New Sport !!! BP Based Paintball War Games !!!

[ElvinWarrior]

I have this really bizzare idea rattling around in my head... And I want to bounce it off of a few other heads in this forum to see what the reaction is...

Paint ball guns are apparently alot of fun for alot of people... But, I hardly ever see any BP enthusiasts showing any interest in this passtime, which, with all the games and scenarios they come up with, can be, alot of fun... Apparently. Any of our members who have kids old enough to handle a paint ball fight, might find this idea a bit of fun as well...

Why so few... BP paintballers????

Well, probably, it's because... ummm.... We like BP guns, NOT fully automatic gas powered overpriced toys, that slam paint balls all over your clothes, and sometimes, really can sting and give you a hell of a welt...

And... the sport is biased towards modern guns... Paint Ball guns that look, feel, actually work like, semi automatic and fully automatic modern or at least WWII era guns.

There are no BP paint ball guns.... Right??? Ever heard of one??? I never have...

Before we get into this discussion too far... Before anyone calls the ATF or the OHS on me butt... Before you radical liberals call the fire chief on me... Allow me to point out... A) Air rifles have more power and more destructive force that paintballs do... B) ALL firearms represent a potential fire hazard, even modern smokeless guns can start a brush fire... C) If I took one of my actual for real BP reproduction guns, say a 50 Cal fllintlock... loaded it with 5gr of black powder, a waxed cork wad on top of the powder, a paintball on top of that... That would be called, a blank load, in a real gun... SO... don't NOBODY go ballistic on me for suggesting that one of the prop guns, some of which can FIRE from the factory, is in violation of some kind of law by converting it to fire paint balls... NONESENSE !!!

Butt......

There are tons of stage/prop guns that can fire a paint ball, with a little clever manipulation on the part of the BP enthusiast... Some of them only cost a little, like re-enactment flintlock pistols, whose mechanisms cock, whose hammers strike, whose hammer jaws hold a flint and spark... But.. they say ALL OVER the place, wherever you see these guns offered for sale..

"Non-Firing Guns... Cannot fire real ammunition... Cannot be made to fire real ammunition...."

Butt.....

3 grains of Black Powder, ignited in the barrel of the re-enactment prop gun... firing a lightweight paint ball out.... Is NOT a full load of real ammunition is it???... And I doubt, very, very much, that the barrels of these guns would explode or be any danger to anyone, at 3 grains of black powder per charge...

Some of these paint ball guns out there, cost nearly as much as the real thing, they are very expensive toys, and work, and feel like, and look like, the actual real gun as well... But... they aren't firing real ammunition either, they pop out the paint balls using compressed carbon dioxide as the propellant, and in some models, these guys run around with battary powered mini air compressors strapped to their hips or backs, and the compressed air is the source of propellant...

I did some reasearch... on the paint balls themselves... interesting stuff paint balls... They come in the following round ball calibers...

.40 Caliber Paint Balls
.43 Caliber Paint Balls
.50 Caliber Paint Balls
.68 Caliber Paint Balls

Hmmm.... Somehow... those callibers look alot like early American flintlock and percussion calibers... Is this a co-incidence or what?

The .40 caliber ball, could be rammed down a .40 caliber prop gun barrel, either pistol or musket, without a patch... just dab in a small amount of crisco grease in the barrel, as a lube, stuff the ball down on top of the very small micro charge of 3 grains of black powder.

Actually... it would go down more like this... measure out the 3 grains of BP, swab the barrel with a patch to remove any execess grease, and douse any embers... pour in the small powder charge...Lean the barrel in the direction of the ignition port, whether flint or percussion, so the small powder charge is in the immeadiate area of the ignition port... Ram down one clean, un-lubbed, cotton ball... to seat the charge against the ignition hole, and prevent the charge from migrating away from the ignition source. Place a dab of crisco grease in the barrel, place the 40 caliber paint ball on the barrel end... use the ramrod to run the paint ball, and lube, down to the cotton swab, and seat the paint ball on the bottom... If the ball goes down a bit too loose, or a bit to easy... I would ram a second cotton ball down on top of the paint ball to ensure it didn't rattle about down there.

Now, prime the gun, either by cap or flint pan charge....

