New Fin Stablised paintball round - possilble airsoft application

ditpaintball

Check this out:
http://www.paintballer.ie/markers/3350-new-tiberius-arms-first-strike-projectile-pics-video.html

Its a fine stabilised paintball i.e. it spins as it travels through the air, reducing drag which increased its distance.

Although they are no longer sphere, they can only be shot with one marker at the moment.

Any BB developments like that? Although it wouldbe pretty hard due to the small size of them. Loading would be a major issue.

Hivemind187

Thats pretty nifty.

In terms of airsoft though I doubt its application would be welcome. Shaping a bb with any sort of a taper would increase the chances of a penetrative wound on bare skin at close range (concentration of energy).

To my knowledge there were bullet shaped BB's developed for a specific line of kit in the early 90's but it didnt take off due to the difficulty involved in loading etc (exactly as you predicted).

Airsofters have "hop-up" which exploits backspin to generate the magnus effect - long story short it causes the BB to rise against the earths gravity while it still has forward momentum. We get extra range that way but we sacrifice power and accuracy.

Its a pity though, "fin stablised ammunition" sounds cool

loneborg

I remember about 20 or so years ago a company called Battle Orders selling airsoft type rifles that fired something more bullet-like then the current BBs.

They seemed more like a Minie Ball, that is a "bullet" shape with a solid head and hollow base, they where plastic and either 6 or 8mm.

Can't remember much else though.

A bullet shape or fins would mean they would need a feed system more like that of real-steel guns, so 100-500 round mags are out.

But if somebody does produce fin/spin stablised airsoft rounds and they do give improved range and accuracy for the same power level (maybe double the range?), then the fact that they don't work in Hi-cap mags and in fact are incompatible with existing Airsoft devices would be a small price to pay for the improved accuracy in the case of sniper rifles.

Need a name for the new rounds? Airsoft Spin Stablised Enhanced Range

kdouglas

Yea, there were finned airsoft rounds (some were 7mm I believe) a good 20 years or so ago, they didn't take off then and to be honest, i'd imagine hopup would prove to be alot better. You can still get some of the finned-capable guns from collector's sales, but I've never bothered, might pick one up some day just for the laugh, but even getting the ammo for them is impossible.

@Hivemind: hopup reduces fps slightly, but not accuracy. In fact, you could say that accuracy is increase as much as the range is.

ditpaintball

We have two different versions of the 'hop up'.

Flatline - is a banana shaped barrel that is sand blasted inside and grabs the paintball as it moves forward, adding the backspin. It add's roughly 100ft-150ft range.

Apex - a silencer type tip for any barrel that has a rubber pad at the end with various degrees of setting - off to full force. The rubber bad basically hangs down slightly over the muzzle and catches the paintball as i leaves the barrel and puts spin on it. The thing about this is that it ran rotate around so you can have curve balls in all direction............ on purpose that is

weeder

ditpaintball wrote: »

Apex - a silencer type tip for any barrel that has a rubber pad at the end with various degrees of setting - off to full force. The rubber bad basically hangs down slightly over the muzzle and catches the paintball as i leaves the barrel and puts spin on it. The thing about this is that it ran rotate around so you can have curve balls in all direction............ on purpose that is

the apex would be similar to our hop up system only ours is always located before the barrel,the BB's load from the mag and into the hop before being fired, the rubber backspin pad you speak of is fixed to the bottom of the barrel, and much like the apex it can be used to your advantage.at one point i ended up using it to curve the BB over some cover and got a kill :pac:

ditpaintball

Erm has anyone considered the fact that people might not want "paint" in airsoft? We wear mesh goggles, have gucci loadouts and most players oppose paint.

I for one don't want any paint anywhere near my gun or loadout.

No one said they have to be paint filled. But if they can make them for paintballs then surely then can make the same shape out of solid plastic for airsoft.


edit... some one removed their post

Masada

It would require the reinvention of the wheel though to be honest, feeding would need a complete redesign, then you would have to find a way of loading them. hopup would also be lost and the system would have to be one hell of a good performer to replace the conventional hopups we use at the moment.

on a plus note, when you spill BBs on the kitchen floor they wont go everywhere.,

Shiva

Masada wrote: »

on a plus note, when you spill BBs on the kitchen floor they wont go everywhere.,

Where were they yesterday when I needed them ????

ditpaintball

The only way they could be loaded is via some index system i.e. belt or in some sort of drum that only delivers one at a time.


