Oh hell I wanted to stay out of this thread, but some big misconceptions need to be cleared up.
Right, here we go.
Oppy - You're wrong. Sorry but you are. The whole Stako have "proved" anything argument isn't about the Madrid incident or anything about tanks exploding. That was about Max last year where bottles were bubbling/leaking through the fibre wrap during filling and HPAC imposed a filling ban at the event. Stako then argued it was a safe by-product of the design and the ban was lifted as per your press release quote. Please don't perpetuate that it relates in any way to "proving" anything related to these incidents.
The Madrid incident was indeed put down to oil in the regulator.
The Budapest incident had been too, possibly contaminated from the compressor - the plastic liner had scorch marks/bubble indicating a fire inside the tank. (There's a pic in an old PGi)
The Freekz incident is under investigation
Facts:
Stako don't make regs. There is no such things as a factory fitted reg on a Stako. ALL regs are attached to Stakos somewhere else in the supply chain. So don't assume any reg has been attached properly unless you know/trust the airsmith selling it. Please stop equating the reg with Stako.
Stakos are rated as bottles, all safety information/tests/approvals/certificates is purely based on their pressure rating in a lab environment and nothing else. There is currently NO standard for paintball air equipment that tests its suitability for the sport with what we actually do to it. This applies to ALL tanks/regs/hoses. e.g. A macro line might work fine up to its pressure rating in a lab and "pass" but when it comes to being put in and out of an elbow, one might fail after 5 goes, another after 100. They've both passed the lab pressure test, but one is better for paintball than the other. A tank might pass all burst tests going in a lab, but a combination of diving, stressing the neck threads and interaction with the regulator in a manner specific to paintball might cause a failure. Remember, there is NO paintball-specific standards for air equipment so please stop throwing that argument about too.
There have been three Stako incidents in the last year. Yes the whole "Three Fords crashed last week, ban them" argument appears sound, but it isn't. There has been HP air in paintball for around 12 years. In that time there has been a few high profile bottle fires (where the bottle stayed attached), that Crossfire bottle in SA and 3 Stako/Reg incidents. That's in 12 years of everyone in the world filling up their air bottles. It's not that there are 100 incidents a year and 3 happen to be Stakos, then your Ford crashing argument works. Keka/Olly etc are saying that there have been NO, NONE, ZIP, NADDA incidents where an air bottle separated from the reg in 11 years, now there have been 3 where Stakos have been involved within a year (excluding the whole bubbling fibre wrap incident). That's not the same thing and whole lot more statistically significant than the Ford example.
There was another point, but I've forgotten it. I'll add it later
