CO2 now "unsafe?"

[deathstalker]

Originally posted by RT pRo AuToMaG
no n00bs having velocity fluxuations(sp?

That is why I feel unregulated CO2 should not be allowed. To use gtrsi's post as an example, any of those markers whose burst disk didn't blow must have been shooting pretty darn hot.

[Miscue]

That's interesting. HPA was thought of as unsafe when it was introduced. I guess it's reversed in some people's minds.

[RT pRo AuToMaG]

yes, especially down here in Louisiana, during the summer the heat index is around 110, so it can get pretty bad for rec ballers. Also, if you hold the with the barrel pointing down and then shoot it will shoot hot as well.

[GoatBoy]

It seems to me that HPA is much more unsafe than CO2. People in paintball seem to toss around PSI like it's no big deal. 100 PSI if used incorrectly is already enough to mess you up. Other people have mentioned some good points, but I have a question of my own..

CO2 is about 800 PSI at room temp, right? When you start venting, it cools down. When it cools down, your pressure drops a lot. This is one of the things we don't like about CO2 in paintball, right? So in the event of some sort of catastrophe with CO2, if it really vented quickly, it would freeze over, and you wouldn't get the full destructive capacity of the tank. Not that it wouldn't still be bad, but wouldn't the effects be somewhat mitigated by the freezing?

HPA on the other hand... Again, the whole reason we use HPA is temperature stability. So in the event of catastrophe, I would think you would get much more energy released from an HPA tank of the same "energy capacity".



In the end, though, it is somewhat more of a societal issue than it is a technical one.

[Beemer]

Originally posted by deathstalker

So what you're saying is it's safe. The tanks are designed to vent gas above a certain pressure (like HPA). Because the burst disks blew, the tanks are just fine and the built-in safety precautions did what they're supposed to do.

It's YOUR responsibility as much as it is everyone else's to make sure a day of paintball is safe for everyone.

Tell that to the Lady that got killed. Its not fool proof after a fool has messed with it.

Try and spread the safe attitude. Its tuff to spread when you see and hear nobody cares. I for one will never quit trying to spread it.

This entire industry needs a safety overhaul. Part of the problem is we've got younger ones who've just entered the sport, and they aren't getting the necessary training. The other sports I've taken part in (SCUBA, sky diving, shooting, etc) are much more serious about it. Maybe we need some kind of training program (much like the Hunter's Safety Course)

I agree big time. No education or training=safty Hazard
They dont just hand you a FOID card. Might as well just give these kids the car keys before they get their license.

CO2 is safe if set up properly and not tampered with, and very soon every one will forget about the lady being killed and things will go back to normal.

I dont think so. Can you say C.P.S.C. Paintball Markers are considered toys and fall under their review. What will happen when they review some of these markers and find out they arent following ASTM standards?

It's not that the cylinders and gasses are unsafe, it's the users who make it unsafe. Overfilling and not keeping hydros up to date are the problems.

I agree and these arent the only problems. The safty issue list is a long one

[Joni]

I think HPA tanks are safer against user error. Easier to fill, less risk of screwing the valve away from the bottle etc.

[ghideon]

The other thing I also wonder about....

HPA is relatively new to this sport. What happens in five or ten years down the line, when kids have tanks that hydros five or ten years out of date? Yesterday was the first time I've had my hydro date checked (in almost 2 years of using HPA).

[bryceeden]

I agree with some of what has been said, but as a pro shop owner I KNOW that I couldn't get rid of CO2 or I would kill the future of the sport. If a noob comes in and buys a Spyder Victor 2 for $70 they definatly arn't going to spend $65 on an HPA tank. HPA tanks can't get much cheaper because of the cost of production, so there is a stand still. On the most part CO2 is safe, as a shop owner if a tank looks tampered with I won't fill it, but it isn't possable or even reasonable to get rid of CO2.

[Meph]

I see some people talking about pressure as if that's what makes it dangerous. Not really. Take the HPA v CO2 tank example when the valve comes off, and what would happen. You would think "logically" that since HPA has a 4500 fill that it would do even worse damage than the but only 600-800psi filled CO2 tank.

But that's wrong. Since it's liquid CO2 in there, that is what makes it more dangerous. Not the pressure of it all. Because an HPA tank it'll disperse quite quickly. Unlike the CO2 tank where the liquid has to expand into a gas, and that is what turns the tank into a rocket.

