Investigating BioVALs BB Claims

[MikeG]

Azathoth,

Do you think you could post a picture of some BBBMAXs you have crushed? The shards in my pictures were more than sharp enough to cause cuts when rubbing between two fingers. Given the disparity between my description and yours, I'm wondering if perhaps the BBs I obtained were knockoffs.

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by Azathoth

Scarecrow, your posts seem like you havent read the whole thread without being interrupted. Read my above post about grinding the shards and eating them.

Your correct. My multitasking today was insane, I'll go back and reread tonight. If I missed some clarification, I'll repost, forgive me.

Jay

[Azathoth]

Originally Posted by MikeG

Azathoth,

Do you think you could post a picture of some BBBMAXs you have crushed? The shards in my pictures were more than sharp enough to cause cuts when rubbing between two fingers. Given the disparity between my description and yours, I'm wondering if perhaps the BBs I obtained were knockoffs.

I will crush some more, their is a major game that I need to prepare for and my job that i need to clear, before I can get to said game.

However in the mean time, 80-90% of the material remaining from being crushed in a table vice was smaller than table salt, If I recall correctly I had 4-5 pieces no larger than ~1x~1x~1.5mm volume, They were not particularly sharp, and it i rubbed both the remaining powder and the shards between my thumb and index finger.

The very first BBBmax I crushed, it literally turned to dust, however, i wasnt aware of that, and didnt capture any of the larger pieces, it's likely there were larger pieces but I never could find them.

Like other BBs I don't think the BBBmax will crush the same way between each individual BB. It's possible that the BBBmax can crush into nothing but large shards, but that has not been my experience.

Where did you buy your BBBmax from. I hadn't considered the possibility of knock off or imitation product. And given the supply drought, it worries me that knock off or glass/acryllic BB's can be substituted.

[Donster]

Originally Posted by The Saint

Scarecrow has never made the claim of being the best. Try not to brag him into a difficult position.

let me clarify

by that i meant through the numerous tests and results that Stalker has posted, it has been proven that BB Bastards are superior to most other brands is all. im not saying that it is THE BEST, but so far, few companies are at BB Bastard's level, save for perhaps Metal Tech. Madbull and KSC perfects i heard are also close competitors.

[Scarecrow]

Got this this evening:

Hello Mr. Patterson,

I'm very, very sorry, but I ran out of Bioval 0.27g BB's. My inventory count was off.

I have already sent you a full refund via Paypal.

I should be able to get more of them in a few weeks.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
John Opheim
Airsoft Northwest LLC
www.airsoftnw.com

So, anyone making offers of BBBMax's please let me know who to order from.

[Azathoth]

Originally Posted by DONSTER 125

let me clarify

by that i meant through the numerous tests and results that Stalker has posted, it has been proven that BB Bastards are superior to most other brands is all. im not saying that it is THE BEST, but so far, few companies are at BB Bastard's level, save for perhaps Metal Tech. Madbull and KSC perfects i heard are also close competitors.

I dont want this to become a debate about which brand is better. I respect your decision and opinion, however I absolutely disagree. I am not even going to get into a detailed discussion on this thread about which brand of BB is better.

I had a terrible experience with the 1 bag of Bastards that I purchased, and was so disgusted at the quality that I threw the bag into the trash. Keep in mind I have been playing since 93 oversea and had left the sport during my university schooling. In hindsight, I should have contacted the retailer or came to ASC to find Scarecrow but what is done is the past.

Got this this evening:

Quote:
Hello Mr. Patterson,

I'm very, very sorry, but I ran out of Bioval 0.27g BB's. My inventory count was off.

I have already sent you a full refund via Paypal.

I should be able to get more of them in a few weeks.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
John Opheim
Airsoft Northwest LLC
www.airsoftnw.com
So, anyone making offers of BBBMax's please let me know who to order from.

I can't find a retailer that has them in stock. But I can offer you samples from my own stocks. I don't expect a shipment of BBBmax to be available to distributors in the USA for another month or ever given the explosion in demand.



EDIT:

I got really lucky today. I managed after 30 mins to crush a Single BBBmax. With the hand vice and BB in the Grip, I put the Grip onto a concrete basement floor and squeezed down on the grip with my hands while simultaneously trying to shift as much of my body weight onto my hands/vice. It wasnt until after i pivoted my entire body off the ground that the BB finally broke. I weigh 155 lbs.





What I found very interesting is that this time I got large debris. The remainder of the BB turned into dust some of the dust is barely visible in the bag and only by rubbing the ziploc bag against itself can you feel the bb fragments. All of the large pieces are pictured.

I rubbed the powder between my fingers with as much pressure as I could but it didnt scrach or cut my fingers, it was like rubbing sand like the last time.

This time I washed my hands and took one of the large fragments and repeated. If you apply enough pressure against the jagged portion of the bb you can break the skin, no more or less effort than if you were to do the same with a jagged rock or pebble.

The large 1/2 BB fragment is nearly completely smooth on the non curved portion and is not sharp on the outside edges. What is difficult or impossible to take a picture of is the inside edge of the BBBmax, I am not sure if it's an optical affect of a curved and clear BB but you can almost distinguish a seamline along the inside of the BB. But the probability of crushing the BB against a seamline is miniscule, what again is not pictureable is the pattern of wear on the inside of the BB caused by the vice.

This is the first time i've seen such large debris and about the 10th or so BB i've crushed in a baggie.

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by Azathoth

I had a terrible experience with the 1 bag of Bastards that I purchased, and was so disgusted at the quality that I threw the bag into the trash. Keep in mind I have been playing since 93 oversea and had left the sport during my university schooling. In hindsight, I should have contacted the retailer or came to ASC to find Scarecrow but what is done is the past.