I was only pointing it out, but I am sure there is one mad inventor out there who will try to make them

Captain Chaos

If they were to work at all in airsoft I'd say GBBs would be the best to start with and would probably have the best chance of working. They may be more accurate but I can't see the fins reducing the drag enough to compensate for the loss of hopup in range.

Stercus Accidit

That paintball seems to exploit the principle of rifling a barrel, that it geostabalises itself with a spin, increasing accuracy.


In airsoft you would lose all the advanages of hop-up, I'd guess halving our range. The spin on a bb, I'm not aux fait with geostabalisation forces, never covered it in engineering, school or read about it myself, but I think hop up helps prevent a bb moving side to side also in the air along with its magnus effect? Or maybe it is just the magnus effect that is in play, no geo stabalisation.

But in airsoft, without a big power increase, a non hop-upped projectile would be very limited, and if the power did increase, using a hop-up with that increase, would yield even more range, again, the spinning round is at a dissadvantage.

I'd say hop up is the best thing to go for with airsoft, do you lads use many "hop-up" markers in paintball?

ditpaintball

The flatline does the whole maganus effect this for us. See the image below.

With these new rounds, they to travel further and straighter due to the spinning reducing the drag ( boundary layer of air separation stuff going on) and gyroscopic stability (spinning)

So, these give the same effect as if we have used the flatline barrel but they are more accurate. The flatline only puts back spin on paintballs and thus means they are not as accurate.

By the same token in airsoft, if it was applicable, you may not need a hop up device due to the advantages of the shape of the round bring in terms of range and accuracy.




Edit:

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

That paintball seems to exploit the principle of rifling a barrel, that it geostabalises itself with a spin, increasing accuracy.

True except in paintball, nothing happens in the barrel because a proper straight is micro-hones for minimum friction. So attempts to rifle paintballs barrels are by and large, useless or the advantages are negligible.

Stercus Accidit

Ah yeah, I know they are smooth bore, but same principle, spins the round.

The back spin on a bb though, it raises air preasure under the bb, causing an upward curve against gravity, when adjusted and balanced this gives a longer, flatter trajectory.

The spin, if perpendicular to direction of travel, would increas accuracy, but you wouldn't get that upward pushing effect, you may as you say reduce air friction, but you would get a normal downward curved trajectory.

Its the bottom edge of the bb, moving towards the air, and the top moving away, that causes the build in air pressure below the bb, raising it.

I may be wrong but a spin perpendicular to this wouldn't raise the projectile, just stabalise it.

ditpaintball

I understand the way the maganus effect works.

But if this method works for a paintball, then in theory it should work for a bb which is the same shape projectile, just smaller.


The reason this spinning method works to increase the range as apposed to the hopup, flatine method is that it reduces drag more than them.

i.e. less drag means that the round slows down less in the air and thus travels faster that little bit longer while it is droping in the normal trajectory and thus resulting in a longer range.

For a comparasion, the flatline barrel works only is the paintball marker is chrono'd to around 280 fps. Any higher, it spins too much and loses accuracy

Where as with the first strike round as per opening post, the faster you shoot it, the further and straighter it goes.

Stercus Accidit

I get you, but my point is you probably get more range from a hop up system given our limitations on power.

Reducing friction is good, yes, but then you get a standard balistic trajectory, adjustable hop-ups as we use, can be tuned to a near flat trajectory out to 30-40 metres(someone once and for all tell me how far a bb can go at 1 joule!) and that is the benefit most airsofters would want.

Given power limits, I'd say traditional hop-up would get better, flatter range than a projectile using this system, which although is probably not bad, would be negated by cost versus benfit compared to our hop-up system.

Paintballs are pricey enough aren't they? How much are these lads likely to cost?

Dread-Lock

They already have something like this but in hop up form:
http://www.madbullairsoft.com/English/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=109

It has 3 fins inside the hop up instead of on the BB. I've never used in myself but I've been thinking of getting one to try out.

Single Malt

Those fins are to prevent double feeding. Thats all they do. It has a shaped nub to improve contact area, and probably good rubber, making the bucking a good performer in terms of accuracy, but it has nought to do with the fins.
http://infectedairsoft.wordpress.com/reviews/madbull-shark-hop-up-bucking/
is a good review. Off topic to the OP though

Dread-Lock

Single Malt wrote: »

Those fins are to prevent double feeding. Thats all they do. It has a shaped nub to improve contact area, and probably good rubber, making the bucking a good performer in terms of accuracy, but it has nought to do with the fins.
http://infectedairsoft.wordpress.com/reviews/madbull-shark-hop-up-bucking/
is a good review. Off topic to the OP though

Thats where I first heard of them!

