Putting the RedMan Training Baton to the Test
The RedMan Baton lets you provide law enforcement officers with the training they need by helping them develop their accuracy through realistic training scenarios for dynamic simulations. It is great for performing safe, dynamic baton simulations. The Training Baton is constructed from lightweight dipped-foam with a hollow polymer core. It fits in the flashlight ring of a duty belt for greater realism, but is a bright white to keep it from being confused with regular duty gear.
Features
- Lightweight dipped-foam
- Hollow polymer core
- Fits in the flashlight ring of a duty belt
- Bright white
- Measures 24” long x 1 5/8” diameter (length may vary by +/- ½ inch)
Impact Breaking Test
- Baton testing was conducted on Impact Test Equipment designed to test Martial Arts style impacts to the head.
- Macho Products Inc. equipment and lab is designed to meet standard F2397 from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). ASTM Standard F2397 was established specifically to study safety standards for martial arts equipment manufacturing.
- The machine uses a Hybrid III test dummy head and neck with instrumentation to measure acceleration forces that are measured in G’s.
- For Martial Arts headgear testing it uses a 500 mm metal swing arm with a mass of 4.5 kg as a striker with a speed of 8 meters per second.
Results
Test 1: Direct impact to the baton from the swing arm
- Baton is mounted in a way that it can be struck with the swing arm while simultaneously being held in a stationary position.
- Baton while stationery is still able to flex upon contact.
- The baton received the strike with no damage.
*The acceleration from a strike to a bare head form with no padding is about 475 G’s.
Test 2: Direct impact from the baton to a bare head – as a comparison to the swing arm strike
- The baton strike was made by an adult male striking as hard as possible.
- The maximum acceleration registered when the head was struck by the baton was 140 G’s.
Evaluation
- Repeated severe blows against hard rigid metal corners did not result in breakage of the baton, although some tearing of foam was noticed.
- The only way we have found to break a RedMan Training Baton, was to repeatedly bend it double, back and forth by hand, until the inner core failed. We were not able to break any baton by striking against any surface.
- Breakage of batons during training sessions has never been an issue in the past.
- The swing arm impact test was conducted multiple times on each baton tested.
