BB regulations

I'd like to propose regulating the quality of BB's used in our games, and see if anyone agrees with me.

basically, here's my problem: I don't feel comfortable when other players are using crappy BB's that have a change to explode on impact, such as cheap walmart ammo which is the same price as BB bastards really, its just more readily available.

so BB's like those that dave brings in (elite balls I think?) or ideally BB bastards (yay supporting Canadian economy!) for proper quality, this will also help with jamming issues and feeding issues in all guns.


So why am I suggesting it? BB's that shatter leave cuts, damage guns, and most importantly, pass through the metal mesh 90% of us use as eye protection. It seems Hrton is great at keeping inexpensive BB's in stock, and I am absolutely more than happy to order BB bastards for the group. But we need to get the new guys aware of the issues and how their cheap ammo can seriously harm other players.

I feel that cheap ammo belongs in BB traps, claymores, and mines, so stuff that sits around 100-200 FPS.

Just testing the waters to see how others feel about this. Also, would it be possible to setup a NIA BB store? maybe even common parts?

Hmm I know what you mean.

The orange and green BBs shatter sometimes. Although, I've seen white ones breaking too :/

just cuz they're white doesn't mean they're high quality. I was ideally hoping we could make a list of legal brands of BBs, such as bastards and elite bb's that horton sells.

i think that it is a great idea, to have semi restrictions on bbs. the amount of ricochets i have had explode on me is not nice. not including what you have mentioned about passing threw mesh. as well as passing threw your basic paintball mask. and i cant even count how many hop-up's( rubber and unit) i have had to replace from this result.

having the better suppliers locally available need to be a must. basterd's metal tech, mad-bull. have bbs for the same cost of buying can-tire, walmart at manyx the quality.

i have been running on the idea of bringing in parts as a small "on forum" store. but have been undeceive about it for start funds, and ways of doing it requiring a business license or keeping under what i would be required to have a license.

i have a feeling that i will have one open eventually. possibly even store front of a surplus store.

I know the guy at Interior Hobbies wants to or already is carrying Airsoft Stuff, i'd imagine he'd be cool with becoming a Bastard supplier. We'd just have to point him in the right direction.

Alternatively i could look into doing that myself, i'll have a business license shortly, so provided i can legally retail airsoft BBs under my license i will do it

K, most my thoughts on this are on the Facebook page, but my desire to make paragraphs keeps making me hit enter, and |I dont want to clutter the page.

If this were put in place, I would suggest that perhaps a small portion of any surplus cash be set aside to have a newby bucket of bb's. I belong to the UNBC medieval club, the Wolf pack, and we have what is graciously refered to as newby gear. Bought and paid for or donated by members of theclub so newbs can play safely. I'm not suggesting newby guns, but if shattering bbs are really this big of a problem, then have a one time policy, a couple free mags worth of quality bb's is someone shows up with total crap, and get their name, and let them know next time, they wont be allowed to play without the decent stuff. And hey, either the club, or somewhere in town sells acceptable product at a safe price.

And again, as for mesh googles and cheap balls, I have read quite a bit of debate about mesh goggles in various places, and in some places they are not acceptable. Bannnig BB's because folks chose to play with gear that has lower safety tolerances is a question worth a fair bit of discussion.

I am all for safety, but I am aware of the recruitment issues that can stem from the high buy in costs of hobbies like this. My one time experience is that members of this club are an extremely generous and welcoming group, so I would see something like this fitting right in with the general ethos of the group.

Mesh goggles are usually banned on other fields due to higher FPS penetrating the mesh, which is quite realistic. Outdoors it would be a good idea to look into proper ballistics goggles, but for our indoor games we use such low FPS compared to almost every other playing field it's simply not a concern, and the mesh works.