One Loaded, single shot, .40 Caliber paint ball gun ready to go....

The .43 caliber paint ball, would work on a 44 caliber barrel, with a patch on the ball..

The .50 caliber paint ball, no patch, but maybee, one cotton ball rammed down on top to keep the ball down...

The .68 caliber paint ball would work on a 69 caliber barrel, with a patch...

Now, I have never actually ever purchased any kind of a re-enactment non-firing prop gun of any kind ever... I see them online, they look to me, from the photographs like they could fire a paint ball, with a very small charge of powder to propell the ball out...

But... I have no idea what actual caliber, if any, the actual barrel size is on these re-enactment guns... They may need some kind of boring work done to them to make them able to accept a standard paint ball caliber.

And... I am sure there is no ignition port actually set up on the gun... in the case of the flintlocks, a flash hole would need to be drilled down into the breech area of the back end of the barrel.

In the case of percussion ignited BP re-enactment "model" guns... The area where the dummy nipple is, would need to be sawed off, and filed.. an actual ignition hole drilled down into the breech, a larger hole drilled and taped to accept an actual percussion cap nipple...

Re-enactment revolvers... would need even more work, I am sure.

I did some quick, "off the cuff", calculations about bore sizes versus Painball calibers... And I came up with the following two simple charts for re-boring barrels and the cylinders of revolvers...

As we all know... Revolver cylinders and barrels are best set to undersize of the actual ball caliber, since patches are not used on revolvers. For revolvers, I would suggest the following bore diameters for both the cylinders and barrels, so that the paintballs fit very snugly, in fact just a teency undersized, so the balls have to be pressure forced down into the cylinder chambers. These balls are pliable plastic outer shells, filled with a gelled "paint", which is actually not a paint at all, it does wash off. But they are malable enough to be forced into a slightly undersized cylinder chamber. I would also suggest some sort of wadding, in the case of the 40 caliber and 43 caliber paint balls, a standard lubbed or unlubbed 44 Caliber ball pad would be very helpfull to protect it from the heat and flame of the propellant charge. I would also suggest, lubbing the top of the balls, once seated into the cylinders, with cheap crisco vegitable cooking grease. I wouldn't waste my very expensive barrel butter or bear grease on a paintball !!! So, here is my suggested boring diameters for re-boring the cylinders and barrels of REVOLVER re-enactment stage/prop guns to re-work them into FIRING Paintball guns.

0.40 Caliber........................ 3/8"
0.43 Caliber........................ 13/32"
0.50 Caliber........................ 15/32"
0.68 Caliber..........,............. 3/4"

For single shot muzzle loading rifles and pistols, both flintlocks and percussions, no... I am not going to venture out into the land of cartridge guns, if anyone wants to go there, they can go there on there own... Not heading that way with this article.... I suggest the following diameters.

Now... These diameters are a teency bit OVERSIZED, because as we all know, these kinds of guns function best with a patched ball, which works out nicely for these paintballs, since, having a patch on them, would protect them from the heat and flame of the propellant charge. So, here is that suggested diameter chart.

0.40 Caliber Paintball, bored out to 0.42 Caliber............ 13/32"
0.43 Caliber Paintball, bored out to 0.44 Caliber............ 7/16"
0.50 Caliber Paintball, bored out to 0.52 Caliber............ 33/64"
0.68 Caliber Paintball, bored out to 0.70 Caliber............ 5/8"

As you can see, none of these diameters are bizzare weird sizes, some were downsized a tad, some upsized a tad in order to use very commonly available machine drill diameters and boring tools...

Just by looking at the gun designs, the fact that the firing mechanisms and cylinder rotating mechanisms all funtion and work like real BP guns... leads me to believe, with a small amount of clever home gunsmithing, a prop gun, could be transformed from a "Non-Firing" gun... into a BP paint ball re-encactment model, that could handle a very small charge of say 3 grains of BP, to propell the paint ball at its target... safely, with out harm to anyone or damage to the gun as well.

Does anyone else think this could work? Would these little re-enactment BP Paint Ball guns actually work safely after these modifications? Or am I going to blow the damn thing up in the process... hopefully not loosing any of my fingers?

What do you guys think about this idea?

