"BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!!.... if you order in the next fifteen minutes it will include the skull face mask.... Be a true but anon operator with the half face skull mask... Only $19.95 at Tactical Ronnco! Call 800...."  

I have to get one of those skull face masks just to fit in during the boogaloo... Hate to experience friendly fire cause your not in character LMAO.

This.

It has confused many a person over the years.

I've written several times on this subject before, but I'll go ahead and say it once more.

I'm all about saving money, but it's worth considering what helmets are for.

Yes, for putting NVDs on your head specific to this subforum, but then again, there are head-harnesses like the Crye Nightcap or Legacy Skullcrushers (should be a required rite of passage to spend a year using only a skull crusher under a PASGT before being allowed to graduate to Ops-Cores and Wilcox mounts ) if that's what you're looking to do only.

What a helmet is for is for protecting that shriveled gray thing rotting away in your skull, something that you may find yourself needing all the more when you start wandering around technical terrain with a forty-degree toilet paper tube field of view and no real ability to focus on both where you're going and where you're stepping at the same time.

Whether you're talking about plastic bump helmets or "knock-off" ballistics, even those who claim their shells have been tested in some sort of ballistics lab, I can almost guarantee you that what they're not being tested for--which high end helmets, and hell, even an old school Black Hawk Down-style Pro-Tec skateboard helmet is being tested for is impact protection.

Be honest, if you're even considering a knock-off helmet, are your chances higher of getting shot in the head or of falling down and bashing your skull against a rock? TBI is no joke, and I've seen guys of all experience levels take some ugly spills. I'm not trying to be a disapproving church lady scolding people for buying knock-off helmets, but it amazes me sometimes how far down head protection is on many people's lists of priorities when choosing a helmet.

~Augee

::shrug::

I mean, I guess the argument could be made that most civilian users don’t need to spend $2,000+ on a Gen. 3 NVD and support gear to walk around in a neighborhood, shoot in a friend’s field, or even go hunting.

I mentioned TBI because it’s a potential worst case scenario that a helmet could protect you from, and to the extent that there’s no guarantee that a helmet is going to prevent it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth stacking the deck in your favor by getting a helmet with an actual impact protection rating—and even if it won’t necessarily protect you in every instance from a concussion, in some situations it may and there are many other types of head/impact injuries that it’s worth trying to protect yourself from, otherwise, no one would bother wearing a helmet for anything, not just gun fighting or contact sports, but riding bikes, white water rafting, rock climbing, etc.

Again, I get it, and I understand the point that most people neither need, nor care about, nor even bother considering impact protection, especially relative to having a helmet that looks vaguely “tactical-esque,” but it still seems rather backwards to me.

If all you want is to mount NVGs and don’t want to spend much money and don’t care about impact protection, why not get a Nightcap?

We sell them for $75, and they go on sale, and I know plenty of other folks have gotten them cheaper, and we almost always have them in stock.

With just about any of these knock-off helmets, everyone’s recommending replacing the existing hardware, or at very least the shroud with an authentic part, because again, you’ve most likely spent $2,000+ on an NVD, and even most of the folks recommending unlicensed replica parts agree that you should still at least replace the shroud.

So that $60 for a Wilcox 3-Hole shroud is a wash between the Nightcap and airsoft helmet.

A lot of posters will then recommend replacing pads and suspension, too, usually for comfort, but again, these parts actually do make a difference in terms of head protection.

So, you’ve bought a $70 airsoft Ops-Core, spent $60 on a replacement shroud, say another $40 on even just an H-Nape suspension, that’s “street price,” not retail, and finally another $80 on 4DPads, and you’re right at $240, and you still have shitty, out of spec Chineseium ARC rails, probably sub-standard fasteners, paper thin Velcro that you can literally see through, and won’t actually stay on the helmet shell, much less keep anything on it secure, and no real impact protection that you can rely on.

At the same time, for $270 you could have gotten an Ops-Core Bump, which is a genuine Ops-Core product—LARPing box checked, put the right helmet cover on it, and no one will even know it’s not a ballistic.

ACH certified impact protection, an authentic fit band suspension which I think is one of the absolute best on the market at any price point, pads that may not be the most comfortable, but extremely well designed to protect that aforementioned gray thing, and an in spec shroud and rails and even high grade fasteners and Velcro. All for $30, and maybe a little waiting since Ops-Cores tend to be in high demand and often have some lead time if backordered. And I’ve seen them sell on the EE for as low as $150 a piece.

Again, to each their own, and everyone can do with their own money as they please, and I’ve been known to be a pretty miserly fella, but I just don’t see any value proposition in knock-off helmets.

~Augee