Squeegie Balls?

[beam]

Don't ask me why I thought of this but here is an idea for a product. I think in the Brittle Paint thread, someone said somehting about a gun shooting itself clean:

Squeegie balls.

Small oversized foam balls that you could mix in your hopper in a 1 to 10 ratio or something else.

Then if you have a break...shoot one out and it squeegies your barrel clean. Just mixing them into a hopper may be wasteful and unreliable so there could be some other quick way to use them only when needed.

After the game, you could pick them up off the ground, wash them, and reuse them.

Pick it apart...but I thought it could be a neat concept.

I dunno. :)

[Load SM5]

I don't know where I heard this but a few years back some guy was claiming that some large cotton balls, damp with alcohol, worked pretty much like what you described. I never bothered to try it and I think the cotton would get picked at by the barrel nubbins. The problem would be, pretty much like you said, getting them into the gun without removing the hopper.

[J]

You could always put them in the bottom of the PF tube, just take the plug out.

[zads27]

In an angel, you could open the 'breach block' and put one right into the breach area.

[HoppysMag]

ya flip the gun over, and stick it in the pf bottem. Or make like an elbow with a hole big enough to fit the Squegge ball in when you compress it with your fings but the hole gotta be small enough so paint wont come out.... Put a little door on it

[Cha0tic]

would you mind if i expirimented with that stuff? i know its kinda your idea though....

[paintballrulzs]

I honestly have thought about this. My idea was that if you geta break you just removes the pf plug and put the "squgee ball" in there. Then just shoot it through. I was thinkin they would b so cheap they wouldn't be worth picking up. I have actually pndered the thought of using nerf balls. If i come accross the right size i will buy some. We need some ideas. This would be a killer product. I am sure someone has the ability to make some of these. AGD? need a new product? lol maybe when thinks cool down a bit

[Load SM5]

The only problem I can think of are that most high end guns are vert. feed now. You could sell to the powerfeed mag owners and maybe a few shocker owners, but there's your market right there. I doubt rec players with lowert to mid end guns would worry about them that much. Cool idea though; I'd like to see how it turns out.

[HoppysMag]

id buy some. sell them in paks of like 10 or pakes of like 50. sell em like Paintballs in difrent sized paks so your not forced to buy like 1000 of em when your only gunna need 5. Where would you store them in your pocket? Mabey some kinda holder on the gun might work better?

[FooTemps]

Dude... I got a good idea for the squeegie balls. TRAP DOOR FEED!

[HoppysMag]

ya i said the same thing!:D but where are u thinkin for the trap door. cause i was said in the elbo but i doubt that would work.:D

[FooTemps]

Like the prototype trap door feed...

[Lone Gunman]

You could attach like a ten round tube to your elbow at the same angle as it comes out of the gun. Fill that with squeeggee balls, then have a second powerfeed like plug at the base of the tube where it meets the elbow.

So when you needed to clean your barrel, tip your gun upside down, turn the plug on the tube and then flip the gun upright again. Then the weight of the paintballs would be pushing the squeeggee ball into the breach where it could be then shot.

[HoppysMag]

well i just did a test.

I took some foam i found in my basement cut it up into a little ball like 1 inch in size
Gassed up my mag.
Went to the back yard Stabed a few balls with a safty pin and put them in the breech. Shot them and they all broke in the barrel. i took out the PF plug shoved the foam ball in and shot. idsay the big one got 10% of the paint out.the balls have to be bigger than a normal Pball so that they are compressed and snugg against the barrel
I perposly broke the 4 balls in my barrel and it got mabey 10% of the paint from the mentioned balls out. but hey il make new ones and try new material.

Edited*** i had a messed up number, it only got 10% of the paint.

[paintballrulzs]

how about nerf balls?

[HoppysMag]

you know what i think iv got some some where. Il try to findem and see if they would work

[paintballrulzs]

I planned on headin out today and find some faom balls that would do the job.

[beam]

wow! i thought this idea would get shot down right away.