What we have here in this industry is people, anybody, able and willing to enter at any moments notice without any safety lessons. And there inlies the problem.

Everybody keeps preaching about getting paintball on TV, to get MORE people into this game so we "can become mainstream" yeah l33t r0x0rz! Only I've been saying for years the downside of this is that with more people come more uneducated about the dangers.... more accidents... and suddenly we won't be looking quite as squeeky clean safe to a lot of people.

There are no requirements to opening a field or operating a fill station here. Anybody can go on eBay or a catalogue, buy the necessary equipment, and suddenly fill tanks all day. And they won't know that they're overfilling tanks, or didn't know to inform their customers about any dangers, and sure as heck didn't know about the "twist test" with tanks. As I'm sure probably most people here don't even know that.

And OSHA doesn't do anything either, they're a little bit busy and don't investigate or do anything UNTIL an accident happens. But yeah, once that accident does happen they'll pile in and do their job. Only I feel too little too late.

So the core problem isn't CO2. It isn't the tank's design. And it isn't necessarily even the customer. It's the entire industry itself. Selling equipment at Wal Mart while the employees there know nothing about it, only care about making the sale. Or a proshop that opened and they don't even have training or information to talk about the safety and dangers.

When I mentioned it probably 2 years ago about registration to play paintball, like hunting, people got pissed at me for even thinking that could happen. Heh... seems like it's getting closer and closer for that to be almost mandatory if the natural progression of things follow this current path. And I think it sucks.

[Branchvillian]

Why don't they just start reverse threading the tank? I mean, you would still be at risk of turning the tank too far in, thus removing the tank from the gun...but I think you would be more aware of that than you would be if unscrewing it. Sometimes you just wouldn't notice.

[GT]

there is a simple solution to this problem,

require all ASA's to degass the line prior to tank removal. Logamas just got this sweet on.off for his shocker that degasses the line once you unscrew the on/off. Make this a requirment for any tank that uses a screw in asa.

But that's wrong. Since it's liquid CO2 in there, that is what makes it more dangerous.

true,
I would go as far to say that it is a triphase materail at that temp and pressure, solid liquid and gas.

I will tell you what really scares me is watching guys trying to unscrew 850psi tank out of an ASA with out some kind of air relief.

[Quickling]

I do feel a little uncomfortable when I see people shooting CO2 these days but for different reasons. People that use co2, for the most part, fail to realize that it fluxuates velocity.

I played a tourney yesterday and the team ahead of me had a member that chronoed at 276 and walked on the field. I yelled for them to lower it since field limit it 260. A ref came over (none were prechecking) and watched her shoot over the chrono. That 276 turned into 319, 323, and 330. Those are WAY over industry limits. But she had just had her tank filled and the gs had not expanded/warmed yet so she a lower initial crono then a few minutes later after she held the tank as a vertical grip it warmed up and produced unsafe velocities. I would like to see more HPA for that reason... but the above example can be countered with more ref and user training/information.

[trains are bad]

Quickling-that's what regulators are for. I run Co2 and haven't touched my velocity in 6 months, and get +-5 all day long.

Unregulated Co2 shouldn't even be legal. Try running unregulated HPA and see what happens-

[Wes Janson]

My local Books A Million has the paintball magazines in the same section as the airguns (below the hunting section). On a whim, I opened up last month's airgun magazine, and flipped through. There was a detailed article on a HPA company that produced carbon-fiber tanks for airguns, paintball, and various industrial uses. They showed a 68/45 tank on one of the pages, after having undergone a failure test. The article began with the building suspense of the author waiting for it to fail..waiting...waiting...until finally it let go with a small pop, the fibers feathering and letting go. The tank had survived up past 19,000 PSI before exploding. OVER 4x the normal load placed upon it. And out of every batch of a hundred tanks or so, they take one and test it in that manner to make sure it's safe (the manufacturing process is completely computer controlled, so there isn't much variation between batches I presume). If you get a chance, check for that magazine and read the article, because it will definitely increase your confidence in HPA.

[Lohman446]

Originally posted by Wes Janson
They showed a 68/45 tank on one of the pages, after having undergone a failure test. The article began with the building suspense of the author waiting for it to fail..waiting...waiting...until finally it let go with a small pop, the fibers feathering and letting go.

And that right there is the reason I have carbon fiber tanks, and was the reason I bought them, what about a steel tank?