What's a quality brand gas mask to buy? WWIII might be just around the corner and I want to protect myself and my family from chemical attacks.
Gas Masks
What's a quality brand gas mask to buy? WWIII might be just around the corner and I want to protect myself and my family from chemical attacks.
surplus is good, but you might stuggle to find filters, new production stuff is pretty sketchy from what i gather unless you want to be spending a couple hundred dollars per mask, personally i have a finnish M61 from around the 80s and it works really well
military surplus stores? Why shouldn't I buy something new? Hasn't technology improved over the decades?
not really, as long as the filters are good and the mask makes an airtight seal the tech has improved very little, idk what the situation with surplus stores is like in your country but i prefer ebay
The masks themselves are fine, the new things you should buy are filters for them. In particular, some older mask filters were made with asbestos, making them unsafe for long term use. Mostly in Eastern Bloc countries, but the M17's filters are also unsafe as they utilize chromium. I've heard varying stories on the safety of such filters, such as that the amount of materials present in them are too small to cause harm unless the filter is damaged, but on principle it's probably best to avoid using something that can only take old, out of production filters that may or may not contain carcinogens. Pretty much anything that takes a 40mm external filter should be safe and have applicable filters made today.
What gas will you be protected from? If chemical weapons get busted out it will all be nerve gas so a mask wont do shit
What protects against nerve gas? Do gas masks protect against sarin gas?
>What protects against nerve gas?
You need full CBRN gear. Not the fully enclosed suits you see in the movies, but you do need a protective suit with hood, gloves and overboots.
chempak suits can be bought on ebay
the bigger issue is decon
Assuming we're talking civilians, protective gear and either shelter in place or gtfo is the most important step. You can decon with water and soap, it's more about doing it properly than what you use to decon with.
I agree with you but decon is still an issue since no one has any training in it
decon? You mean decontamination?
Yeah
>If chemical weapons get busted out it will all be nerve gas so a mask wont do shit
That's not entirely true. Preventing inhalation provides at least some degree of protection against most nerve agents, hell, most chemical weapons for that matter. For example, the LD50 of VX vapour via inhalation is a full order of magnitude less than via skin exposure while blistering agents are obviously far more dangerous if they're fricking your eyes and airways rather than just your skin. Inhalational exposure also tends to take effect much faster than skin exposure (for sarin, the onset of symptoms is seconds to minutes via inhalation but minutes to hours through the skin) which may be enough for you to escape the danger zone (rather than collapsing in the middle of it).
Ideally you'd have the full suit too. If that's out of your price range then simple tyvek coveralls are vapor permeable but will protect you from certain agents and make the decon procedure easier for the rest. You may not be able to improvise full .mil grade decon but wiping yourself down with soap, water and rags then dumping the coveralls as soon as you're out of the hot zone might be enough if you're on the edge of a strike.
avon, airboss, msa
I have an Avon CT12, its a solid mask, but in reality any 40mm NATO threaded modern production mask would serve you best. Invest in some decent quality filters and you'll be good.
I have a 3M 7800 full face, I honestly think it's one of the better options out there.
I bought it because I used to work in industrial service, repairing vacuum systems large enough to walk in that sometimes had chemicals in them that could melt the surface of your eyeballs.
I spent a lot of fricking money on it, I think $500 for the mask alone, but I had to be certain it would work due to the nature of my job so it was a no-brainer.
It's full face with multiple strap points to keep it on your head, made of silicone, has a huge viewport.
It has 3m blade connectors obviously, but what a lot of people don't realize is that those blade connector ports unscrew, and leave you with NATO standard 40mm ports.
You can run 40mm cannisters out of either side (or both if you're changing spent filters out, or run remote tubes to powered filters on your back.
The only downside is aiming with rifles.
It is very difficult to use standard iron sights on things like an AK because you can't get decent cheekweld.
If you have a carry handle upper AR with a red dot mounted on top you're pretty good though.
I think a lot of people overlook civ gear for whatever reason, maybe price point which is fair, but I think you guys should consider it.
I had an old Honeywell industrial mask, it sucked for aiming rifles but it worked extremely well as a mask for cleaning out dead animals from attics and working in fiber glass dust riddled environments. Industrial gear works really well, but I mainly recommend NATO threaded tubes cause most industrial gear has uber homosex proprietary filters that become unobtanium after the line is killed - like my Honeywell mask.
Plus Bayonet lug filters are the supreme slop and all masks that take them should be tarred, feathered, and engineers corn flakes pissed in.
theres 2 versions of the 7800. the 7800S for civilians made of silicone and the 7800B for military made of butyl. only the 7800B is resistant to chemical agents
The S can still be used in these events. If you're lacking other gear, including drugs and autoinjectors, you're dead anyway
https://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/israeli-military-surplus-m15-gas-mask-with-filter-new?a=691332
gas masks are a meme unless you have a massive supply of filters
Depends on what you're worried about, pandemic or fallout you can get away with one. Just don't bring the filter into the shelter if its got some gamma emitters in it.
by the time gas hits you will already be dead
If you get hit with CBRN as a civilian it's already over. The pro masks won't help you against chlorine gas or other ones so you'll drown from the inside and if you don't have a full MOPP4 outfit with decon kits you're toast in almost any CBRN environment because of residue. The best way to avoid them is to just not be there, stay out of the cities.
I wore an OM90 during Covid bullshit to mess with people.
Good value.