratching the hell out of the barrel as a goodbye present.

 

Sure, it's not a great idea, but maybe some players just don't care.  I've got plenty of cheap mags and swapped-out brass barrels that I'd be happy to sacrifice in an experiment, and the contact patch of an s-hop is tuppence worth of RTV silicone.

 

 

Quote

and as already mentioned MED rules would need revamping, for example to maintain a given MED you'd need to drop the power, which might not be the worst given poor range judgement, accidental close range strikes and kicking mustang are a thing.

 

Agreed.

 

 

Quote

however it might ironically solve one problem- it'll be more biodegradable than "plastic".

 

Also agreed, and another thing that produces a cognitive dissonance blind spot in sites and players.  6 months at 60C in an industrial composter is not 6 months lying on the ground in woodland.

 

 

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 i don't think there's any decent field expedient solution [for chronoing] that which doesn't invoke the joule creep issue. at least as long as chrono's are just measuring velocity compared to say a ballistic pendulum that can actually measure energy (and would be immune to bb weight liars)

 

Field chrono using the site's 0.4g+ BBs.  If it's OK, move on.  If it comes out high, then look harder, i.e. what it chronos at using the player's ammo, and what that ammo actually is (as opposed to what they say that it is).

 

I honestly believe that if you're not doing that, then you might as well not bother chronoing at all. Because (effectively) voluntary pre-game chronoing and taking players' word for it on ammo weights only tests honest players for honesty, and does nothing to address the problem players.

[Adolf Hamster]

3 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

(2)(a) is what protects us. (2)(b) is what we like to ignore, particularly HPA or anything over-volumed which could Joule creep to infinity and beyond with heavier ammo.

 

by the looks of it then 2A does kind of insinuate the steel thing is a no-no, as if you'd modified the gun to be usable firing steel then it'd break that definition.

 

i'm assuming at least that it'd need modified, particularly the hop, as nearly doubling the weight is gonna be a challenge to lift. only reason i even think it's possible is a janky rhop installation years ago that would space .48's at 1j

 

either way that's a court battle i don't particularly want to see happening.

 

4 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

And maybe that's something that sites should already be considering.  Is it reasonable to have the same muzzle energy and MED for two players, both of whom are shooting 2.3J at the muzzle, but one is slinging 0.5J and the other 0.2J (and sadly I have seen a new sniper player doing that)?

 

as mentioned earlier it seems that the current crop of weights sit ok with MED's as they stand, the exception possibly being nov's full thrust stuff but that hasn't taken off sufficiently to render it a problem same as marushin's 8mm stuff.

 

4 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

Sure, it's not a great idea, but maybe some players just don't care.  I've got plenty of cheap mags and swapped-out brass barrels that I'd be happy to sacrifice in an experiment, and the contact patch of an s-hop is tuppence worth of RTV silicone.

 

i'd guess anyone who's tried steel up to this point has presumably been ignorant of how these things work, most likely assuming they're like air rifles, rather than seriously contemplating it as an option.

 

however given the above definitions i'm not sure it's worth experimenting with, and even without those considerations the perception of using steel is so tainted by this point that wether it works in theory or not is largely irrelevant.

 

kinda like how nuclear energy makes sense on paper, but you mention the n word at all and the droves of nimby's will immediately assemble screaming chernobyl at the top of their lungs.

 

4 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

also agreed, and another thing that produces a cognitive dissonance blind spot in sites and players.  6 months at 60C in an industrial composter is not 6 months lying on the ground in woodland.

 

 

indeed, i'm still yet to be convinced that any material that doesn't swell in storage is also biodegradable.

 

4 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

Field chrono using the site's 0.4g+ BBs.  If it's OK, move on.  If it comes out high, then look harder, i.e. what it chronos at using the player's ammo, and what that ammo actually is (as opposed to what they say that it is).

 

y'know that's not a bad idea, although the biggest prerequisite of the site actually having enough background knowledge to implement this is another hurdle.

 

4 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

I honestly believe that if you're not doing that, then you might as well not bother chronoing at all. Because (effectively) voluntary pre-game chronoing and taking players' word for it on ammo weights only tests honest players for honesty, and does nothing to address the problem players.

 

as i believe you're fond of describing it "safety theatre"

 

it's kind of sad really that these issues simply wouldn't exist if you could trust the players to be honest, but thanks to humanity's fundamental flaws that's never going to happen.

