Airsoft proofing

[Jake117]

Well as you may or may not know I am making the smoothed recon helmet and I want to use it for airsofting. should I add extra layers of fibreglass and resin to ensure it doesn't get too damaged because Ives seen the bb's get lodged in fallen trees

Any and all replies are much appreciated

[Agent Arizona]

My advice is to never use a helmet for paintball or airsoft. It blocks your range of veiw a lot, putting you at a disadvantage. You probably have the worst view in a recon, of all helmets. Its like if you make binoculars with your hands, looking through that hole. Breathing is another issue. CO2 build up in the helmet, even with vents. Iv worn armor for over 4 hours straight. it gets hard to breath after just 10mins of just walking and standing.

A side from that its also dangerous. If it makes it though one layer it will just keep going. Even if it does not, Bondo and rondo will crack and break off. You dont want to have weeks of work to look cool for one round of air soft, not worth it. Heres a video, i didn't make this.



It is best to leave your armor at home when you do these activities.

[Jake117]

If were to make it in a different way would it be possible to make it stronger?

[Smiggly]

I don't think it's a good idea to make armor for airsofting. From everything I've seen, it's not very good protection and one game is going to ruin your armor. If you really want to do war games in your armor, stick to NERF.

[Jake117]

I was thinking or making a mould of the helmet when its done. That way I can just make a plastic version that wont (hopefully) break but will it damage the original? Also Airsoft BBs have a lot less kinetic energy that paint balling because they're so much smaller.

[ventrue]

I was thinking or making a mould of the helmet when its done. That way I can just make a plastic version that wont (hopefully) break

Why would a regular casting resin hold where a fibre-reinforced resin would break? What you want to do here is pump additional money (and lots of it!) into a project that will most likely damage at least some of your stuff.

Also Airsoft BBs have a lot less kinetic energy that paint balling because they're so much smaller.

They also have a smaller impact surface and are less elastic. That negates the smaller amount of kinetic energy at least partly.

[Bishorzidi]

What Agent Arizona said. It's extremely cool, but not worth it. As far as airsoft goes, I've played airsoft with my cousin around my house a few times in Mando helmets, and because the helmets were plastic and the BB's are small and plastic, they don't do any damage. However, any costuming helmet is going to be extremely hot, provide poor visibility (for the most part) and probably break. Airsoft around the house in cheap plastic helmets you don't care about is one thing. Playing an actual game with fiberglass/bondo armor that you spent so much time working on is totally not worth it. The helmets we used were just the Hasbro Boba helmets you get from the store. I would never use my actual helmet for paintball and probably not airsoft. Before playing, we made sure that the helmets could stand up to AEG fire at 5 feet away. It was probably dumb of us, so I wouldn't even recommend this.

Also, there's a huge difference between a plastic BB and a paintball. Sure, paintballs tend to shoot slower, but even with a lower velocity, paintballs have a lot more mass and, if you've been shot by one (which I'm assuming you have), you know they hurt a LOT more than plastic BB's.

In short, costuming armor is not meant for playing like this in. Looks cool, but it's not practical or safe. Just don't do it, please. K?