5 replies to this topic

[Nerf Gra]

So I got 2 dozen of Draconis's Small Bore Ballistic Balls and naturally I want to shoot them at my friends. I spent a little time walking around Lowes dropping one of the balls through any and every tube I could find.

What I found was that the best fit around was a 1-1/2 galvanized steel pipe that weighed about 5lbs. Obviously this won't do for a war ready blaster.

The next best fit (which is still really good) was in one of these nifty drain extenders.



They come in a bunch of different sizes and configurations but this is the one I got.



Now that I have a barrel material I have to find something for it to nest in to get it to a common PVC size.

More searching revealed that this tube fits well inside THINWALL 1-1/4. My Lowes carries thin wall PVC in many sizes so this wasn't a problem.

So I brought it home and cut it roughly in half. Because I don't have something like a COBRA that can put out enough air to fire one of these balls out of a 12inch barrel.



Nest that in some 1-1/4 PVC. Needed only a single layer of tape to fit perfect.





Now to get from the 1/2 inch coupler standard on the front of my blasters to the 1-1/4 of that barrel



APPARENTLY My Lowes was out of 1-1/4 to 1/2inch bushings that most people would have used so I had to take an extra step. So I went 1/2 to 3/4 bushing then 3/4 to 1-1/4 bushing. Then all that into a 1-1/4 coupler.



Then added a bit of 1/2 PVC to get back to the coupler in the blaster.



Heres the entire assembly in my BBBB (stock pump and oprv)



And you're done.

Ranges? Dont really matter as this is more of a writeup for the barrel. But....

What I found is both ball size and tube diameter vary SLIGHTLY. So ranges are rather varied as well. With my BBBB I could get anywhere from 35-55ft.

But that's all I really wanted. I just want something to shoot them relatively well and I got it with this setup. However you could do better as I have a relatively large amount of dead space for a singled-style barrel and the RELATIVELY small amount of air in a stock BBBB. I hope to make some sort of multi round barrel assembly in the future, perhaps a Hopper or RSCB will add to this thread if/when I do.

Hope this helps anyone who was thinking of buying these balls but didn't have anything to fire them with. I know this was really simplistic and easy but I only thought it right to go along with the effort to make the site a little more newb friendly.


PS: TO any of the big war hosts out there would you allow something like a cobra or titan tank if it fired these balls in a similar configuration?

Edited by Nerf Gra, 09 May 2014 - 06:11 PM.

[Exo]

Nice.

Is that a squeezy fit or a looseish fit? How does the iron pipe compare to that? What was your determination for bore quality, being "airgun fit" or "springer fit"? Do you have to manhandle the balls to get them in?

(If I were a war host, this would be totally legal. 50' in balls isn't that much ouch.) I think most war hosts would be chill with this on a Cobra/(Cobra variant)/Titan, especially if shotgun-loaded or shotgun-barreled.

Personally, I'd love to see you put a RSCB on this, and see what happens. I'd also love to see my GRSCB scaled up for this application.

[Nerf Gra]

Do you have to manhandle the balls to get them in?

Giggity...




Um its loosish. I'd say airgun fit. Closest comparison is log home white foam in schedule 80. Some of the smaller balls could nearly fall through. Compared to that the iron pipe is a tighter fit but not quite springer.

I'd like to see the spring gun that could fire one of these.

I have an idea for a rscb that should be easy BUT I feel like it would need so much more air that I have to use a different blaster/air source. I need to find a cobra somewhere just too test crap with. Or build a PVC tank but I don't really want too lest the PVC safety police desend on me.

[Mully]

I really love where this is going, someone (Calipants?) brought something similar to last years 'Geddon, he took two foam balls like these, had a ~1" pipe hooked up to an SGSL, rammed a ball down the barrel, threw in a bunch of darts, rammed down another ball, and set it off a few times. The effect was pretty pretty sweet; none of use used it, though I heard it was a great DTC weapon to have lying around during game play. It only shot ~20', the spread was excellent though.
I've seen these components lying around various hardware stores, I just haven't looked into them further. Don't worry about getting slammed for pvc tanks either; as long as you play it safe, you'll be fine. I don't think it'll be efficient to use however, the problem with the projectile is that its size-to-weight ratio is pretty unbalanced, for lack of better terminology, so the most you'll get out of it, unles you want to modify the projectile, or build some sort of ridiculous, unpractical accelerator, is probably around what you're getting now.
Looks great!

Edited by Mully, 09 May 2014 - 10:39 PM.

[Nerf Gra]

I freaking love shooting these things. They are unpredictable in some directions (up and down) but fly fairly straight left and right. They sort of knuckleball through the air. Its really neat to watch. I think these would benefit from some sort of rifling or even hop-up but I'm not sure how to implement either of those as neat as it would be. Its more a fansiful idea than anything. Even if it could be done I'm not sure it would be practical at all.

[Nerf Gra]

UPDATE: Successfully RSCB'd out of a mad ghost style gun. Interestingly ranges didn't suffer all that much. Possibly due to the amount of air and or dead space. Don't have any pictures yet cause I need to prefect the reloading of the "clip". I am closing on a house tomorrow so it may be a while before I get to it.

Officially my favorite dickin around blaster. Thing is too much fun to chase people around with.