Bullet-Shaped Paintballs

[Muzikman]

First off, bubbleman441 where did you get the 303 rounds? and which are they? I really need some, and was hoping to have some by the end of July, but I can not find a place that will let me buy them.

The reason the 303 round is so much better is because of the weight. you take that weight away and it will fly worse than a normal paintball...let me see if I can find the thread...

http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133126&highlight=FN303

Read Manikes post and then Tom's.

[WGPforlife]

i think it's a bad idea. i mean for all these people who just bought new guns, wouldnt they be pissed to find out that the marker system has changed and their DM4s or bladed cockers are now obsolete?

also, wouldnt it hurt a whole lot more than a ball? it'd be like a bullet.

[GoatBoy]

For one, you would have to have excellent consistency of size and shape, meeting or exceeding what we already see. If you want to spin this projectile enough that it would impart an effect, you would need to be certain that each round makes maximum contact with the rifling on the barrel, and this is provided we could ever get enough spin into the round at safe velocity, and with current fill viscosity. Any that are too small, or too out of round would suffer. If you make them fit snugly, then you run into the problem of possibly having too many barrel breaks. Even the most expensive paint I have used has not been perfect (which is part of the reason Tom can tout his perfect-circle paintballs). In order to keep the consistency, you may also need to take added precautions against temp and humidity. Of course, you would also need a tray to hold them, as you probably wouldn't want to just throw them in a bag.

I don't know, is it harder to make a perfectly round sphere, or a consistent, straight cylinder? Personally, I think the cylindrical object is easier. With a cylindrical object there may be methods available to bring them closer to spec that aren't feasible with spheres. Have you pondered this?

I wouldn't worry about storage; we have members on the forum hand-sorting paint into stock tubes and storing it all away with dessicants in hermetically sealed containers. We can handle it.

Another problem would be in the design of the shell itself. As has been suggested, the parabolic shape would most likely impart more rigidity. If you create a shell that has break points built in to combat this, then you introduce the need for new tools and/or techniques that are not currently employed. Furthermore, you would have to be sure that this didn't weaken the structure in other directions, such that it might lead to more barrel breaks from a snug fit, or the like.

You also have to wonder how strong a shell you have to have in the first place for a system like this. I wonder if you could go with a thinner shell. I'm still thinking this one over.

Also, I was thinking about a break points today... I wonder how complicated those would need to be. If it could be a process like, say, scoring or making a very small puncture on the front of the round just before firing... that might be enough to drastically improve break rates, perhaps beyond those of regular paintballs.

Aa for the size, I don't think you would want them much smaller. Lowering the size, and weight would mean poorer trajectory in the wind, as well as decreased effective range. Furthermore, while the bullet shape would have more volume, you would still need to maintian enough volume that you would create visible hits that aren't so easily wiped. Finally, from my experience, smaller paint (.40 cal) really doesn't break to well to begin with.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of .50 cal or larger. And, for the third time, keep the weight the same, if for no other reason, just to keep keep the amount of paint a round carries roughly the same for marking purposes. Just imagine squishing a normal paintball into a more cylindrical shape. If you keep the weight the same, but reduce the diameter of the round, while giving it a cylindrical shape, what comparative effects would THAT have on accuracy/range?

Again, I am not saying that this shouldn't be tried, or that I wouldn't use them. But, I do think that it is something that won't be as easy or cost effective as some or you might like to think. Also, we musn't forget the fickle nature of consumers.

You're right; I see this all the time. But do you get the impression that the crowd that wants a product like this might be different from the crowd that wants the latest wiz-bang chromed/splashed low pressure venturi gun?



Anyways, I was just poking around the web last night, and here's some stuff that caught my eye.

http://www.rjengineering.com/process.htm

http://www.cardinal.com/pts/content/aboutus/whoweare/broch/CH-PTS-OT-Hardshell-Sellsheets.pdf

WGPforlife: I'm sure there will be no shortage of people who will prefer to stay with their normal paintball equipment.

Would you care to explain yourself a little better on why you think bullet shaped paintballs would hurt more?

[xXHavokXx]

Would you care to explain yourself a little better on why you think bullet shaped paintballs would hurt more?

Here's my guess: Upon impact the ball's spherical shape collapses into a semi-torroidal shape which either retains its structure an bounces off and returns to normal shape or collapses completely and breaks. The energy is at the point of contact is spread over .68 inches due to initial collapse.