I'll replace the bag free of charge because I know those couldn't be legit bastards. The labels come off my bags and I have had a couple of instances where players have sold other players what they thought were bastards and they were not. Only buy your BB Bastards off Ass Bastard reps at the field or retailers. If you're not satisfied with the product, return it for a full refund and I will compensate the Ass Bastard or retailer directly. I have not had a return yet where the product was really mine - it was an obvious forgery, it wasn't even my bag, which is very distinctive and heat sealed.

Back to the thread...

[Easy]

Originally Posted by Scarecrow

A sole proprietorship laboratory? Wow, thats a person with some deep pockets, that lab equipment is mighty expensive for one person to finance. That makes me question even more if its a real company now.

Once I figure out who the Fiduciary Representative is and how to contact him, that may be the only route to go as you point out. As to why they want to maintain so many layers between themselves and the people who may question their work, as a scientific testing body I find that a little suspicious.

CSA here in Canada can be contacted directly and as with the case of many public and private labs, they have direct public contact numbers published so that anyone can follow up on any questions someone may have in regards to their testing results. It would seem to me that Levante Labs is set up in such a way as to be able to avoid contact, not invite it, and if thats the case, then why? Its counterproductive to the peer review process that is so critical in scientific investigative practices that are accepted worldwide.

As it stands now, its impossible to peer review this document, so at this point I am considering the Levante Labs document a marketing tool and not a scientific treatise of any kind. The burden of proof lays with them the publishers, not me, the reader.

ADDRESS - I think you are overlooking all the evidence sitting right in front of you. The Fiduciary is the address provided to you by Levante.

CREDENTIALS - The fact that a Fiduciary with a Swiss Federal Fiduciary License is representing Levante, by definition gives top credentials to Levante Labs. A Swiss Federal Fiduciary cannot represent a ghost company without risking a jail term for fraud, falsification of information, misrepresentation etc etc.

SOLE PROPRIETARY COMPANIES - in Switzerland are very common, easy to set up, have lots of tax breaks and enjoy better financing from the banks since the liability is personal and limitless.

[Scarecrow]

Still, you can't peer review the document because the credentials are hidden. There is no way to validate the information presented, its simply all claims. Again, I don't see what they gain by doing this or making themselves anonymous other than to draw suspicion by someone being critical of the sources of the data, test methodologies, etc.

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by Porkchop

The only thing you are going to find at the Levante Labs address ( beside a hairdresser ) is a Treuhand gesellschaft ( fiduciary company) called Ulrich Willi. I suspect that they handle all the traffic for Levante Labs.

Where did you get this information from Porkchop? Just following up...

[Amoki]

Originally Posted by MikeG

I'm the author of the blog article posted earlier. My calculations in that report were very rough, I'll admit. However, the properties of these bbs so closely match that of glass, it's very hard for me to believe that they are not.[/uote]


I tried the materials search at MatWeb mentioned earlier with the parameters of:
Melting Point: 500C to 1800C
Density: 2.35g/cc to 2.45g/cc
and the only result I came up with was this glass:
http://www.matweb.com/search/DataShe...eddd3bf252322b

It is still possible that the BBs could be made up of a composite of other materials that do not fit into the parameters I searched for, but the simplest explanation is still that they are made of some type of glass.

MikeG, while your argument may sound sound for your average joe, you're going to have problems convincing those who have done engineering degrees, in particular those with background in material science. The fact is, Bioval has stated that these BBB Max are made of 1) Resin 2) some form of hardening agent. Without knowing what base material it is you can't determine what material is.

For example, PVC with a hardening agent forms your hard, brittle PVC pipes. PVC with softening agents forms your gardening hose. Both will have different volume, density etc. but both are essentially PVC.

Another case in point: http://www.google.com/patents?id=_OqkAAAAEBAJ&dq , where you have a biodegradable resin composite at 250C.

[Scarecrow]

So from a materials standpoint, is it correct to say this is a ceramic? What materials best describe this BB from what we know about it at this moment?

Since it seems to be debatable that you can validate the material, is it fair to call this BB Biodegradable? Their prior products release a materials list with a percentage and from that you can ascertain roughly that it is biodegradeable. When I do get some I will throw a few into the garden, but beyond that I don't know what other experiment you can do.

[Scarecrow]

I spent a good chunk of time last night going through more of that Arnie's thread and some of this issues discussed here are discussed there, but I think this discussion is still useful as its more detailed, we seem to be engaging people with less opinions and more solid contributions and the Arnie's thread after 28 pages was locked for a lack of progress in the topic. I don't think thats happening here so I would encourage the discussion continue here.

One conclusion several posters made before bowing out of the debate is they did identify the marketing spin of the document and questioned its independence and funding as a source of potential problem, and those posters did a full stop after that in dismissing the document. I am going to great lengths to try and validate the sources and credentials, so I think I am giving BioVAL much more benefit of the doubt than they did - I find the lack of cooperation in that process disturbing - you think they'd addressed it already given the debate over at Arnie's already.

Look back to my post on evaluating the credibility of a source (http://www.airsoftcanada.com/showpos...0&postcount=18) for more information about the problems of funding and independence of research.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Easy

Levante Labs may be the trade mark owned by another entity (Swiss or Foreign) and not the actual name of the company.

Like Bioval, you mean?

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by Drake

Like Bioval, you mean?

Conjecture, but, a rather novel thought given the circumstances. It would explain putting a representative between the Lab and the public so that the link isn't discovered and questioned. Its one possible explanation and given the lack of information on it coming out of BioVAL I wouldn't discount it.