I'm all for getting people to buy proper eye protection, but standardizing BB's is far easier and cheaper. With a newbie bucket we can let people play and I think it's a great idea, where as donor eyewear is not going to be easy



next time I'm at interior hobbies I'll have a chat with Rob, if he's expressing intrest in being a supplier that would be amazing, we need someone in town to sell good stuff, and we can certainly tell him the kinds of things we want in stock, since most of us have need for fairly standard parts.

well i agree with the setiment but i don't think we should outlaw the green and brown ammo altogether the cantire/Walmart "camo ammo" is .12 and i can shatter them shooting out of my AK, but what about springers and other low velocity weapons?
after the last game i went to where a guy got a spray in the face from an exploding BB i took my guns out back and fired em against a concrete wall and i found that the Walmart .12's only shatter at around 280+FPS at a target 3M away.

shooting kingsarms .2's i could not get them to shatter even with a spring set to 360 FPS at 3M.

so in essence perhaps we should simply say that if your shooting low quality ammo we induce a further speed limit? say 220 FPS?

that's part of what I mentioned in the beginning that low ammo has it's place, but it's not in guns. If you're using a manual springer, then maybe? but those usually shoot sub 200 FPS, but personally I would feel more comfortable if they weren't used in guns at all, but in traps.

Good ammo is extremely easy to get and not expensive, this shouldn't be hard to impliment especially if dave sells his ammo at the games and if we make people aware of the issues. new players aren't normally aware of the issues cheap ammo presents.

I should also mention, in the rental guns .12's are banned, or were last year anyway.

Acorn wrote:

just cuz they're white doesn't mean they're high quality

That's right, it doesn't necessarily make them high quality. But it does mean they would be hard to identify. Don't tell me you want to be the one asking "What brand are your tiny white balls sir?".

I do realize that shattered BB fragments could go through mesh goggles. But I've never had that problem, and if it did happen I'm certain it would be a matter of "blink until it washes out"

That being said, I support the use of high quality BB's for their performance and not damaging hop-ups. But regulating brands would be a waste of time and energy that would alienate new players.

And like Dirtnap mentioned, whats next, only Systemas, only Multicam?

I am 100% against this idea because this solves a non-existant problem and only causes a lot more problems. I accept the risk of wearing mesh every time I put my goggles on, if you don't you should by some revisions. Next is everyone going to have to wear helmets incase we trip in the forest?

To say this is is a not existent problem is a bit short sighted. I've heard mutterings about shattered BBs quite frequently aka almost every cleanup. Personally it's one reason why i no longer use mesh, but not everyone has $100 to blow on goggle that don't fog.

I see this being solved in a couple ways. Regulated ammo as suggested, or more strict eye protection rules. I'm in favor of the regulated BBs, high quality brands are readily available, and don't cost much more, if any more then the cheap stuff. Additionally in regards to new players, who may not understand or know of the risk of shattering BBs, is a concern in that regard. They may just assume the mesh they have on is sufficient.

I'm also in favor of a club BB bucket for noobies.

Injuries caused by clumsiness is generally accepted as uncontrolled and held accountable only to the clumsy person...just sayin' So no we all won't have to wear helmets in case we trip.

As was discussed when Mikhail brought up the club...or should I say not club...legalities it's up the person who hosts to keep up their own rules. They are the ones liable, this site is simply a place to discuss topics relevant to airsoft (as we are doing) and plan games. It is not a place to create rules that everyone must follow as we found this was turning off other clubs that ran safe and enjoyable games.

Our club rules say not in use because each host runs things just a little differently. There are some accepted ideas for what is allowed and not but the game host lets thing go or no go.

We have had the mesh/shattering BBs talk on here a while back and it boiled down to
-yes they stop BBs
-is it better to be fogged and wandering in the forest?
-yes there is a slight chance but no known issues of BB fragments causing damage
-They seem good enough, as with all eye wear it needs to be tested and then it's the users responsibility.

Honestly my real reasoning for not allowing .12s in my guns is mostly because they feed poorly and renters have a bad time. It's the same reason I give mesh goggles, they don't fog and they have a better time.

I personally am against and I remind that there is no club, no votes, no democracy...well not tonnes at least hahaha. If it became an issue with a horrific case somewhere then we would be having a different conversation. I don't think it's really an issues that needs to be dealt with.

If you want to start this then you are more than welcome to host games with this MY BBs ONLY/HIGH QUALITY BBs only.


My real fear for my eyes is in the safe zone with no barrel bags and no garutee that someone cleared their gun. This is something I brought up a while ago but nothing really came of it. In short I had to go with the flow and let people put themselves and me at risk.

