Living Legends 8 bans First Strike Rounds

[Davros]

They stopped using polystyrene for FSR after a short while. For several years now they have been made of a PLA bio plastic. These rounds take a long time to do it but they do biodegrade safely now.

Love the idea of FSR. Hope one of you very knowledgeable paintball engineers figures out how to improve them so everyone feels comfortable and safe with them.

[PBSteve]

Agreed, through various testing I've come to believe that paint is currently the largest barrier to improving accuracy. Although tbh, I'd be pretty happy if we just got good spheres.

Josh,

That calculator you linked is incorrect, acceleration cannot be measured in fps. In fact, again, it is incorrect to use force in this case, you need to look at energy. There is no way to put a simple number on the acceleration of a paintball impact without simulation or experiment. I suspect you'll find that a paintball gun imparts roughly the same energy to both rounds.

If an insurance company is seeing higher or more frequent payouts using a particular object or device, you can bet they care far more about that than an ASTM standard. That said, again, I suspect there's a reason Tiberius hasn't applied for or been approved for ASTM certification.

Thank you for your concern regarding ASTM on the Paragon, we have already purchased the relevant standards.

[cockerpunk]

agreed, through various testing i've come to believe that paint is currently the largest barrier to improving accuracy. Although tbh, i'd be pretty happy if we just got good spheres.
.

quoted for the truth

[pbjosh]

That calculator you linked is incorrect, acceleration cannot be measured in fps. In fact, again, it is incorrect to use force in this case, you need to look at energy. There is no way to put a simple number on the acceleration of a paintball impact without simulation or experiment. I suspect you'll find that a paintball gun imparts roughly the same energy to both rounds.

Before we get wrapped up in intents, please tell me if I am wrong here:

In the beginning your contention was the Insurance Company had looked up the FS round and felt it caused more potential damage in the staging area because it could impart more potential damage at a long range.

My reply was two fold.

One: the FS round doesn't impart any more potential energy than a .68 round. Which you are agreeing to above, so I will table that till the bottom.

Second: Insurance companies do not measure anything like that because at the point a round goes off in the staging area the customer (who signed a waiver) or the field owner (who has to provide signage, instruction and bag protection) is at fault. The insurance company wants to make sure you adhere to ASTM standards to CYA.

You are adding to that a new contention, that

If an insurance company is seeing higher or more frequent payouts using a particular object or device, you can bet they care far more about that than an ASTM standard.

I suggest in response that the insurance company is NOT taking into account the type of round when figuring damages and most likely doesn't even have a box to tick for which type of paintball. In fact, have you knowledge of any payout based on the type of round? Or a FS round being part of any damages paid by an Insurance agency?

Their action in this still falls under my previous reply: Insurance cares that ASTM is being held to. In this case the FS are not ASTM certified, and hence again fall under my second response: ASTM certification is paramount. You are following it, I am following it, Kee, Empire and the rest all are, but Tiberius is not. What the round does or doesn't do I proposed does not matter to the Insurance Company.

My position is: They have never tested it. Insurance companies have no reason to, nor a facility. It isn't like paintball is as big as the automotive market. Even then, how or whom? Underwriters Laboratories? That would be where something goes to get tested.

Nobody outside of the paintball industry really has. Even for masks, they do ASTM testing in house, like we both would for our product, and they are good. I think UVEX did a while back, and a few others, to prove they were NOT for use in paintball! Ha!

You have only hinted that the insurance company has done testing or based their finding on testing or of some collected result and possible payout. But that was just speculative. There is not evidence of that. So you now say 'they' found the FS round to be more dangerous. How? Again, that is just speculation, and would require far more effort and planning then they have every put into the sport so far.

As my final point. Occam's Razor.

"Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"

No need to add complexity to a simple problem. Your positions require far more effort, planning and testing than mine. I have shown that they will limit items allowed due to lack of ASTM testing.

So, my final issue for this is "ASTM certification has not been done, and hence that, and that ALONE is why FS rounds are pulled from LL8."

With no proof, we might as well be talking about moon landings.


Back to the tabled issue:

Agreed is the following: A paintball gun imparts roughly the same energy into both the .68 and FS rounds.

That then means: With a lighter round you get more velocity because it has less mass but incurs the same energy output from the marker.

In addition that means: Due to lighter weight the FS round will impart less energy at impact at the same speed because they have less mass. It would take a significant increase in velocity to make up for the 27% reduction in mass, and that is seen in the 15-20fps increase when using the round.

