Airsoft Safety

When it comes to protecting your eyes, you do not want to take any risks. Always wear eye protection when handling Airsoft equipment. Make sure everyone around you is also protected.

Full Seal Goggles
A "full seal" means that there is no gap between the goggle's frame and your face. The seal is usually made out of soft rubber or a dense foam. This prevents BBs or debris from getting around the lens from any angle. Most Airsoft fields require these at a minimum to be able to play. If they are not required at a field, you should still use them!
These goggles only protect your eyes and surrounding areas, so you should consider additional face protection for the exposed areas.


Full Face Goggles
Some fields require that your goggles completely cover your face, especially for players under 18 years old. Paintball goggles should be used in this case. Their design is generally full seal goggles set into hard plastic and rubber shell. In most cases, the goggle portion can be removed and worn separately if desired. Because paintballs are much heavier than BB's, the lenses are rated to handle plenty of impact.


Shooting Glasses
Shooting glasses are designed to deflect stray debris and fragmentation, not to protect you from BBs! The lenses of most shooting glasses are strong enough to deflect an Airsoft projectile, but they still do not offer a good degree of coverage. They also have a good chance of falling off from fast movement. A BB coming from an angle could easily ricochet off the inside of a lens, and back into someone's eye. For this reason, it is never safe to use shooting glasses for skirmish play. If you are target shooting or plinking, they are more adequate to handle ricochets.


Prescription Lenses
If you use corrective lenses, contacts are not your only option when using eye protection! There are goggles and shooting glasses specially designed to take Rx inserts or prescription lenses. We are working with Wiley-X to provide custom lens service, because their entire product line is ballistic rated.


Lens Durability
Always check for official protection ratings when buying eye protection! All eye protection we carry is ANSI certified at a minimum. We do in-house testing to ensure that even the most economical safety options offer full protection. We also carry items that are U.S. military ballistics rated, which are used by police and military personnel.

These are two of the most common eye protection standards:
ANSI Z87 - Occupational personal eye protection. This is adequate for almost any Airsoft application.
(ANSI stands for American National Standard Institute)

MIL-PRF-31013 - U.S. Military specifications for ballistics/impact. These are designed to handle the most intense conditional, and will offer protection above and beyond the needs of airsoft players.

 

AIR ARMORY DOES NOT RECOMMEND THE USE OF MESH GOGGLES.

Instead of a traditional lens, this type of goggles has a wire grid with small gaps. Many players are interested in this option because the mesh has no chance of fogging. Unfortunately they are potentially unsafe because BB's tend to shatter on impact with hard objects. The resulting fragments could potentially fit through the spaces between the wires, and into your eyes. For this reason, if you do decide to use mesh goggles, it is best to wear shooting goggles underneith.

We plan to do some in-house testing on some of the available mesh goggles to verify their performance. Do not buy the cheap or generic ones under any circumstances. There is no assurance they can withstand the velocities of high-end Airsoft weapons!

Having your vision impaired in the middle of a skirmish can be very dangerous. Fogging occurs when the outside of your lens is a different temperature than the inside, causing condensation to occur. Steaming can happen from the evaporation of sweat or the condensation from your breath coming up into your goggles during an intense game. Goggles with good ventilation will minimize these problems, especially if you keep moving to increase airflow.

If you encounter severe fog or steam problems during a game, DO NOT remove your goggles to wipe them unless you are in a designated safe zone. Even in a safe zone, make sure to be aware of your surroundings, and try to get assistance from another player. If there are no teammates around to help you, simply call yourself out so you can take care of the problem. Once you are safe to remove your goggles, wipe the inside dry with a microfiber or other anti-scratch cloth. Do not use tissue or anything else that will flake apart and stick to the lens. Also avoid using any sort of cleaning solution that will affect the coating on the lens.

Here are some options to prevent fog and steam issues:

Thermal Lenses
The lens of a thermal goggle is made with two lens panes. The air trapped between the two lenses prevents a drastic temperature difference between the outer and inner lenses, which in turn prevents condensation. The inner lens on thermal goggles tends to be much softer than the outer lens, so be sure to clean them with care to avoid scratches. Steam issues are still possible on a thermal lens, but it is generally less of a problem.

Goggle Fans
A goggle fan attaches to the frame of your goggle and has a wire that runs along the headband to an external battery and switch. While they are a bit cumbersome, they offer excellent air flow even while staying still. Make sure to check that your pair of goggles has a frame that supports a fan before buying one. Our goggle listings will contain connection instructions if the item is compatible.

Anti-Fog Solution
Anti-fog coating is very hit or miss. Many lenses come with a coating that prevents fog, but that will never prevent it entirely. The eye protection built to Military standards generally have less fogging issues out of the box. There are after-market products such as "Cat Crap" that can be applied to the inside of a lens as needed to help prevent fogging. A search around forums will reveal some household products that may work, including toothpaste, shaving cream, or plain old spit!

Note that your results will vary with any anti-fog solution, home-made or store bought. It is possible they will damage your lens, especially the cheaper ones. Any existing fog protection, anti-scratch coating, or the reflective properties could be affected,

Airsoft offers a great opportunity to exercise gun safety practices, because they handled like a real firearms. This section will focus on general handling of an Airsoft weapon outside of a skirmish/simulation environment. Be sure to read the sections on Safe Target Shooting and Safe Gameplay & Field Practices depending on the activities you are participating in.

Gun safety is mostly common sense, yet there are disturbing amount of accidental injuries and deaths every year caused by neglecting a few simple rules. Injuries from Airsoft equipment would never be as severe as a real firearm, but they are still dangerous and require full attention by both the shooter and spectators. They are all equally important!

• Never leave a weapon where an unsupervised child can access it
• Always treat a weapon as if it is loaded
  (A weapon with no magazine/clip is still capable of firing)
• Never point the barrel/muzzle of a weapon at a person or animal
• Never look down the barrel/muzzle of a weapon
• Always keep weapons pointed in a safe direction
• When shooting, leave your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire
• Always unload/clear your weapons when they are not in use
  (This may require you to fire the weapon after the magazine is removed)
• Always enable the safety when finished shooting
• Always store equipment properly after use
  (See Storing Airsoft Equipment section below for more information)