Sincerely,

Elvin Warrior... aka... David

The following few pictures are examples of some of the re-enactment "model" guns that actually have working firing hammers, either flint or percussion, and working flint jaws, that can actually hold a working flint and spark, and working frizzens and frizzen springs, and flash pans...

A little BP in the flash pan and it definately would go "pooofffff !!!"

A few simple modifications to the barrel and breech, and the 3 grain powder charge would go "Bang !!!".... and out comes a flyin your paint ball !!!



In the above pictures I am only showing one percussion re-enactment "model" gun, but they have tons of them, percussion single shot pistols, percussion revolvers, sharps, enfields, zuaves, Any gun you can find online for a real BP gun, you can find a re-enactment "model" gun of, and at greatly reduced prices. For example, an actual real 50 caliber sharps carbine would be around 1,000 to 1,600 for an actual real firing reproduction gun. The same model, in a re-enactment model version, that had a wooden stock, and metal parts, and a metal barrel, and looked, worked, felt like and even weighs the same as a real gun, comes in at between 86 and 150 bux... CHEAP TOYS...

I am confident they can be made to fire paint balls safely, really I think that this could be a really fun passtime and fun hobby for alot of BP enthusiasts out there.

They even have cheap plastic exploding caps for these enactment guns... like the following pics... The first pack is $1.35, the second, $1.89 and the third... a whopping $0.74.... Yes, thats right, 74 cents for a pack of 72 exploding plastic toy cap gun caps made with a percussion explosive powerful enough to ignite a small BP powder charge. Some of my BP contacts on the net, tell me, that these little caps actually fit the standard #11 nipple very snugly and very well, that because they are pliable plastic, they actually seal the nipple from moisture. BUT... sometimes they don't ignite the charge as reliably as the commercial metal caps manufactured for BP use... But, BUT... there is a fix for that, snip open a second cap, carefully pry out the charge pancake, place the charge pancake inside one of the other caps, to double the ignitor charge, seal with either a puff of cheap clear hair spray, or... a thin dab of either cheap clear laquer fingernail polish, or if you prefer, the clear red laquer... Allow to dry... and VIOLA, Reliable, SURE FIRE, ever-ready CHEAP percussion caps that actually fit SNUGLY on the #11 Nipple !!!








Latterz Guys...

I am Looking forward to our first BP Paint Ball shoot-em-up-bang-bang-game !!! I will be the guy with the blunderbuss, and a brace of 4 flintlock pirate pistols, wearing my spanish conquestadore helmet (Brass) and breastplate...

Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka... David

 

[Olmontanaboy]

Elf Boy,,,,, listen man,,,, going off your meds is not a good idea

 

[rdstrain49]

Interesting, but no. Another goofy idea from the left coast, but to each his own.

 

[BHP FAN]

I voted ''you'll put your eye out'', but really, I could see it, with proper loads, and proper protective equipment.The loads could be worked up, safely and scientifically, before being used on an actual human.Wax seems like a bad idea, but something like a giant foam earplug would work as a cushion between the charge and the paintball,and the ball could be patched to keep it from ripping open in the barrel... you could use red paintballs, like they do in the movies,but you'd have to verify that no one had a gun with an actual charge, by loading on location. There would have to be lawyers and waivers...but yeah, I could see historical re-enactment/wargameing takeing off...

 

[Mike OTDP]

Hmm...

I'd be inclined to do it with a fairly conventional paint ball gun, but set up for use as a single-shot muzzle-loader. Pull your paintball out of your cartridge pouch, ram it down the barrel, and fire.

The real problem would be that back in the Good Old Days, edged weapons were a pretty big part of fighting. There was a reason why everybody was wearing or carrying some sort of sword, knife, or bayonet. If you wanted to really replicate things, you would have to come up with a way to simulate that safely.

 

[Busyhands94]

if you use a modern 209 primer muzzleloader you could just use a 209 primer and no charge, i am sure it would work well. and for realism you could use black 50 caliber paintballs since they look kinda like musket balls. i actually had an idea some years back about doing this, i just never had a muzzleloading rifle and some paintballs on hand at the same time. on the topic of shooting your friends with plastic/paint i once built a .50 caliber muzzleloading pneumatic shotgun/rifle that i used to load a foam wad down the barrel, pour a film canister of airsoft BBs or airsoft paintballs down the bore, and then a little cotton on top, when i used it in an airsoft war everyone literally hated me because i practically had a blunderbuss. the difference was like a blunderbuss compared to a .22 short CB.

