Gwyn
I've resisted this for a long time, this has been the subject of long discussion on every forum internationaly for years, and I like many others including in offialdom who just wish it would quietly get forgotten, sadly there is always some petty official or jobsworth who keeps resurecting it.
This has all come about because of one (yes just one!) clearly faulty manufactured cylinder failing, one example many years ago, and accepted as a manufacturing fault, and the whole product run was withdrawn.
Plus a few cases of morons either filling with substances other than air, or overfilling , i.e 200 bar filled to 300. Even those only blew out the valves, the cylinders are over kill to the extreme. The manufacturers, and those manufacturers in private even agree that there is no need for what has resulted, and they are just responding to rear end covering from their lawyers, so they will now only replace cylinders, and they have set an arbitrary level at 10 years.
It's become an embarasment to the ISSF who have changed the rules several times on this issue, first to place them in equipment control inspection jurisdiction, and then to remove them when a lawyer pointed out that by passing an inside 10 year cylinder at equipment control the inspector was taking responsibilty for it being OK! They have now placed it as the shooters responsibilty and any guidance an equipment control inspector gives is advisory.
It is not covered by pressure vesssel regs, in the EU, or here, or in the States, because it is too low a volume, it is no more dangerous that the gun itself or the regulator which also contains the same pressure and is never tested! No gunsmith is qualified to test it visibly or otherwise, any one who is will laugh at it. This has all turned into a Jobsworth charter!!
An under 10 year cylinder is the same risk, realisticaly there is none, unless some moron trying for a Darwin Award (natural selection?) fills it with hydrogen, over pressure or adjusts it with a hammer, and then a new cylinder is just the same.
If the cylinder does not leak and is not visibly damaged don't bother about it. If it is change it. Unless you are shooting in an ISSF event at world level forget it.
Good shooting
Robin
Walther KK500 Alutec expert special - Barnard .223 "wilde" in a Walther KK500 Alutec stock, mmm...tasty!! - Keppeler 6 mmBR with Walther grip and wood! I may be a Walther-phile?