[robdavy]

Or just an[other] inquiry from a customer, so he thought to set their position straight?

[7paintball]

Originally Posted by sirX

I would like to know what caused this to happen. I find it very unlikely that Larry and his people suddenly found out about FS rounds and immediately sent out the letter when they heard about them. It would make sense if an incident happened involving the FS and they suddenly "banned" them.

Well you would be wrong. The question came up, they found out it wasn't covered and then no FS rounds.

I know Blastcamp said their insurance covers FS so looks like it's not just all places.

[KEFarris]

This problem will be resolved decisively this year. Either first strike will be deemed dangerous and not allowed by any insurance or all insurances will find a way to allow it. Next winter, fields will shop for insurance that allows it.

[Gio24Dude]

To allow First Strikes at your field, PM me and I can direct you to the correct insurance company. No reason to turn around customers, as they will just go look for a home to play at and eventually they will.

[going_home]

Originally Posted by martix_agent

I left one in my bath tub for over a year just to see what would happen. Nothing changed about it.

What kind of lawn chair was it ?

[7paintball]

Originally Posted by Gio24Dude

To allow First Strikes at your field, PM me and I can direct you to the correct insurance company. No reason to turn around customers, as they will just go look for a home to play at and eventually they will.

It's not about being the "correct" place. It's about getting the round to be allowed everywhere.

[GatSplat]

Originally Posted by Gio24Dude

To allow First Strikes at your field, PM me and I can direct you to the correct insurance company. No reason to turn around customers, as they will just go look for a home to play at and eventually they will.

But then the people who don't want to get shot by people using those rounds will look for a new home... so then the question is... are there more people using them... or more people not using them? If that is that case and you have a field, it appears it would make more sense to not allow them. right?

[Gio24Dude]

Originally Posted by 7paintball

It's not about being the "correct" place. It's about getting the round to be allowed everywhere.

Of course, and that is always the end goal.

Originally Posted by GatSplat

But then the people who don't want to get shot by people using those rounds will look for a new home... so then the question is... are there more people using them... or more people not using them? If that is that case and you have a field, it appears it would make more sense to not allow them. right?

That's a choice a field makes.

There's plenty of fields out there that do want to allow First Strikes, and some fields choose to do this during scenario games, or magfed games only.

[AoSpades]

Originally Posted by GatSplat

But then the people who don't want to get shot by people using those rounds will look for a new home... so then the question is... are there more people using them... or more people not using them? If that is that case and you have a field, it appears it would make more sense to not allow them. right?

I'm a bit confused as to why you are weighing into this First Strike conversation. You are a field paint only, exclusively indoor field that caters to ~99% rentals, parties and a very small clique of speedballers. I wouldn't think you'd have any first, second, or even very much third hand experience with these rounds...

[Quacker]

Originally Posted by AoSpades

I'm a bit confused as to why you are weighing into this First Strike conversation. You are a field paint only, exclusively indoor field that caters to ~99% rentals, parties and a very small clique of speedballers. I wouldn't think you'd have any first, second, or even very much third hand experience with these rounds...

Why are you weighing in, do you own a field? He has market share - do you have market share? His opinion matters.

[AoSpades]

Originally Posted by Quacker

Why are you weighing in, do you own a field? He has market share - do you have market share? His opinion matters.

It's cute that I ruffled your feathers enough for you to stalk me.

I've played at that field quite a few times, I never said his opinion didn't matter, I'm curious as to why he is weighing in when he has pretty much zero contact with Fisrst Strike on a personal and business level.

[GatSplat]

Originally Posted by AoSpades

I'm a bit confused as to why you are weighing into this First Strike conversation. You are a field paint only, exclusively indoor field that caters to ~99% rentals, parties and a very small clique of speedballers. I wouldn't think you'd have any first, second, or even very much third hand experience with these rounds...

You are 100% correct... other than I did not weigh in on the rounds, I weighed in on the business philosophy that was used to promote them. I was giving a business comment to the philosophy that a field should allow a particular thing because if you don't you will turn away that person. And as this is a forum where starting, or hopefully starting field owners turn for advice, I was just pointing out another take on the comment that Gio24dude made.

A field cannot always do something just because if you don't, you might turn someone away. If you don't allow profanity, you might turn someone away. If you don't allow bunkering, you might turn someone away. If you don't allow byop you might turn someone away. When airlines or restaurants went no-smoking, it turned some people away.

So if the maker of the product is promoting the reason to find different insurance and allow the product on your field is because you might turn someone away, I felt it was only fair to point out to prospective or new field owners that you should also consider the use of them may turn others away. Will the people who don't want to spend the money to get them feel that it's unfair that others can shoot them at such a distance that they have no chance to shoot back, and because of that... you will turn someone away?