With the pointed bullets the widest part of the ball is .68 inches or whatever that becomes, but the initial impact is going to be with a much narrower point which transfers the energy over a smaller cross section which = more pain.

[Cheeseball24]

also, wouldnt it hurt a whole lot more than a ball? it'd be like a bullet.

so?

[Dayspring]

It's a noble idea... However, quite futile.

You're talking about making proprietary technology to ONE marker. Make a special barrel, breech, paint & loading system. The thing that has allowed paintball to flourish is the fact that there are standards and you can take your hopper from your Spyder to your Timmy and your barrel from your cocker to your DM4.

AGD tried redefining paintball several times. The only one that REALLY took off was compressed air. The Warp feed? Yeah. You see TONS of people with those. Z-grips? Those too.

And btw- the cost of R&D is far more than you think it is. "It shouldn't cost too much to totally redesign a loading system, barrel, breech system & paintball manufacturing." Riiiight.

[tasker89]

Have any of you ever heard of "Machofire" paintballs? Many years ago a gun was "developed" which used a forcefed magazine to fire oblong (football) shaped paintballs. The gun was semi-automatic. It never went anywhere. Niether did the finned "sniper balls" which had to be muzzleloaded. JMHO but this direction was abandoned long ago....diminishing law of returns and all.

You cannot demand real accuracy out of a gel-cap. Which is why high-volume, high ROF markers dominate the game....

It is hard enough to get precision accuracy with real firearms...let alone trying to do it with lightweight balls of egg-shaped gelatin.

edit - http://www.warpig.com/paintball/arti...unkyguns.shtml

[Jaremy Rykker]

Have any of you ever heard of "Machofire" paintballs? Many years ago a gun was "developed" which used a forcefed magazine to fire oblong (football) shaped paintballs. The gun was semi-automatic. It never went anywhere. Niether did the finned "sniper balls" which had to be muzzleloaded. JMHO but this direction was abandoned long ago....diminishing law of returns and all.

You cannot demand real accuracy out of a gel-cap. Which is why high-volume, high ROF markers dominate the game....

It is hard enough to get precision accuracy with real firearms...let alone trying to do it with lightweight balls of egg-shaped gelatin.

edit - http://www.warpig.com/paintball/arti...unkyguns.shtml

I know about the Machofire paintballs, and I know that they didn't work.

However, I quote this to you from Tom Kaye himself.

Based on this data we believe round paintballs are too light and have lousy aerodynamics to expect any more accuracy than what we are currently getting. When the military came to us and wanted a more accurate non lethal system we made a bullet shaped, spin stabilized paintball that far outperformed any equal weight round projectile. Accuracy by volume has been, and will remain, the best way to score eliminations.

These bullet shaped, spin stabilized paintballs far outperformed any equal weight paintball.

This means that Tom Kaye's bullet-shaped rounds would actually outperform any 3.2 gram standard paintball, and the claim that they would be ineffective that a lot of you are claiming is bogus, because Tom Kaye himself has said that out of experience they clearly outperformed the 3.2 gram .68 caliber spherical paintball. I'm not advocating a return to football shaped paintballs, but what about a bullet shaped paintball, or something that looks like a lightened FN303 round. The main point for the weight in the 8.5 gram FN303 round is to increase trauma in the target and be more effective in neutralizing resistance.

Accuracy by volume may make you

But accuracy by skill will make you and and and maybe even

I'm just saying that you could even make a very rudimentary model, and it could still go far if it improves it like I believe it would. As far as pain, I do not believe it would be that significant of an increase. In a standard paintball design, the first impact in fact is at a single point, and then it spreads. Suddenly, the paintball's shape collapses, and the part that is impacting falls back into the paintball while the outside hits you. Therefore, the part causing the pain and welt in a standard paintball isn't the point of contact, but actually much further up the paintball. Why couldn't we refine it that it would be the same with these rifled rounds.

[GoatBoy]

Damn, Jaremy beat me to it.

Yes, that's why we have ring welts. The only thing is with a smaller round as I suggested, you will get a slightly smaller surface area from the toroid formed as the thing breaks (not the surface area based on the diameter of the circle, but the surface area of the toroid ring). But nobody's listening to me on that one, so I assume nobody's actually arguing this point.



In addition, let me reiterate the break point thing.

Paint seems to hurt the most when it doesn't break.