 

[Capt. Redbeard]

Bloody 'el!

I've always wondered that myself! I'm so in dude!

 

[ElvinWarrior]

Olomontanboy...

Don't be too quick to judge a general idea that you haven't thought through too well. This post, is only a feeler post, the project is quite real, and has multiple partners. The exact real production methodes that will be used are similar to, but not exactly like, the proposal here. Black Powder will not be actually used as the propellant, that was done here, because of this forum, you guys here understand the properties of what 4 grains of BP could propell, but, we can't sell BP to underage kids, or cartidges that contained them, thats 70% of the actual market at this time. The actual propellant will be an ingintion pellet of a pyrotechnical nature, a pellet, no measuring, one pellet, one fire. It will not be an explosive class propellant, but a rapidly burning chemical pellet that will produce the same propellant force as 4 grains of BP, but be legal for minors to purchase and use. SImiliar in concept to the Estes Model rocket engines, kids can legally buy those, companies can legally sell them to them, they are not composed of any explosive or detonation type of chemical mix, they are pyrotechincal propellants. Ours will be a slightly modified formula containing additional elements not actually required by the propellant to propell the paint ball down the tube, the additions will be to produce a visible flash out of the barrel, to produce a cloud of smoke, to create a smell, similar to gunpowder, but not be gunpowder at all... All of that is EFFECT, to hook in the kids to something that is much more like the real deal, but is propelled by a safe propellant that can't possibly overload because of its design, but smells like, looks like, makes smoke like, a real gun. THe kids will go nutso cucoo over a design like this, I garuantee you.

This is a test, a marketing test, to test the idea of BP type muzzle loading products as an introductory product line for the Paintballing industry. It is a market, completely ignored, by existing Paintball manufacturing industries, they concentrate on fully automatic and semi-automatic paintball gun systems, which are propelled by, very sophisticated, complex, difficult and expensive to manufacture and purchase burst pressurized gas systems.

These sophisticated paintball fully automatic machine gun type guns can cost into the 5, 6, 700 dollar range to purchase.... This is excessively expensive for a passtime sporting equipment requirement.

We will introduce our products into an ignored segment of the industry, BP Muzzleloading, to refine and perfect our basic design approach, ignition propellant bursts, instead of complex pressurize bursting systems. This will significantly simplify the actual gun systems down to simple mechanical systems that can be manufactured with inexpensive metal stamped mechanical parts. The force, to drive the paintballs, will be, a pyrotechnical approach, simple, cheap, reliable, and actually simulates real guns much more closely than existing C02 or in some cases very expensive and complex miniature portable battary powered air compressors which deliver an endless supply of pressurized bursts of pressurized air as the propellant... THis is why this approach to driving a simple ball down a simple smooth bore barrel is so terribly expensive to produce.

We will introduce our approach, under the radar, below their marketing screens, and we are confident, they will react to our products in much the same you did...

"Poor folks forgot to take their meds !!!"....yuck, yuck, yuck

They have no clue.....

When we release phase two, then phase three, in fairly rapid sucession..

they won't have time to re-tool, and we will blow their products right off the map. We will do paintballing better, more realistically, more funly, for alot less money with a product that actually works nearly exactly like the real thing.

That is where we are headed.

hardly the delusinon of a mentally incompetant mind sir.

have fun watching the company take off from your peanut gallery.

A little personal story, a real one... from my own Father.

My dad, was a master tool and die maker, a well educated, very highly skilled master machinist. He was regaurded in his time as one of the very top men in his field. He was approached, once, by a young man with a wild eyed and crazy idea he thought was total fruit loops...

The young inventor, whom my father thought may be having some sort of mental problems, wanted one of the top men in the field he was in, to for FREE build him a set of master injection dies, to use a new process called plastic injection molding, to use for a case, for a revolutionary new product he had invented.

