"Smaug"As a former motorcyclist who has survived 2 crashes at decent speeds and lived to tell about it, here's my advice:
- Don't carry anything on your person that could bust you up if you landed on it with high force. For example, a Russian guy once broke his back by landing on a can of Coke in his backpack.
- DO wear a full face helmet. Mine saved my life once and jaw surgery once. Get one that's DOT and Snell certified. DOT is the basic requirements, Snell are more realistic.
- At the very least, wear jeans, over-the-ankle boots, full fingered leather gloves and an armored jacket. I crashed once wearing shorts and flip flops, and the pain of losing lots of skin on my legs and ankles taught me a lesson in person that I had read about in books. The second time I crashed, I had full motorcycle gear on: pants with pads in the hips and knees, a vented armored jacket, armored boots, etc. That time, I broke my leg in 3 places, because I went tumbling into the woods at 45 mph. Lucky I didn't break my back on a tree.
- DON'T carry any pressure vessels, like PCP tanks, unless it's in an amored hard case or something. If the tank tumbled and hit the valve, it would fire off like a pneumatic missile. The gun might actually explode.*
I think the safest bet would be a CO2 gun or pumper, though those are pretty low-powered. How about a modded 1322 with a 18" barrel, flat top piston kit and folding or detachable stock?
Or, if you really want PCP, leave the refill tank at home and get something with a fitted hard or semi-hard case. Like an Air Arms S410 TDR, and strap it to your back rack. These guns review GREAT. That one's fitted semi-hard case is also a backpack.
* - Watch
this video, starting at 50 sec. This tank weighed probably 6X what a small carbon fiber tank does, and had half the pressure. Here's one from MythBusters, where it shot through a cinder block wall, and damaged the wall behind it:
Again, that tank is much, much heavier than a portable CF tank, and with half the pressure contained.
We take compressed air as an energy source for granted in the airgun world, but there are safety standards in place behind the scenes that allow us to do that. (I'm a regulatory engineer at UL, and one of my specialties is air compressors) Hydro tests are life-savers. But our air tanks aren't even ASME-coded, that I know of.