Thread: CIP vs SAAMI

Originally Posted by Pommy

With high pressure air tanks, there is a different standard in the US vs Europe too.

Can't remember which way around it is... Either it's the US testing bottles to a higher pressure (like 50% over what they're rated for) which freaks out the Europeans who therefore don't allow US tested HPA bottles to be used (fearing the testing might somehow compromise the bottles)... Or the US testing isn't high enough pressure and the Europeans therefore aren't convinced US tested bottles have demonstrated they can withstand potential mishaps.

Either way, different side of the pond, different standards. CIP is just the standard to which European firearms get proofed - in different units and using different equipment. That might require a CIP stamped firearm to have been tested with a proof cartridge that's hotter than that same cartridge would need to be, if it were submitted to SAAMI.

That's a fair point but not quite correct - Euro standards for cylinders have gone to ISO which has superseded the earlier standards. The US are still using DOT approved design standards, and there is a rigmarole to cross them over. In NZ we insist on destroying the protective coatings on our cylinders by smacking more marks on them like LAB approval numbers, which some jurisdictions then class as a unregulated marking and then condemn the cylinder! The issue isn't in the testing, all cylinders are given specific testing schedules and procedures as part of the design standards it's just the design standards that are acceptable in each jurisdiction differ. The cylinders themselves come out of the same plants, off the same production tooling and the only thing that changes are the roll stamps that mark them and minor things like the neck thread sizes.

As far as the ammo, testing standards are pretty much the same, the design standards call for a specific testing method using calibrated equipment that produces a result that must be within a specific range to be acceptable - if you use different equipment you get a different result and while it might produce a 'low' seeming pressure in numbers it might not be safe to shoot it in a firearm.