Airsoft Action - December 2023

KIT & GEAR
EDGE TACTICAL EYEWEAR
VISION-ARY!
EYE PROTECTION (EYEPRO OR SHOOTING GLASSES TO YOU AND I) IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT
ASPECTS OF SAFETY NO MATTER WHAT YOU SHOOT, AND BILL HAS BEEN TESTING THREE MODELS
FROM EDGE EYEWEAR FOR A WHILE NOW, A COMPANY THAT PROVIDES “EYEPRO” OFFERING THE
HIGHEST LEVELS OF PERFORMANCE AND PROTECTION!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it time and again,
cheap eye protection is a false economy in virtually
every respect I can think of. Luckily these days we
have a wealth of manufacturers to choose from when
it comes to protecting those all-important “Eyes and
Ears”, and testing for such products is amongst the
most stringent out there.
Over the years this has continued to be something
that’s massively important to me, and it should be to
you as well. Each and every manufacturer makes the
claim that “their eyepro” is the best on the market,
offering huge levels of protection, won’t fog, and
will be comfortable to wear all day long, but in reality
anyone that has worn eyepro will know that it’s a bit
of a crapshoot as we all have different shaped heads
and faces and different metabolisms, and what fits
well and performs flawlessly for one person doesn’t
work at all for another!
One thing we can investigate closely though is the
ratings that govern safety levels for our eyepro, and
a while back I got into this in some detail with our
old
mate “Posh”; and we
concluded that
it’s a minefield
when you look
at ratings;
now I
have
used this text before, but it’s still to me one of the
clearest explanations I’ve yet come across, so I’ll use it
again unashamedly, especially as I’m looking at EDGE,
a manufacturer that conforms to ANSI Z87 testing!
The ANSI rating system is similar to our EN 166 ratings
system, but with a few extra tests. First up they drop
a 1” diameter steel ball from 50” onto the eyepro. To
pass this test the lenses AND frames must stay in one
piece. If so, it gets an ANSI Z87 rating.
To qualify for the better ANSI Z87+ rating the
testing continues. Test 2 is the High Mass Test. They
drop a 500g POINTED weight from 50” onto a
mounted head form. To pass this lens-retention test,
no pieces from the frames or lenses may break free or
fracture. The high-mass test is a good indicator of a
product’s strength and is meant to simulate an impact
like a slipping tool that falls onto a worker’s face or
a lens collision with a stationary object. Ok, sounds
good, what’s the last test?
Test 3 is the high velocity test; the same as our EN
test a 1/4” steel ball is fired at TWENTY locations on
the eyepro at 103mph.... speedy right? Not really it’s
46 m/s or 151 fps, same as the EN ones! The pass/
fail criteria for the high-velocity test is the same as
the high mass test with the added
criterion that the
“eye” on
the head form
can’t encounter the
lens in any way when it’s
struck. This test is meant
to simulate particles that
workers could be exposed
36
DECEMBER 2023