Captain Murphy (DUCK) posted on July 23, 2010 11:21
As quoted by the Raptors Airsoft on Ebay here is a description of the Army of Two mask that was purchased. They are selling this version for about half what the other vendors are asking and their shipping was amazingly fast. Extremely well recommended seller.
These Masks are durable, light weight, and are one of the most intimidating masks on the market.
Features:
Eyes are made out of 22 gauge wire mesh to prevent a BB from Penetrating.
Foam cushion pads located inside the mask provide a comfortable fit
Spider type 5 point strap
Designed to allow for maximum airflow
Is rubber coated on the interior to avoid a "fiberglass smell"
Never fogs up because of mesh design
Mask comes matte-black so you can easily paint it.
Note:You must wear goggles or safety glasses under the mask.
I got this mask for an all indoors CQB game where full face protection is required. The only other times I have used full face masks was my MCU/2P gas mask with the protective lens cover. Considering that this game was for a summer day and 24 hours I knew I had to get something a cool, light, and antifog; 3 things that a gas mask is not. I have seen these masks at games before and the intimidation factor is pretty decent. First of all because you can barely see the users eyes through the mesh so it appears to be a hole in the mask where the eyes are supposed to be. Quite an interesting sight when you are not expecting it. Second because they appeared to give the user full face and partial ear protection without being a burden or being hot. It looked like it was time to try one out.
First Impressions
The material is almost a rubbery texture. The documentation that came with it was simple and full of 'engrish' along with a lot of Russian and Chinese characters. The mask is light (6.7oz) and flexible. There is no smell or odor apparent on it from any of the materials. The straps stretched slightly and returned to shape quite well. The back pad for the strap system is solid with the 2" webbing being folded over the elastic, holding it in place with no movement under stretching. The foam in the mask is closed cell and quite dense. When placed against the face they became barely noticeable after only a few minutes of usage. The mesh appeared to be a bit light though it appeared to be solidly mounted into the eye cups and was not able to be moved about with pressure placed on them. The overall black coloration of the material is dark and extremely dull. No fear of reflected light from this mask at all. In all it felt solid.
Wear Test
This is a simple test I devised for my gear reviews that simply looks for weaknesses with the product before fielding it for the first time. Mostly it involves running approximately a mile while wearing the gear item and performing various tasks. The mask actually performed well overall including after I started to sweat heavily in the 94 degree 90% humidity weather. It stayed pretty secure with minor movement or refitting needed. One complaint is the position of the strap over my ears. It began to rub a bit after the second half of the mile. In general though it performed much better than any gas mask I have ever tried and it much cooler than the neoprene ones that are seen around now. I am sure later on I will modify the position of the mount points and probably rebuild the strapping entirely but for light to moderate usage this mask will work perfect.
I also wore three kinds of glasses under this unit to see what would be comfortable. By far the wraparound shooting glasses were almost undetectable once the mask was in place. The rubber did not contact the frame so there was no undue pressure on them. A second set of standard prescription glasses with frames that fit into the Bolle T800 also were untouched by the foam padding and were comfortable to wear. The last set was an average size set of aviation sunglasses. They contacted the upper foam enough to put a bit of pressure on the bridge of the nose but were not entirely unusable as a little adjustment of the straps took a lot of the stress off of the glasses. In all it can fit a wide variety of glasses under the eye section. The note that the retailer has with the product recommends wearing eye protection under the mesh and after the following test you will see why. At least it is comfortable to wear them.
Shot Test
Now comes the part where I get to break things. For this test I was planning to push the eye protection portion to the breaking point in order to get an idea where this mask would be usable at. The second half of the test was to see if the material that the mask itself was made from could withstand the same punishment.
The photos with this article tell the whole story. Each shot was made at 3" away from the mask. With a .25g @ 300fps (1j) the mask dented around 2.5mm from the mesh plane and the mesh itself indented another 1.5mm from the original plane. 3 following shots were made to find the failure point for repeated shots until the bb went through the mesh. The second shot speed was .28g @ 380fps (1.9j). The first shot was a bio bb and resulted in the round completely falling apart upon impact. The dent was about 2mm with no change in overall indentation. The second shot speed with non-bio .28g @380fps (1.9j) ended with the round nearly penetrating the mesh. The bb was a little under 3.5mm in the mesh with a 1mm change in mesh plane indentation. The last shot was a shoe in for failure with a .43g @ 370fps (2.8j). The round made a nice clean hole in the mesh with little slowdown. It maintained enough energy to embed itself 4 layers deep in the cardboard sheets that were used as a backstop. Granted no one expects to be shot point blank with a sniper rifle at that range but finding the failing point of the eye protection was a priority.
The second test was to shoot various places on the mask with the same sniper rifle to find weak points and see if the mask could be overcome on the solid sections. The 'teeth' and 'nose' holes were easily penetrated when the bb was fired directly at them at .25g @300fps (1j). It appeared to maintain quite a bit of energy when fired through the teeth holes. It would be a good recommendation to put some mesh behind this section to beef it up. The damage holes in the upper portion of the mask were defeated by .28g @ 380fps (1.9j). The rest of the mask was unable to be defeated by everything including the .43g @ 370fps (2.8j) with up to 3 shots placed on the same spot. In fact the mask didn’t have a single mark to show for all of it as the material returned to shape perfectly after every round.
Conclusion
This is a good buy for the money. At half the cost of the competing masks that are much more rigid and heavy it will be an asset to anyone that doesn't mind taking a couple minutes of time to add some better lenses and a bit more protection from direct shots around the mouth and nose holes. Even in the stock for it is adequate protection for low power CQB games (less than .2g @ 280fps (.72j) and can provide far better protection than just a neoprene mask can offer at almost any speed.