He offered my father, 10% ownership of his startup company, if he would, just spend two months of his spare time, using rented machine tools from his employers, in their off hours, to produce those master tool injection molds.

My Father was convinced, the man was nuts, and declined the offer.

Two years latter, after the man, did find a partner to back him, and they paid someone else to make the dies... he released his product.

The mans name was Land, his invention was the self developing camera, his partner was Polaroid, he was the money man, their company, was the Polariod-Land Company... the rest is history.

My father, had the opportunity to own 10% of that company, and he spent the entire rest of his life slapping himself in the head, calling himself a stupid son of a biotch.... He should have listened to the mans crazy idea, had he listened, he would have been able to retire a rich man before he was 40, and he could have spent the rest of his life buying machining companies and making more money, instead of working in machine shops, making tools and dies for rich companies that could afford to buy that kind of work...

You never know who you are speaking at sir.

Just because you think I might be in fruit loops, doesn't make it so.

Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka... David

 

[BHP FAN]

Good luck in your endeavors, sir.

 

[ElvinWarrior]

To the rest of you who reacted positively, wana get rich with hard work and smart ideas?

Email me.

Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka.. David

 

[Jaymo]

I just stumbled across this thread, and it's exactly what it would take to get me into paintball. Muzzleball, if you will.
A blunderbuss launching a bunch of airsoft paintballs is right up my alley.
That's why I voted yes. That, and there wasn't a "Hell yes" choice available.
Hmm, CO2 propelled, with something poured down the barrel to look like smoke when you fire. You may be off your meds. You may be nutz. Guess I am too. I like the idea.

 

[Curator]

Elvin,

We tried shooting the standard .69 caliber paintballs in our museum's .69 caliber smoothbore muskets. Even with really small charges (like 5 grains of FFFg) the paintballs ruptured in the barrel. We tried several variations including cornmeal filler and wads under the paintball as well as 10 gauge shot sleeves in the .75 caliber Brown Bess. The paintballs do not seem to be able to survive the G-force of explosive propellant. Great idea, just didn't work.

 

[Busyhands94]

maybe just use a musket cap as the propellant, that might work.

 

[Wolfebyte]

couldn't find the poll feature marked: BP splatterball war!!!

good luck, but I'm thinking that any 'explosive' force, such as that of BP or even a primer would rupture the thin membrane of the paintball and all you would be doing is spraying paint coated burned BP...

now if you froze the paintballs....

oh wait, that's not ethical in a paintball fight..

 

[arcticap]

Modern paint ball guns are not very expensive. Some only cost $100 new.
This makes an interesting topic for discussion but IMO it's not a viable marketing concept.
From A-Z there's too many problems with the whole idea.
Folks would be much better off just using modern paint ball guns and then making up their own rules for playing individualized war games than to try to invent a whole new ball of wax.
Unlike going to Dunkin' Donuts, it's not worth the trip!

 

[Black Toe Knives]

All the nut jobs peanut gallery quotes aside. Paint balls lack accuracy. Which makes it impossible to hit a target. There is reason you don't see Paintball guns with sights. Paintball is pray and spray game.
You will need firepower to get the adrenaline pumping too. That adds to the excitement of the game. One round flying by you head every 60 seconds wont do it. This is what war games are about.
I played paintball when we played with 9 shot pistols. It just wasn't the same when you added 200 rd hoppers.

I would suggest a game of 1 round paintball with regular PB guns by removing the hoppers and loading 1 rd at a time. This will give you a sense of what I am talking about.

Now since paint are more adapt to air than powder. It will be no problem to adapt a co2 cartridge to a blackpower gun. The hammer can trip a valve to release a suitable burst of air.

Blackpower and wet gelatin will not work together. Once a paintball has burst in a barrel the gun would be rendered useless, which would be the very first rd in most cases.
.

 

[ElvinWarrior]

Where is all this crap comming from? I never wrote any of those things, and I don't own anything close to any kind of modern arms like a 9mm automatic, I dislike modern arms intensly, I am not a baptist, and never have been. I do own several business suits, but come to think of it, I have never owned a brooks brothers suite...

There must be a person out there posting under a name similar to my own, is all I can come up with. Or someone deliberately posting under a name in an attempt to hide their own identity, which is a more likely scenario.