Have you guys ever seen those LazerBalls that Brass Eagle puts out. I think they are foam and are meant to be used to play close-quarters indoor paintball.

I was thinking of getting my hands on some of those to see if they work.

I think they are pretty expensive though.

[HoppysMag]

ya but the lazer ballz are 50cal there too small

[Aliens-8-MyDad]

ok i just threw these together in Paint but its my idea and you would have to have warp and PF

http://www.hunting-pictures.com/members/aliens-8-mydad/design0.jpg

as you can see the squegee balls are held in one of those little 10 ball tubes and can feed down when u press a tab with a hole in it so balls can go through

http://www.hunting-pictures.com/members/aliens-8-mydad/design1.jpg

http://www.hunting-pictures.com/members/aliens-8-mydad/design2.jpg

[paintballrulzs]

I get ur drawing but think of this. What would stop the paintball from comming. They are being forced up and would push the "squgee balls" back up there tube. C what i mean?

[beam]

Originally posted by HoppysMag
ya but the lazer ballz are 50cal there too small

Thanks for the info. I would've hated to spend the money on something that wouldn't have worked.

For me (hopper on top of my gun) I like the idea of being able to tip my marker upside down, fire about 4 shots to try and clear out some paint.

Being able to quickly remove my PF plug, pop a foam rubber ball in and shoot my barrel clean really appeals to me.

Seems like it would be just as easy if not easier, and maybe more effective than squeegying.

[Aliens-8-MyDad]

i dont know... turn off warp for a second and fire a round

[rhetor22]

The only problem with this is in woodsball... you don't want to just shoot foam balls and let them sit in the woods.

[paintballrulzs]

well if they r made cheap then it is worth losing a foam ball or 2

[beam]

I agree....they wouldn't be environmentally friendly....

But still...I need to see if this works...even if you just shoot it into the ground at your feet and pick it up.

[Vegeta]

This has been mentioned before by someone in this forum. I remeber readign it late at night and thinking I should reply but I was too lazy.

[DaXtremeist]

what if ya took one of the nerf darts the small ones with the suction tips on them and cut it down short and put that into the breach : ) would mainly only work on an angel but would clean it... or if ya can't get your hands on anything you could buy the nerf balls and shave them down to .70 or .69 wichever

[billmi]

Floating around my attic somewhere are a couple of tubes with design drawings that I did in college in the late 80s for a variety of ideas, most based on the DMR series valve.

One of the breech designs (not part of a full paintgun design) was for a dual breech. One side had a vertical feed port, while the other was slightly oversize, wedging from larger in the back to smaller in the front. When the ball breech (the one with the vertical feed port) was inline with the barrel, the second breech sat to the left of the paintgun, with a spring fed magazine behind it that would keep it loaded with one of 10 or so neoprene cylindrical squeegie plugs.

Thus when you need to squeegie, you slide the breech over, fire the cleaning plug through, then slide it back to load paintguns. Practically it would have problems with the cleaning plugs compressing in the spring magazine, so you might have one and a half loaded into the cleaning breech, and not be able to slide it over. I considered a stiffiner in the middle, like a plastic core, but that might turn the cleaning plug into a dangerous projectile. That still left the possibility of hand loading a cleaning plug one at a time when shifting the breech over, which wouldn't be bad either.

Of course it's sitting in the roll with a sliding door breech, rotary breech, and blow forward breech design... None of which I ever carried past the idea stage.

If I find them next time I'm rummaging around up there I'll make some scans. Could be entertaining stuff, and or might fit well with an idea someone else has.

See you on the field,
-Bill Mills

[FooTemps]

Maybe we shouldn't use foam in this idea. What's a good *SAFE* barrel cleaning material that is AFFECTIVE and ENVIROMENT FRIENDLY?

[paintballrulzs]

y not use foam? If u r playing speedball shoot at the bunker u r behind and then pick it up. if u r in the woods shoot at a tree or big rock or something close by