For example: .50 cal paint used to be allowed up to 425fps, due to the round being significantly lighter, but having the same muzzle energy at that velocity. So lets go back to that really quick.

Lets use a far simpler calculator: A muzzle energy calculator. That is what the top velocity is based off of. It uses energy. That is what you wanted, so here it is. Nothing complicated to figure:

http://www.shooterscalculator.com/bu...tic-energy.php

The .09oz FS round is 39.4 grains.
The .11 .68 cal round is 48.1 grains

At 300fps the FS makes 8ft*lbs or 11 joules
At 300fps the .68 makes 10ft*lbs or 13 joules

The FS has to go 330fps to get 10ft*lbs or 13 joules

Again, as I showed previously: 300fps was considered the highest velocity a .68 could travel and not be damaging, and a FS round, until you exceed 330fps, doesn't hold the same energy, and hence is actually safer just based on the energy held in the product at impact. If it had been tested at any point by the insurance agency.

Night!


(Fun debate and all, but way too much speculation on your part. I would give you better speaker points though, I was all over the place. Ha!)

[PBSteve]

In the beginning your contention was the Insurance Company had looked up the FS round and felt it caused more potential damage in the staging area because it could impart more potential damage at a long range.

One: the FS round doesn't impart any more potential energy than a .68 round. Which you are agreeing to above, so I will table that till the bottom.

Correct on the first part.

I never agreed that it imparts the same kinetic energy on impact. I said muzzle energy is roughly equivalent. Energy imparted on impact (at equivalent range) won't be. I'm done talking about the middle bits, ok, here we go:

Again, as I showed previously: 300fps was considered the highest velocity a .68 could travel and not be damaging, and a FS round, until you exceed 330fps, doesn't hold the same energy, and hence is actually safer just based on the energy held in the product at impact. If it had been tested at any point by the insurance agency.

If you recall, the discussion was around switching straight over from standard paintballs to FS rounds, meaning people were walking around with FS rounds chrono'd higher than when they left staging. This is expected, without adjusting the gun it will impart roughly the same amount of energy to both rounds. The estimated/observed velocity increase we were working with due to the switch was 20 fps:

If you use .09 for FS rounds and .123 as max .68 caliber rounds then you can see the energy from the full paintball at 285 fps is .303N of force, and the FS at 305fps is .237N of force.

Taking a ratio of the two energies, [.00255g*(93.0m/s)^2]/[.00312g*(86.9m/s)^2] = 0.94. So at the end of the barrel the FS energy is roughly 6% lower, the difference probably attributable to bore size effects.

Now, to the point I've been trying to get across: Anything more than a few feet away from the marker and the FS round will have more energy than a standard paintball at the same range. According to the well-known Physics of Paintball page, by the time it's 50 feet (less than 20 yards) downrange a standard paintball is down to 200 fps. The whole point of FS rounds is that they are more aerodynamic, so they carry their energy further. To make things worse in the case of an eye injury, the additional shell required to improve the aerodynamic properties add considerably more shell (and even lined up perfectly!) to act as shrapnel on impact with an eye. So there's more energy, and a greater portion of that larger energy is going into hard, sharp bits.

Thus, by my estimation, resulting in more catastrophic injuries. And if an insurance company has/had even a couple large payouts as a result of this, I'd be a little surprised if it didn't get their attention.

You are correct, this is somewhat speculative. But I know at a minimum the physics I've presented is correct, it's very basic projectile motion stuff.

[HipboyScott]

So what would Tiberius even do for ASTM testing? There is no standard that would cover their round is there? Thus until people go and create a standard for non-sperical rounds that the FSR could even apply to, Tiberius can do all the testing in the universe and it still won't pass the ASTM spec until someone specifically goes in and writes regulations that cover such rounds. That all is to say, from what I've been told the word 'spherical' is specifically the nomenclature that precludes the non-spherical First Strikes from being acceptable.

That's why the rounds aren't ASTM spec, because they are specifically inapplicable to any standard on the books.

But if no-one ever made or marketed anything that diddn't fit the current specs, then there'd never be demand for such a spec in the first place.