[Rogerborg]

2 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

by the looks of it then 2A does kind of insinuate the steel thing is a no-no, as if you'd modified the gun to be usable firing steel then it'd break that definition.

 

That's a reasonable point, if you're altering the design.  I'm really impressed with the wording though, as it looks as though someone has put some proper thought into it. The great news is that even if someone does demonstrate shooting full steel BBs from their toy gun, it doesn't change the classification of any of our guns toys.

 

 

 

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indeed, i'm still yet to be convinced that any material that doesn't swell in storage is also biodegradable.

 

Yup.  I've got a bag of 0.43g bios that are only now starting to break up 3 years after being opened, while being stored in the garage with no special precautions.

 

 

 

Quote

y'know that's not a bad idea, although the biggest prerequisite of the site actually having enough background knowledge to implement this is another hurdle.

 

And caring.  It's so easy to just shrug all this off and assume the best from players.

 

 

Quote

as i believe you're fond of describing it "safety theatre"

 

it's kind of sad really that these issues simply wouldn't exist if you could trust the players to be honest, but thanks to humanity's fundamental flaws that's never going to happen.

 

Well, that's it in a nutshell.

 

One thing that has really stuck with me from some H&S liability training is that the absolute worst thing that you can do is to identify and acknowledge a risk, then take inadequate measures to address it, even in good faith. Your'e making the prosecution's case for them.

 

I'd class most site chroning as that.  If I were coming up with procedures for a site, I'd not even mandate pre-game chronoing, because then you create a duty of care to do it, and when someone does sneak past, you've failed in that duty.

 

Instead, I'd acknowledge the reality that it's impossible to stop people cheating (e.g. by Joule creeping) or avoiding pre-game chrono, and would offer it as a service for players to check their own toys. But then I'd chrono them in-game as above, regular and often.  The goal is to catch and deter rogues, not to verify that fair players are fair.

[Adolf Hamster]

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

 

That's a reasonable point, if you're altering the design.  I'm really impressed with the wording though, as it looks as though someone has put some proper thought into it. The great news is that even if someone does demonstrate shooting full steel BBs from their toy gun, it doesn't change the classification of any of our guns toys.

 

 

true, although if airsoft is gonna end up on trial then the place it'll lose is the court of public opinion aka facebook and the daily mail.

 

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

Yup.  I've got a bag of 0.43g bios that are only now starting to break up 3 years after being opened, while being stored in the garage with no special precautions.

 

i'll admit that personally it's not something i've put much thought into, almost entirely down to selfish disinterest.

 

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

Well, that's it in a nutshell.

 

One thing that has really stuck with me from some H&S liability training is that the absolute worst thing that you can do is to identify and acknowledge a risk, then take inadequate measures to address it, even in good faith. Your'e making the prosecution's case for them.

 

I'd class most site chroning as that.  If I were coming up with procedures for a site, I'd not even mandate pre-game chronoing, because then you create a duty of care to do it, and when someone does sneak past, you've failed in that duty.

 

Instead, I'd acknowledge the reality that it's impossible to stop people cheating (e.g. by Joule creeping) or avoiding pre-game chrono, and would offer it as a service for players to check their own toys. But then I'd chrono them in-game as above, regular and often.  The goal is to catch and deter rogues, not to verify that fair players are fair.

 

i can see the angle you're going for, making it a random encounter rather than a known obstacle would make many techniques for dodging hard.

 

there'd need to be the perception that it couldn't be dodged to deter folk.

[Chev Chelios]

About the issue of projectile weight, erm lets call them "jewellers scales" have come down in price dramatically as checking the weight of "gold" has become more common. They are tiny and very accurate and even the cheap ones go down to .1 of a gram.  Could be easy to carry with a chrono, pop bb out the mag, weight it, stick the mag back in and then run it through the chrono.

[Shamal]

8 minutes ago, Chev Chelios said:

About the issue of projectile weight, erm lets call them "jewellers scales" have come down in price dramatically as checking the weight of "gold" has become more common. They are tiny and very accurate and even the cheap ones go down to .1 of a gram.  Could be easy to carry with a chrono, pop bb out the mag, weight it, stick the mag back in and then run it through the chrono.

That is a good idea cause my old cannabis scales aren't really up to it. Lol