Shark Hopup Bucking was originally designed for 470 to prevent double feeding.
By having 3 special "fins" inside the bucking, Shark Hopup Bucking can hold one and only one B.B. tightly in the chamber.
In the mean time, to our surprise, we found that this bucking could enhance the velocity on some AEGs.
But not all AEGs will have the same results and the result could be different from one AEG to another.
Unfortunately, we don't know the exact reason because each AEG has its own characteristics.
However, we do believe that the friction (from 3 fins) applied onto B.B. will enhance the velocity.

And in the Infected Airsoft review, he replaced his Guarder silicon hop up with one of these and got better results (after a little modding).

I know they were intended to stop double feeding, but both Madbull and Infected Airsoft said you can get better results from this hop up.

Single Malt

My guess is that that is a result of the nub, combined with a good rubber compound. Just because it gets better results than guarder bucking, doesn;t mean it acts in some way to what the OP mentioned. Its still a traditional hop up, that puts back spin on the bb, its just been refined further.

Dread-Lock

TBH I don't really care how it does it, I'm still going to try them out .
I just thought seeing as we were discussing fin stabilized projectiles and hop up units. Why not include hop ups with fins in them...

Single Malt wrote: »

Its still a traditional hop up, that puts back spin on the bb, its just been refined further.

I never said it was anything otherwise.


I personally don't see how the fins would do much if anything other then stopping double feeding. I myself assumed it was the action of the fishbone nub. But Madbull seem to think its the fins. And seeing as I only know the basics of aerodynamics/stabilization/magnus effect/etc. I'm going to go with what Madbull says as I don't have the proof or knowledge to go against it.

Stercus Accidit

Thats it, I'm attaching fins to my aeg, my bdu, and all my tla's, rpk, smg, lmg etc...

I am doubly reminded of the tanio koba twisty barrels, some physics just don't apply to improve airsoft.

The finned hop-up does the same as your regular hop, apply friction to the top of the bb, causing a spin, but like a h nub, it could be a better way of doing this than a regular hop shape.

Regarding the OP, re the finned paintball, possibly bb, it might actually make sence to use one for snipersif they were operating in a country with a higher power limit, where a hop would add range, their accuracy as a sniper at that range could be limited using traditional hop, using a 'rifled' bb, may make sense at that range, if the accuracy was the main benefit, and given the low use of ammo by a sniper, an increase in price may be ok.
Would also include trajectory and range into the sniping role, but that would be purely dependant on power limits.

ditpaintball

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Regarding the OP, re the finned paintball, possibly bb, it might actually make sence to use one for snipersif they were operating in a country with a higher power limit, where a hop would add range, their accuracy as a sniper at that range could be limited using traditional hop, using a 'rifled' bb, may make sense at that range, if the accuracy was the main benefit, and given the low use of ammo by a sniper, an increase in price may be ok.
Would also include trajectory and range into the sniping role, but that would be purely dependant on power limits.

Thats how they are marketing it, the sniper round


Due to the unique shape of them, only 1 or two markers will be able to use them. Also, they are very expensive, currently at retail in the states for $0.75 a pop and they come in tubes of 8 - which works with the guns the work with whom have mags of 8

Expensive yes. but if you are a true sniper, the cost for a day will be the same, if not less. We buy paintballs by the box of 2000 for €30-40 depending on quality. I typically go through 500-800 rounds a day when we play serious skirmishes You can spray and pray all you like and still hit nothing

Stercus Accidit

Given that most markers have no hop up or their equivilant special barrel, would a sniper in paint ball not be better off using a marker with longer range rather than higher accuracy? As having a range adding barrel would not be common, or do they have a higher power also?

ditpaintball

The flatline system as described earlier can only be fitted on the tippman brand of markers from stock, but people do fit them on other types of marker in custom works.

The Apex type can be fitted on any paintball marker.


Your question on accuracy over range, good one. For starters, with current paintball technology, even the best equipment is only so accurate. Windage has a big effect etc.

That being said, I would think a sniper would prefer accuracy over range anyday, because a person who can play a sniper position should be able to get fairly close to the enemy undetected anyway or be able to remain in place for a period of time to find them selves in a position where the enemy has come up to them

In that case, the sniper would want to make sure his 5 close range shots are going to hit the mark. If you know what I mean. anny