Gas masks, what's the craic there?

Tabnabs

After the whole Fukushima nuclear power plant incident, many American preppers went into melt down (pun intended ) over the possibility of wind born radiation.


Seeing as the east coast of Ireland is in reactively close proximity to a number of Nuclear plants in the UK, is there a need to have gas masks tucked safely away in the event of a catastrophe in one of these?

What else would gas masks be useful for protecting against?

colonel-yum-yum

Tabnabs wrote: »

What else would gas masks be useful for protecting against?

The negative effects of living on tinned baked beans for 6 months!

krissovo

The official terminology for "Gas Masks" is Respirators. They are useful to combat or reduce the threat of Nuclear, Biological and chemical agents (NBC).

Nuclear-
Protection is relative, if radiation is present these masks will not magically protect you but they can reduce the effects by filtering any radioactive particles that you would normally breath in.

If you breath in particles you are in effect getting a double dose as the particles inside your body will work inside out as well as radiation outside working in.

Even better protection is to wear a NBC suit which is rubberized or the military types which is a activated charcoal layer covered with a tight cloth outer. The radioactive dust will settle on the suit so when you remove it in a clean area you are free of most or all radioactive dust. Without a suit the dust will settle in areas like your arm pits or groin giving you a constant dose of radiation even if you are in a clean area.

Biological -
This one easy the Respirator will filter all airborne bugs preventing you getting a nasty dose. You will need a suit to protect against contact bugs.

Chemical -
Similar to Biological it will filter airborne chemicals but for contact chemicals like nerve or blister agents you need the full suit.

Filters in these typically last anywhere between 40 and 120 hours, after that you need to change them or run the risk of contamination.

Without proper decontamination drills when removing or changing filters these respirators are as good as useless as you could cross contaminate.

I dont bother to have one in mine or my families kit, I think the risks in Ireland are quite low and the only real risk is Nuclear. With nuclear as I said earlier these will not give full protection plus unless you are highly trained to use them correctly they are little more than a expensive placebo.

Doc Ruby

krissovo wrote: »

I dont bother to have one in mine or my families kit, I think the risks in Ireland are quite low and the only real risk is Nuclear.

Contagion is a risk anywhere though, as mentioned you really need a full biohazard suit for full protection, but between a good gas mask and hygiene discipline you should be relatively safe to go picking up your groceries while everyone else is sitting at home wondering when the lights will go out.

Grizzly 45

Have a couple thrown into the supplies with filters.
But as Kris has said they are useless if you dont have the drill for decontaminating them.
Orginally bought for travel to cities that might have been at risk of a dirty bomb nuke /NBC attack post 911,to use just to GTF out of the way of the poision cloud.But unless you have a resupply of these ,useless for hunkering down in your bunker or foxhole and waiting it out.You would be better off figuring how to make a positive pressure room in your house to prevent the nasties getting in.

If any of you have a look at Jericho seris.The Afro American stay behind secret dude,has a pretty good improv NBC outfit! Respirator,two piece rain suit,industrial rubber gloves,and wellies and duct tape around the gloves and wellie tops.Would be pretty easy to IMHO decontaminate,as it is all PVC,rubber etc.
Only thing is you sweat like Hell in this equipment,so make sure you have an NBC respirator that has a drinking tube,and you know how to decontaminate it as you will need to stay hydrated in this gear.:pac:

CamperMan

I have some gas masks for sale over on Adverts.ie

Doc Ruby

CamperMan wrote: »

I have some gas masks for sale over on Adverts.ie

Fairly intimidating looking yokes those, have you got spare filters or where would one find them? Also are they biological rated?

CamperMan

I have a box of new gas masks... I think there are 30 or so in the box

each mask comes with a new filter, I have no idea if they are biological rated.. all the writing is in Russian..

Doc Ruby

After a bit of research, they look like GP-5 gas masks.

krissovo

CamperMan wrote: »

I have a box of new gas masks... I think there are 30 or so in the box

each mask comes with a new filter, I have no idea if they are biological rated.. all the writing is in Russian..

Keep 2 aside, I will grab a couple from you. These are sweaty yokes but will go down great at a fancy dress party :-)

eth0

Are the filters fairly standard or is there a different filter for each gas mask? I don't want to spend 50e+ on one and in 3-5 years find out they made all the filters a few mm bigger or smaller.

krissovo

Modern NATO masks (last 10 years or so) have a standard fitting which if I recall is a 40mm screw type. Most (western) manufacturers respect that size so they are interchangeable. I have no idea about Russian or other countries.

One thing to note are the canisters (filters) can be rated for civil control only and not NBC. The civil control masks will only filter tear gas or are out of date. Some suppliers especially ones I have seen on ebay pass these off as NBC filters.

Grizzly 45

Just what I need for my Gimp outfit!!!:D:D:D:D

Mick7_62

Not to butt in gentleman, but I have a vast array of experience with NBC gear. I was rated to repair and service US M17 and M40 NBC masks during my military service. After I left the military, I set up a business refurbishing surplus NBC masks and selling them to individuals. I also went to a civilian training course covering industrial-type respirators, and haved worked in the past doing training/fitting/certifications/service work for private companies.

During my sales days (Y2K, post-sept 2001 until 2007), I purchased and evaluated several types of imported masks using the civilian diagnostic equipment I own manufactured by 3M (a major mask supplier of industrial respirators here in the US, likely where your at as well). Every Russian, Yugoslav, Israeli, Egyptian, and Bulgarian mask I tested failed horribly. The levels of dry-rot, filter deterioration, and general age of these masks made them unserviceable, unsafe, and generally worse than wearing nothing. Upon further investigation, these masks were sold off as surplus/unserviceable by their respective countries of manufacture.

Even the replacement filters were unusable, most dated from the 1950's and 1960's.

My suggestion is buy a recent manufactured Western military type mask with standard 40 mm thread filters. Purchase new (or Swiss surplus) filters as these can be purchased rated for full NBC threat (and Swiss filters are, and their packaging protects the from deterioration). You can do a simple "fit test" using either Bitrex or banana oil (look around on the Internet). I live in the heart of the US Defense Industry Manufaturing country and 50 miles from a nuke power plant. Needless to say, my wife, kids and myself each have three new unopened NBC "charcoal" suits and M40 masks with 72 hours of filters in a plastic storage box (along with "MOPP4" water bottles).

As they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of treatment.