Pyro device decibel limit

[Jewish Ninja]

Something that loud can cause permanent hearing damage to those without ear protection. That's also about 40dB above what the ThunderBs produce. IIRC, BSG was using the ALS trainers which produce only 130dB (only lol).

I personally wouldn't allow something that loud at an event that I hosted from a safety standpoint.

[Jester316]

Something that loud can cause permanent hearing damage to those without ear protection. That's also about 40dB above what the ThunderBs produce. IIRC, BSG was using the ALS trainers which produce only 130dB (only lol).

I personally wouldn't allow something that loud at an event that I hosted from a safety standpoint.

I threw an ALS banger at cqc7 and was told it was the only really effective DD used on the poker game. I think as long a host knows about it so they can brief the actors than it's a non-issue.

[Ash]

I would ask Matt or wait until he posts, because his "CQC" series is the standard that most people around here go off of for rules.

[DJ]

http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html
Take a look at this series of charts. From it you can see that the decibel levels that you are talking about are a bad idea. I have used the real things in field conditions and I would be pretty angry at someone who exposed me to that level of noise without due cause. I have hearing damage from repeated exposure to noise over the years. When you are young and "bullet proof" the risks posed by this kind of exposure are ignored or minimized. I wished that I had listened ( no pun intended) back when I did not have tinnitus. The crickets never stop chirping.

[ogrejager]

When you are young and "bullet proof" the risks posed by this kind of exposure are ignored or minimized. I wished that I had listened ( no pun intended) back when I did not have tinnitus. The crickets never stop chirping.

+1

I just got off the phone spending 300 bucks on hearing protection for this year's duck season. The 150 dB of a shotgun rings you quite well. I'm tired of it.

[Steve]

Can't be stuffed to find the actual OSHA link. http://www.westone.com/defendear/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=111

Basically, anything loud enough to actually work probably causes hearing damage. The ALS bangs were slightly louder than Thunder-Bs are now, but not by much.

[Jester316]

The government decided that the fuses for the ALS were Destructive Devices and each one now requires the $200 stamp...

Or so I had heard. I may be way off...

[AirsoftoutletNW]

'Only 20db louder' is not just a little louder. It's a lot louder.

And while I'd be ok with it if we were all wearing sordins, I don't want to get permanent hearing damage from a game.

[Steve]

The ALS bangs were advertised at 120 dB to 130 dB, but ALS claimed 120 dB as close to average. Their rep also strongly recommended ear pro for anyone in the area.

OSHA says 120 dB is the instantaneous exposure threshold for hearing loss. pretty sure there is a +/- factor there. Thunder B's are supposedly in the 110 dB range, but with variances in manufacturing of the shells, and higher / lower expansion rates, your mileage may vary. I've noticed significant differences in observed noise with the Thunder B's from toss to toss (thrown from same spot, into same spot as part of a set-piece training in which 84 Thunder B's were thrown over the course of a day). In close spaces, even a Thunder B will ring somebody's bell.

Also, there are some potential training concerns with using pyro-based DDs. It might not be a bad idea to find out if there is a spark / flash issue with the blanks you are using. The military has wonky rules for training with blanks (some are based around the entirely real risk of slamming cleaning rods into things, while others are based on a perceived / potential / real risk of catching somebody on fire with the muzzle flash). And if you add non-dairy creamer to the powder load, it'll boost the flash, which is the more effective part of a NFDD, but that means increasing the amount of burning stuff (and residue to scrape off the device).

Personally, I'd look pretty hard at what I was going to be doing with them and see what other options are out there. Also, I'm pretty sure the ALS bangs are still available, there's just extra hoops to jump through. And, they are about $15 a toss for fuses.

[Matt]

In the past we required all distraction devices be under 140db, and recommended (not required) our actors wear ear protection and provided it to them. Most of them chose not to use it. Obviously even a shotgun blast is louder, plenty of people who shoot shotguns don't wear ear protection. It's really the individual's preference. I really don't condone using any type of loud DD at an event unless the players, staff and/or actors have been warned. I wouldn't bring them to a skirmish and randomly throw one in a bunker at somebody who is not prepared for it.

[ogrejager]

Obviously even a shotgun blast is louder, plenty of people who shoot shotguns don't wear ear protection.

...and most of us have hearing damage, too.

[DJ]

Obviously even a shotgun blast is louder, plenty of people who shoot shotguns don't wear ear protection.

...and most of us have hearing damage, too.

+1 its accumulative, so start protecting your ears (and eyes) now.

[ogrejager]

its accumulative

I'm just glad I figured it out in my 40's rather than in my 60's like my father. I bought Sordins this week, and they're not for the airsoft fashion show.

[John_234]

110 to 130 decibels is not simply a 20% increase in sound. 10 decibels is, in layman's words 10 times louder.

Said pyro is supposedly "only" 130 decibels. 140 decibels is a jet engine from 300 feet away. At 100 feet, it's 150 decibels. A .30-06 being fired three feet away would be 170 decibels (instantaneous.) Just think about the differences between each example. So a 130 Db banger is a hundred times louder than a 110 Db banger, hypothetically.

Basically, a 130 Db pyro is much, much louder than a 120 Db or 110 Db. Those ALS grenades are meant to be used with ear protection (which something door-kickers should have in the first place, IMHO.)

130 Db is the threshold for instant damage. 140 is where people would probably cringe in pain. I don't think that is very fair to your actors and airsoft players unless you mandate hearing protection - and trust me, even when I wear my Surefire Defenders during CQB games, thunder Bs and the like are still very very loud. Bangers often require stacking earplugs with earmuffs. I should actually be using more than just these earplugs, as a lot of a banger will still get in through the skull conducting sound.

Though, statistics aside the most important factor is probably proximity to the NFDDs being used ("even" a Tornado DD will damage your ears at point blank), how well the environment deflects the sound back at the participants and proper training in their use - they have a lot of differences from common grenades like the, Tornado, Thunder B, Enola Gaye, Tsflx, etc. IIRC, the M84-type flashbang has a fuse of about two seconds. I imagine training NFDDs would be very similar.

Bottom line, if you're using these with other teams in force on force, you need to come to an agreement about everyone having some level of ear pro. Same with actors. And I would never use these at a walk-on event.

EDIT: "These" in the context of training NFDDs and such things. I don't really mind the Thunder B and such.

[pulsipher]

Personally, I'd look pretty hard at what I was going to be doing with them and see what other options are out there.

These are going to be used at events with prior approval of event hosts, not at random skirms and such.

We're looking at these over ThunderBs because they have better reliability, not the serious hit and miss that ThunderBs have.

Looking at that OSHA outline, we'd run them closer to the ThunderB level, about 110 Dbs.

Welshy, you can make the thunder B''s SUPER reliable. SOTA uses them for their DD at the big events.

If you can get the mod done, Id love to meet 9th Groups Thunder B needs