Swatch

Great topic guys! Should really be Stickied next to Trigger Design methinks...

So my question for those on here is what is most important in optimizing a spring in some different circumstances... What type of spring numbers dominate each of the following circumstances? (# coils, length of travel, coil diameter, wire diameter, spring constant, etc)

What if you want a high impulse blast (short barrel, short travel)?
What if you want a long impulse blast (long barrel, long travel)?


What number is most important for a 'faster spring'?

I meant to post this a while back. Here's the trigger modification I did... feel free to ask questions, I don't have a good picture sadly.



This is a picture of my own along with the other five guns. The long one is mine, the lower one is the green one you see above. Twitch's is the sad looking broken one above mine. And the top three bags contain parts for the final three.

While it may not be "pretty", I can vouch for Twitch's bow, its pretty slick. (and the toe tags prove this)

Anywho... Twitch's Lethal Injection is but one of six that we rushed to finish in time to freak out many an opponent at our weekly Wars.

Hopefully I'll get around to posting pictures of my own, but in the meantime I want to put forth a few of the issues that we had in completing ours so that others may learn from them.

But first, CaptSlug this is a wonderful design that none of the following issues should take away from, so don't take these in a bad light.


1) The biggest issue we had in materials was that of the polycarb plunger tube. On all except one of ours, it developed spidercracks along its length (hence the duct tape wrap you can see above). At first we thought it was due to two o-rings, but it happened with one as well. If you see this happen, just sacrifice the clearness and wrap it in duct-tape or some other stiffer tape (electrical would likely stretch and provide no real additional regidity). Since others haven't had this problem, I'm assuming this may be caused by manufacturing differences.

2) Step 33 calls for a 1" screw on the trigger... I'm not sure if this is a typo, but on our guns, you would need at least an inch and a qtr. The math works out too, 2 x 1/8" handle plastic + 2 x 1/4" spaces + 1 x 1/4" trigger plastic = 1", so no extra to put the nut on. Minor, but just something to be aware of.

3) This is more a suggestion. I had some issues with my trigger, so I replaced it with a pivoting trigger as opposed to the designed sliding trigger. I can post some pictures at some point, but it was pretty easy to modify the design. I find that I like the action of it better, and I believe it will be more reliable in the long run since it provides direct line of action on the trigger plate, as opposed to a sliding contact surface.

4) As CaptSlug mentions, the weakest point in the gun (and almost all springers for that manner) is that of the plunger rod. Primarily where it connects to the plunger itself. I encourage you all to make some replacements and take care when drilling the holes in the end. We've lost two rods at this point, and will likely lose othere (mind you, this isn't a design problem as best I can tell, but its primarily a fabrication issue). That doesn't mean it can't be improved though... and I'm looking into how to do that.

All in all, these are amazing guns though and I greatly enjoyed making and now enjoy using them. Great job CaptSlug.