Sniper bullet for airsoft

[yuhaoyang]

Originally Posted by kalnaren

Yes. There's a reason footballs are teardrop shaped.

I had meant specifically for BBs, since spherical BBs with back spin seem to have out lasted the finned BBs? XD

[kalnaren]

Originally Posted by yuhaoyang

I had meant specifically for BBs, since spherical BBs with back spin seem to have out lasted the finned BBs? XD

It would probably make a difference.. the problem with teardropping a BB is that it's have to be somewhat larger to be equal weight. Backspin is a very simple and echonomic way of doing it that's "good enough."

[yuhaoyang]

yeah, true true, but atleast backspin delays the rate of drop in height, where as that would be subject to a normal ballistic drop rate.
I can't really say much beyond that since I don't own a gun which uses stabilizing fin BBs DX

[tunabreath]

I'm fairly certain that the primary reason airsoft BBs are spherical is because it's
a) the most inexpensive shape to produce with acceptable finish tolerances
b) easier to design a working feed mechanism and higher capacity magazines for any kind of automatic or otherwise self loading gun (because a sphere can be fed and fired in any direction)

It has little if anything to do with actual performance, and neither of those factors are a priority when looking at high precision setups like target shooting and sniper platforms.
If cost were a major issue, I imagine fewer snipers would be buying Maruzen SGMs. Likewise, feeding is not as much of an issue for much simpler manually operated designs.

Look at air rifles. Plinkers, blowbacks, and self loaders tend to fire .177 BBs because they're much easier to load/feed. Most target rifles fire .177 pellets instead, because they're more stable in flight.

That said, fin stabilized projectiles for airsoft are a terrible, terrible idea. Look at those RAP4 ones. They simply suck. It's because maintaining tight tolerances on such a complex shape is extremely difficult on such a small scale over such large quantities.

Far better would be the common 'bullet' shape. There's a reason real rifles fire them. Or even conical/minie ball style projectiles, like air rifle pellets. The flared end keeps the projectile stable in the same way fins would (as well as providing a smaller contact surface with the barrel to grip the rifling better), only with a much simpler and more easily manufactured shape. It really depends on whether range or stability are greater factors after testing whether a boat-tailed/teardrop shape or a flared/conical shape is better.

The main problem I can see with a PURE football/teardrop is that it's difficult to seat it in the chamber the same way every time. It needs some kind of cylindrical or two point shape to seat, however the ends are shaped.

[DonP]

Originally Posted by tunabreath

[...] The flared end keeps the projectile stable in the same way fins would (as well as providing a smaller contact surface with the barrel to grip the rifling better), only with a much simpler and more easily manufactured shape.

You've hit upon an important point even if you didn't spell it out - the pellet/bullet shape is only really stabilized when the projectile is spinning (like, rifled-barrel spinning).

Smoothbore barrels and spherical ammo really is the sweet spot complexity and performance-wise for airsoft guns (power users aside, airsoft was and largely still is plastic toy guns firing lightweight ammo at low velocities for use at short ranges.)

[Con Murder]

Originally Posted by tunabreath

The main problem I can see with a PURE football/teardrop is that it's difficult to seat it in the chamber the same way every time. It needs some kind of cylindrical or two point shape to seat, however the ends are shaped.

You know all snipers would curse those 'bullet' just because of feed problems even if it worked decent!

[Mitchell12]

Originally Posted by Con Murder

You know all snipers would curse those 'bullet' just because of feed problems even if it worked decent!

Why would it feed badly? A drastic change wouldn't really be needed especially for sniper mags who wouldn't need a large capacity mag and therefore wouldn't need any turns in the feeding. An elongated chamber(I want to say hop up but it wouldn't work) and obviously a longer Nozzle to go with the longer chamber.

I realize that's seems like alot but what I meant is that it wouldn't need a completely new system.

Heres what I was thinking chamber/hop-up wise. I don't have any bolt actions though so I dunno if a similar approach could be taken.



This ofcourse assumes that it would be cylindrical.

[SHÖCK]

Most of these ideas probably aren't useful unless you use a rifled barrel anyway, because you would need the rifling in order to balance out imperfections in the projectile (teardrop, fin, pellet, bullet, etc.) as it goes through the air. A bb with backspin probably is the best solution in these cases. There's just not enough mass or power behind it at airsoft velocities to gain any appreciable advantage.

[Auhydride]

Hello
Sorry for lack of responds,
My partner went missing two days ago, I suspect he won't come back any sooner, I'm currently trying to find the AP prototypes and their drafts which might be left in our (now shut down) shooting range, and going to continue the project myself with the help of mechanical engineers at my university. I really hope I can find the prototypes.
Sorry it went like this.

[tunabreath]

Damn, that's not good... I hope you can continue moving forward with this. Best of luck to you Auhydride.

[Eclipse1]

i'm not certain if this has been proposed yet, but for feeding, why not a real steel type mag. like a pistol mag. as before mentioned, there is no reason for these bbs to have to feed through a high cap mag. that way the orientation of the bb is assured

[Mitchell12]

Yea I didn't even think of high-caps. beside if it's for snipers it' won't matter anyways. There's no snipers running around with tactical maraca's I'm sure.

[Auhydride]

Decided to post updates here as things progress, if you people don't mind, and because it's like it's off a movie.
Found the plans of the old prototype (the white one) but the newer black ones doesn't seem to be have anything on paper.

[holycannoli]

I'm sure 90% of you have seen these already, but...

I don't know too too much about airsoft, I'm more into paintball, but you may want to have a look at this. Tiberius Arms (paintball company) just came out with the first effective sniper round for paintball (the Tiberius First Strike) not long ago. I've watched alot of test videos, read alot of reviews, etc. and it looks pretty impressive. I haven't got my hands on any first strike paintballs myself, though.



They use the same type of shape as what's posted on the first page here (to a certain degree).

Check it out: Tiberius Arms

[Styrak]

Heh, they kind of look like rifled shotgun slugs.