Trying to put a weak point on paintballs doesn't work so well for many reasons, perhaps the greatest reasons being you don't know what point on the paintball is going to make impact, and what point it's going to be accelerated from.

With a bullet shaped round, we get to cheat. We know which point is going to make impact. This also happens to NOT be the point from which the round is accelerated by the gun. It's the front of the round. So... weaken the front of the round.




Dayspring: This is partially true, but I also think that "standards" have really, really held us back in paintball. How long were we as paintballers under the mercy of gravity for our feed systems? This was something of an inherited standard, and propagated to the continued use of feed necks as structural support for hoppers, and people complaining about them constantly breaking as well as having a big blimp on the top of the gun. You can bring up the warp feed, but you have to remember... the warp feed was designed to accomodate the standard feed systems, from both the conventional hopper sitting on top of it to the path right into the chamber through the feed neck. By design (in trying to accomodate the standards), I think the warp was simply... stillborn.

There are a lot of inherent "standards" in paintball; things I call legacy design concepts, that probably could be changed. Feed system orientation/location is one of my bigger peeves, but there are others out there.

The z-grip had issues of its own. I think of the y-grip as the z-grip v2.0.

In addition, why does everyone think that there would be only one gun to support a bullet shaped paintball? Looking at regular equipment, we have tons of guns that shoot the same caliber paintball, yet share practically NO interchangeable parts. We're having a hard enough time just getting a common barrel threading. Where are standards when you need them? Not sharing barrel threads seems to have become the understood standard in paintball. Hell, technically speaking, you can't always just move hoppers from one gun to another; there seem to be two prevailing hopper neck sizes these days: the oversized and the normal. Why the heck do we need two hopper neck sizes for the same size paintballs?!

Hell... we can't even agree on paint size. .689 in the old days used to be large bore. What the crap is up with this .693 and up stuff? Has our LACK of a truly standard paintball size helped or hurt paintball?

Now, on the flipside, I can see the argument when I think about the AT-85 and the Tippmann A-5. Probably more so with the AT-85. I just think the AT-85 was too ahead of its time, really. Kind of like mags. But in the end, I'm not feeling so much pain when it comes to wrecking our "standards".

[xXHavokXx]

Damn, Jaremy beat me to it.

Yes, that's why we have ring welts. The only thing is with a smaller round as I suggested, you will get a slightly smaller surface area from the toroid formed as the thing breaks (not the surface area based on the diameter of the circle, but the surface area of the toroid ring). But nobody's listening to me on that one, so I assume nobody's actually arguing this point.

I think that was me. Yeah the torroidal ring area is right, I was just up too late to think about that.

[Muzikman]

These bullet shaped, spin stabilized paintballs far outperformed any equal weight paintball.

This means that Tom Kaye's bullet-shaped rounds would actually outperform any 3.2 gram standard paintball, and the claim that they would be ineffective that a lot of you are claiming is bogus, because Tom Kaye himself has said that out of experience they clearly outperformed the 3.2 gram .68 caliber spherical paintball. I'm not advocating a return to football shaped paintballs, but what about a bullet shaped paintball, or something that looks like a lightened FN303 round. The main point for the weight in the 8.5 gram FN303 round is to increase trauma in the target and be more effective in neutralizing resistance.

I again point you to this thread.

http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=133126&highlight=FN303

Those little white things are a bullet shaped, finned .68 cal projectile. Read what Manike has to say about how they fly. Then, scroll down and read Tom's post. Yes the white projectiles are not paintballs, but they could be if they were made out of gel caps and liquid filled.

EDIT: Fixed URL

[bubbleman441]

Sorry Muzikman, but my dad doesn't have 303 rounds but he uses the simunition rounds. Since my dad is a firearms instructor, I may be able to get you information on where to purchase this stuff...However, I'm almost 100% sure they won't sell to civilians...but you know we could work out a little deal.

[AGDlover]

I agree with all of that, just not with the picture that was posted. The round in the picture is certainly not the FN303 round you speak of becuase you people are saying it has fins and has no brass casing...now how can you look at that picture and tell me it has not brass casing? I have some of those rounds right here at home if you guy want to see some pictures, I can get them.

Oh ya, let me correct Sniper kings mistaken picture with the real FN303 round...

yes they do use that but my mom works for the IRS and for small arms training the one i posted is one for a small Sig Sor .9mm the one you posted i've yet to see my mom bring home