It was a comment on the business philosophy of the post - not the actual product itself. And my business comment is much like the round itself - one can choose to use it, or not.

[AoSpades]

Fair point. I can certainly see it going either way with people staying at the field or going depending on whether that field keeps FS or not. In my honest opinion though, I don't think it would hugely impact the weekend warrior fields, but I can definitely see people getting their jimmies ruffled if they can't use them at huge events like Living Legends, Oklahoma DDay, Market Gardens and the like.

[Horizon]

I think allowing First Strike rounds in games of mixed renter and gear owners would be a very unwise business decision. It's bas enough that gear owners probably have better equipment and more experience. Providing them more accuracy and range than the renters would of course make it that much more unfair and would leave an even more bitter taste in renters' mouths should they be eliminated by someone shooting First Strike.

[AoSpades]

Originally Posted by Horizon

I think allowing First Strike rounds in games of mixed renter and gear owners would be a very unwise business decision. It's bas enough that gear owners probably have better equipment and more experience. Providing them more accuracy and range than the renters would of course make it that much more unfair and would leave an even more bitter taste in renters' mouths should they be eliminated by someone shooting First Strike.

I can see that being a problem, sure. But most of the fields i have been to seperate beginners from intermediates, walk-ons from renters, pros from joes, etc. It is very rare that I ever see renters going toe to toe with gear owners unless it is a party event where one or more have brought their own gear and even then they are almost always split up evenly to keep the advantage as neutral as possible. The same can be said for first strike users. Even if it is just one first strike user I can absolutely see refs splitting up teams accordingly to try and even out that advantage.

[woda]

[Horizon]

Woda, did you have any luck yet finding an insurance company that specifically allows First Strike?

[Pump Scout]

I'd gotten an email from NSERA that said they're allowing FSR's at this time... but that's mostly because their underwriters haven't said anything about them either good or bad. That's current as of about a week ago, and they had feelers out to get clarification on the issue.

For what that's worth.

[woda]

I've been out of the office for a few days due to a death in the family.

I am going to get in contact with Gio today, he indicated he knows of a company that will insure FSRs.

[raehl]

Originally Posted by Horizon

Woda, did you have any luck yet finding an insurance company that specifically allows First Strike?

Note that "allow" is not the same thing as "cover".

Someone could say, "We're not going to yank your policy if you allow people to shoot first strike, but if someone is injured by a first strike round you're on your own."

I don't know that an UNDERWRITER would take that position if asked directly, because they're still opened up to having to deal with the injury and possibly fight you in court that they don't need to cover the loss, but a broker might take that position...

- Chris

[Gio24Dude]

Update from a third party independent study.

3 August 2015

Presentation On Shaped Projectile Testing for ASTM Consideration.
Link to PDF at the bottom of this announcement. Please read this message in it’s entirety before downloading.

As we promised in June, we are releasing the presentation we developed for input to the ASTM subcommittee that is considering the question of modifying the definition of a paintball in ASTM Standard F1979-10 to include the addition of non-spherical shaped projectiles.

Our findings and recommendations contained in this document are only intended for the actionable use of ASTM members.
This presentation is offered freely to the paintball community only for information purposes, to satisfy the curiosity of the community and to aid any other researchers who may be interested in repeating, validating or extending this work.
If you reference / forward or cross-post this document please attribute the original authors and source link for the document.

You assume full responsibility for your actions if you decide to use this information to make any decisions regarding the use of any paintball or paint projectiles in any way. We are not accountable for your actions.

This testing was designed to answer a fundamental question: When comparing paint types of similar mass and velocity, does a First Strike paint projectile impact the target with a similar or different force when compared to spherical paint?

We believe that this is the foundational question on which the remaining ASTM standard paintball testing can be subsequently layered on top of. Why?

1. There has been many many claims in social media and elsewhere that FSR hit with more force than round paint-balls. Until now, with the release of this test data, there has been no publicly released empirical data to prove or disprove this claim. In order to move the decision making process froward this question must be put to bed once-and-for-all.

2. The force imparted by the impact of the projectile drives the outcome of all other currently defined impact type ASTM test. Since the caliber, maximum allowable mass, and leading edge shape (hemispherical) of the FSR and common round-balls are the same we propose that establishing a clear comparison and understanding of impact force is the key first step. If the recorded forces are found to be notably different then we would have to re-evaluate any next steps. If the impact forces are found to be the same then we propose it is a natural next step to include non-spherical projectiles in the definition thus opening up the ability for manufacturers to legitimately conduct the remaining suite of ASTM tests. (those tests are not applicable today because of the definition only including spherical paint)

Some things to keep in mind.

