virtues of titanium

[einhander619]

I think everybody in this thread, including myself, needs to go play some speedball!!!

[Movieboy007]

I dont think magnesium would work very well at all. Magnesium is an Alkaline Earth Metal, it reacts quickly with air and water. If water ever got in the gun, a possibility of reaction exists. In addition oxidation or "rusting" of the magnesium occurs readily in any moist environment. Without a heavily oiled valve, the Magnesium would quickly gain a coating of Magnesium Oxide which is more of a powdery coating on the metal and could possibly damage the valve and the gun. Unless the magnesium is in an aloy in small proportions I would doubt that it could be used in a paintball valve. In addition, its a rather soft and malleable metal, not the best properties for a valve.

[Hamster Huey]

I'm sure that eskimo is referring to magnesium alloys, not pure magnesium. In addition to the numberous problems you already mentioned, you'd have to worry about your magnesium valve catching fire

[Magluvr]

Originally posted by steveg
Furthermore Red you show the mechanical properties for
pure titanium only. tensile strenght can be as high
as 1380 MPa (1 MPa = 145.038psi) for alloyed and heat treated Ti

Steel and stainless are by definition alloys (of iron)
aluminum with the exception of beverage cans is almost always an alloy.

titaniums downfall is that it doesn't wear well (rubbing friction)

So if I were to buy a Titanium boomstick, I would be basically shooting myself in the foot. It would be great for a little while, then wear out and I would have to get a new one??? Just out of curiousity does Titanium wear better or worse than anodized aluminum. (Say in the Ultralite Boomstick barrel)

[Hamster Huey]

If you bought a titanium boomstick, I think the only place you would be shooting yourself is in your wallet. The gelatin capsule on a paintball is nowhere near hard enough to put a scratch into a barrel, whether it's Ti, steel, or Al.

As for whether a Ti barrel wears quicker than an Al barrel - you would never be able to see a difference between the two even after tens of thousands of rounds (provided you were shooting clean paintballs). If you dipped your paintballs in glue and rolled them in sand before shooting, then you might be able to see a difference after a while.

[alienphreak1]

With the bolt thing why not use the lightest metal and use a coating or sleeve that would harden? I've seen this done on spacecraft. They use a lightweight aluminum and cover it in a diamond coating that costs like $4 a cubic inch.

[xatle]

why not just make the bolt out of aluminum, put 1.5 mils of hard anodize on it (AL2O3 has a rockwell hardness of 9) soak it in a teflon suspension and screw on a tempered stainless coller for the seer to catch?