Just a few questions about the issue as I see it...
-Have we ever had issues with shattered bb's going through a mask?
-How many times have any of us actually been cut by a shattering bb?
-Is it really worth alienating people that don't have the time/ability to shop for bb's online?
-Is it worth penalizing people that are willing to take the risk of shooting bad bb's through their gun for the sake of making your decision to wear mesh goggles a bit safer?
-How many people are we willing to lose for the sake of banning low quality bb's? ( I know that there will be a decently high number of people that will leave...

Persoanlly, I prefer to use better quality bb's when I can, but I know that I can't always get bb's that are good quality on short notice or even at all sometimes.
Also, I know that there is a risk of a shattering bb going through my mesh goggles, but that is a risk I am willing to take rather than spending tons of money that I don't have on good goggles, because in my mind it is such a miniscule risk. I use my mesh even when I play with my friends and the ONLY ammo being used is cheap walmart/cantire stuff.
....I did have more to say.... But I can't remember it right off.... I will post it when it comes....

Brecno wrote:

Just a few questions about the issue as I see it...
-Have we ever had issues with shattered bb's going through a mask?
-How many times have any of us actually been cut by a shattering bb?
-Is it really worth alienating people that don't have the time/ability to shop for bb's online?
-Is it worth penalizing people that are willing to take the risk of shooting bad bb's through their gun for the sake of making your decision to wear mesh goggles a bit safer?
-How many people are we willing to lose for the sake of banning low quality bb's? ( I know that there will be a decently high number of people that will leave...

Persoanlly, I prefer to use better quality bb's when I can, but I know that I can't always get bb's that are good quality on short notice or even at all sometimes.
Also, I know that there is a risk of a shattering bb going through my mesh goggles, but that is a risk I am willing to take rather than spending tons of money that I don't have on good goggles, because in my mind it is such a miniscule risk. I use my mesh even when I play with my friends and the ONLY ammo being used is cheap walmart/cantire stuff.
....I did have more to say.... But I can't remember it right off.... I will post it when it comes....

1up! Very well said

I guess the only real thing we can do is encourage the use of higher quality BBs, and recommended against mesh to individuals that feel uncomfortable about shattering BBs. As it seems it'd just cause more problems trying to enforce any of the suggested "regulations."

-Have we ever had issues with shattered bb's going through a mask?
No
-How many times have any of us actually been cut by a shattering bb?
NONE and no one that has used my masks
I have take full grenade showers and direct shots from guns shooting crap BBs with no issue.

Brenco brings up a fair point, as far as dirtnap, I would also agree that saying this is a non-existent issue is short sighted.

Horton also brings up an excellent point, and in my opinion this wasn't really an issue before as so few new players were coming into the game all the more experienced players preferred higher quality BB's due to their more expensive guns.

Please keep in mind everyone this is just an idea, and I wanted to see how others felt. Exploding crap BB's going through other's masks is a realistic issue, just not with the way we play due to significantly lower FPS, hence why I still use a mesh mask myself.

That, and the rules depending on the host are also a good point. So as far as I can see, this discussion is over, no?

A great discussion,

Honestly I would rather have a high FPS gun use a BB that will explode on impact than one that will not break as it's energy will be lost in the breaking apart of the BB and not into my mask. Part of the reason we frowned on the silica BBs.

Out of curiosity, what are the liabilities of the host/ organizer. Say someone does get a penetrating injury to the eye, is the host accountable for that? I know the laws in this regard tends to say things like 'were all reasonable precautions taken to prevent injury' and that sort of thing, but the larger ruling bodies, such as the American Airsoft Association do rule against certain kinds of bb's and insist on solid lens. Does accepting lower standards lead to greaeter legal risk?

I don't see any dead horse getting beat here. The guys currently runnnig the events just stepped down, and if we are gonna continue to enjoy airsoft fun every second Friday, there are a lot of questions that need answered beyond "when do yo collect the money and who does one call. Specifically, who is carying the insurance for these events. And are waivers needed?

But thats just me. I like to look into things before getting involved in things

Actually it's been discussed quite in depth here https://pgairsoft.forumotion.com/t1942-club-rules-site-rules-and-legalities

Thanks for the link.

Looking at that thread again the hairs stand up on the back of my neck like a cornered cat. Don't be to offended by the beating a dead horse, it's still an open wound here. Kendo are you coming to the next game?