Now, if someone has access to the ASTM spec (I can probably get ahold of it eventually) they might be able to determine whether or not that nomenclature problem is true or if it's something else. But other than that I can't see any reason why it wouldn't pass the other criteria

It's truly hard to sit around hearing people suggest that the rounds are unsafe, especially anyone who hasn't shot a number of them and been in events where they have taken their share of hits. I've shot at least 1000 FSR in play now, and I think they are perfectly viable round according to the spirit and intent of the laws of Paintball, other than being a spherical round. I've been shot by them at close ranges, in the head, in many other areas, I've never felt like I've taken hits that were worse than a paintball could do within 300fps. I will agree that the impact is different, but under 300fps and under normal play I cannot abide any notion they are inherently or even marginally unsafe. If you shoot them hot, yes they can do a bit more than a paintball up to a point, and so at 400 fps keep them the hell away from me. But if there was an event that was 100% first-strike only, at 300fps, with urban-style combat, I would play it no hesitation (as long as I had the scrilla for enough rounds that is)

[PBSteve]

I believe ASTM standards are written in conjunction with a board which is composed of industry members and other interested parties.

The burden of modifying/addending the standard is on Tiberius to approach ASTM and have it tested and modified to cover their round, which they have apparently failed to do for unknown reasons.

http://www.astm.org/FAQ/

My intention was not to cast FS rounds as unsafe when used properly (although I'll admit that's how it sounds), but rather to point out that it seems they have somewhat more potential to cause injury in the case of an accident.

I don't think it should come as a big surprise that a better projectile might pose more risk. It's not necessarily a reason not to use them (I'd still like to look at using them in my own designs), but it needs to be considered, and it doesn't seem anyone has really looked at it thoroughly.



I should also admit some of my posts were driven by frustrations that were tangential to the topic of the thread.

[pbjosh]

I believe ASTM standards are written in conjunction with a board which is composed of industry members and other interested parties.

The burden of modifying/addending the standard is on Tiberius to approach ASTM and have it tested and modified to cover their round, which they have apparently failed to do for unknown reasons.

You are correct here.

Now, to the point I've been trying to get across: Anything more than a few feet away from the marker and the FS round will have more energy than a standard paintball at the same range.

Lets look at where others have done this work (UV Ima Looking at you):

http://www.mcarterbrown.com/forums/f...aintballs.html

I agree it will have more velocity at a given range, though less potential energy at the same velocity. My point is the gun was already metered to be safe at the muzzle. 50ft away doesn't matter.

Look at it as if it was testing for a car. Most accidents occur at 35mph, kind of like how you use the 200fps to compare. But, like the 300fps limit, the cars are tested and designed for 60mph accidents, since the vehicle does travel at that velocity also.

Going back to the 50 ft range the FS round will have more impact energy. Like a speeding Miata. Doing 45 in a 35 zone when it hits a minivan.

But the cars are designed to hit at 60mph. Just like the paintball, the gun, the masks and related are all designed around a 60mph limit. Sorry, 300fps.

That it hits a person with 6ft*lbs vs 4ft*lbs of energy at 50ft is completely overshadowed by the fact that at the muzzle they deliver 8ft*lbs and 10ft*lbs of impact energy.

They are setup to be safe at point blank range. That is where everything is tested to.

50ft later there is no extra energy added, they are not faster than at the muzzle. Muzzle is the fastest and highest point of energy, and at no point does the FS round exceed the energy of a regular .68 caliber round at point blank. It never will.

So the position is moot. It is a non-important caveat to an insurance agency that will most likely never look at those calculations or metrics, and just looks to the correct label on the outside of the box: ASTM.

[Pump Scout]

I believe ASTM standards are written in conjunction with a board which is composed of industry members and other interested parties.

The burden of modifying/addending the standard is on Tiberius to approach ASTM and have it tested and modified to cover their round, which they have apparently failed to do for unknown reasons.

Correct. Tiberius (or PST, as they're apparently now known) would have to do exactly what Larry Cossio suggested - spend the $75 to join the ASTM board as a member, devote a person on their staff to be their representative and put FSR through the process (unpaid, as all board members are volunteers, who actually pay that $75 fee to be part of the board/club/whatever), and get approved. It's a process. They don't seem very willing to take the steps needed to go forward with it.

I do wonder why that is. The time factor? Might FSR not get approved even if they lobbied for it? Are they just apathetic to ASTM requirements (at least up until now)? Who knows.

[cockerpunk]

Are they just apathetic to ASTM requirements (at least up until now)?

probably this