1. Paintball is an extreme sport. There are many risks to your health that you assume as a player when you pickup a loaded marker and step out onto the field. The accountability for the decision to play is solely yours and yours alone. Wear the right approved safety gear, educate yourself on proper gun operations and be safe.

2. We specifically do not address the question of pain. Pain is a very subjective thing that can and does vary for each and every person and from situation to situation. Only you can decide what is an acceptable maximum level of pain. There is no off-the-shelf pain meter that anyone can go buy to conduct an empirical test. Please do not ask us about pain. It is like asking about porn, it cannot be described or measured but you know it when you experience it.

3. We do not address safety. That question is possibly answered by the test and evaluation of products by vendors against a number of other standard tests that have been developed over time. Please do not ask us if anything is safe or not.

4. This test protocol is only one way of testing for impact force.

• We used commercially available and laboratory calibrated (traceable to NIST standard) piezoelectric impact force load cells interfaced to a data acquisition module with a sample rate of 51.2 kilohertz (51.2 thousand samples per second). This provides sub 10,000th of a second measurements so we can measure / record the impact forces over time and with fine resolution.

• The use of .5 inch thick ballistic gel was determined to be an approximate substitute for human flesh. In reality there is no perfect substitute. Human flesh/muscle is vascular. It has arteries, veins, capillaries etc. that possess and impart internal pressure to the flesh that is not able to be reproduced in an off-the-shelf product. We used .5 inch this gel based on our observation of common areas of the human body that receive paintball impacts, best, arms, back, thigh and so forth.

• Given that the FBI and other forensic scientists use this formulation for projectile penetration studies and is accepted to be an approximation of the resistance offered by flesh to a bullet, we felt it was a suitable product to aid in simulating non-penetrating blunt force impacts as well. It receives a hit, flexes with the hit and rebounds to its pre-impact state. It may deform, tear, crater and split a well. So, like flesh it can be transformed. We reiterate, it is an approximate substitute.

• Why not ballistic clay? We are not trying to capture the shape of permanent wound cavities. We needed a substance that approximates the behavior of human skin over muscle (deform and rebound) and would permit for the transferal of impact forces to the sensors in a reliable, consistent and repeatable manner.

• The distance we set the target from the muzzle (55 inches) was selected in order to minimize to the greatest degree possible, any change in velocity from what was read at the chronograph as a result of distance. We were testing for worst case, maximum velocity, maximum impact force readings.

• There is a difference between the theoretical force calculation and actual force measured. A round paintball and a shaped First Strike projectile will deform on impact. The way they deform has an effect on the actual force being transferred into a target. It is a well known observation that round paint-balls that are not brittle and bounce can hurt a lot more than good quality paint-balls that break much easier.

⁃ Actual impact force measurements differ from the theoretical because each round gelatin projectile, even those from the same box, will deform (squish, expand, fracture, break, rupture) in different ways due to the nature of gelatin and it’s sensitivity to shell thickness, humidity, temperature, amount of fill, fill formulation and its effect on the gelatin and so forth.

⁃ Straightforward impact force math cannot account for all of those dynamic variables so direct measurement is the best path forward.

⁃ It is logical to conclude that First Strike rounds will also have some variability in their ability to fracture but since the FSR shell is manufactured polystyrene and it is not susceptible to changes due to humidity, fill liquid, normal heat variations and so forth we believe that FSR fragmentation variability is much less dynamic and pronounced than with gelatin shell paint-balls.

⁃ We have not conducted formal frangibility tests yet. Please do not ask if we have. It is possible we will do so in the near future.
Your opinion on our approach may differ on some, more or all of these items. If so, we'd like to hear your rational, thoughtful feedback and we encourage you to setup and conduct your own testing and publish your own findings.

5. We are extremely happy to collaborate on any legitimate peer review of this work or extension to this work. We do not profess to have all the answers. We are sharing what we did and what we think we learned. This is a learning endeavor for all of us and we want to continue helping to be part of a process to improve our collective body of knowledge and the sport and industry of paintball.

Please send any relevant questions you may have to: questions@shapedprojectiletesting.com . We will answer them as we can make time.

Please send all flames and other hateful vibes.

ASTM Presentation document can be found at this link:
http://www.shapedprojectiletesting.c...TM_Final-2.pdf

MAG FED MONTHLY has done an article on this work as well: http://joom.ag/n1zp

Thank you all for your support and patience,
David Cady
Carmatech D Williams (David Williams)
Lou Arthur