Velocity of the dart should correlate directly to the distance the dart will go, but only if your darts go in a staight line. In other words, you could have a very high velocity dart coming out of the barrel but if it starts spiraling, fishtailing, etc it wont go very far. So you must have already found the correct weight,etc for your darts to go straight. Other than that . . . . . this method is fantastic for figuring out exactly what mods give you the most increase.
Everyone wants to know how far a gun will shoot. In the end this should be what matters when it comes to a guns power. However everyone always asks was it level? Angled? Wind? Skip? etc. etc." We want to eliminate as many variable as possible.
We want to measure VELOCITY of the darts. This is just like every other gun out there. Paintball, Airsoft, etc. They are all measured in feet per second (FPS)
I wanted to be able to tell without a doubt that one barrel length is better than another, or this type of stefan is better than another and so on. Wanna know EXACTLY how much faster your darts go without restrictors in it?
A chronograph is a device that measures velocity of a projectile, usually in Feet per Second. These arent cheap, usually around $50 cheapest and they dont even go low enough to measure a nerf gun. what to do . . .
Heres the basic idea:
The tip of your barrel is placed exactly 10 feet from a piece of paper(suspended between two legs of a chair or whatever).
Use a audio splitter from your computer to two microphones, one place by your gun and one placed behind the piece of paper.
I used this model available from Target (and their website) for $9.99
next download the free software called Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
This program will allow you to record sound and then go back and select specific points in time. With the chrono set up, hit record and fire your gun from exactly 10 feet away at the piece of paper. When you review what you recorded it should look something like this.
Now select the very front/beginning of the first sound (gun firing) and drag it to the very front of the second sound(dart hitting paper). It should now tell you exactly how long it took for the dart to travel 10 feet, to the nearest .0001 second!
Do this 5 times for an average time and then go on to your next modification and see how much of a difference it made.
A typical totally stock gun will be in the .35 second range.
Now we want to convert that time into FPS (feet per second)
The formula is : 10 divided by your average time
For example: my bone stock Nitefinder had an average time of .3715 seconds. 10 divided by .3715 = 27fps(feet per second)
I tested this out all night on a Nightfinder and a Longshot. I cant believe how accurate and consistent this setup is. I recorded 5 shots each time and averaged them for each mod.
Very fun seeing the difference you make with mods, a stock NF shoots on average 27fps and mine right now is shooting at 101fps!
My highest average was a AT3k that went 140FPS, with individual shots as high as 160fps!
Here is a picture of the setup in my living room
Edited by Garrett76z, 01 February 2007 - 04:45 PM.