All of statements in that posting are uttter non-sense, and the "quotes" here appear to me to be completely fabricated... Anyone who knows anything about me knows I don't like modern automatic weapons at all...

<redacted insult>

What was the point of all of that? We were discussing paintball technology....

And babysitting? A totally random and off the wall comment... Why would someone attempting to build a manufacturing company, from the ground up, want to babysit? It's a lousy go-nowhere, underpaid position at best... Jeesh, that one really takes the prize at the cake walk... LOL !!! My feelings on babysitting are that I don't have the time, or inclination to waste my time, taking care of someone else's mouthy, uncooth brats. They are their brats, they can pick up after them, I don't want to be within a 45 Caliber Colts shooting distance of other peoples lil brats. I raised my son, been there done that, done with raising kids, don't want no more...

As far as "Someone, someplace, tried firing a paintball out of a muzzle loader, once upon a time, at a church social club, of some sort, and it didn't work out too well".... Goes

Ya? So? As the old saying goes...

"Some people can break a crowbar in a sandbox..."

A worthless "testimonial" from an unverified and undocumented "source" is rather useless.

This project is rather a bit further along than is being revealed here in this posting, there are partners, there are modified items in the works, such as stainless steel bore linings, with mild spiral etched rifling, negotiations with pyrotechnical propellant companies to produce propellant pellets which are NOT based upon BP or any other explosive or detonation based chemical mixes, and, artificial man-made flints, that work much more reliably, and produce a much greater, hotter, and more intense shower of sparks, so that even poorly made inexpensive flintlock mechanisms will fire reliably, with very few mis-firings, using these flints instead of natural flints...And finally, we will be having custom manufactured for us, modified paintballs, conical ones, with a somewhat thicker and sturdier outer case, and a very thick, wax like base that will serve as both a propellant insulator, and a mild lubricant. These are all techincal problems, and any man made technical issue can be solved with better design and better engineering.

Close your eyes for a moment... IMAGINE...

Six weeks before Christmas 2012, an ENTIRE LINE OF NEW PRODUCTS is dumped on the market, with stocked warehouses ready to ship for the Christmas rush... "Realism Paintball Guns" releases it's full line of it's latest products... A line of fully automatic reproduction military and assault rifles, INCLUDING some vintage models, like, the Thompson Sub Machine gun, WITH the drum ammo clip... They FIRE simulation metalized plastic "cartridges" that look like brass, but are, brass finished plastic cases. They have "center fire", plastic primers in the base, just like real ammunition, they feed and fire a pyrotechnical based modified rocket propellant pellet as its fuel, they spit out a small flame from the barrel, they belch smoke, they SMELL like gunpowder, but aren't gunpowder, They go "Bang !!!", NOT... "pop", they eject shells out of the ejection ports, just like real guns do, the shells can be collected and re-loaded at home, and can be re-loaded 30 or 40 times before they wear out and need to be relplaced. They "shoot" a modified conical paintball with a heavier outer shell and a heavy wax like base. They have "rifled" stainless steel barrel liners and are many times more accurate than existing spurt guns, you hit what you aim at...

It will be a VASTLY SUPERIOR product on ALL LEVELS !!!

For all of the months after the initial Christmas rush sales... We are shipping tons and tons of replacement "cartridges", and "re-loading" supplies...

And the teen kids see the adds and the online video clips on the web page and other video distribution networks such as youtube, action videos, showing paintball games, one guy with a crappy overpriced gas gun that fires balls and wildly misses most targets, most times, and another guy, with one of our guns, barrel flaming, gun going "rat-a-tat-tat" LOUDLY, spent shells showering down and bouncing on the ground, and HE... HITS what he points at !!!....

We won't be able to ship them fast enough !!!


Overall, the project is moving along very nicely actually.


Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka... David

On a historical note... Six weeks before the famous initial flight made by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk... The Scientific American Journal published a technical dissertation on the topic of man made flying machines. In the studied and informed oppinons of self appointed and actually, rather un-informed "experts" in thier "field". It was their considered scientific oppinion that man made flying machines would not be realized for another century, that a new and revolutionary type of power system would need to be fully developed before such an advance could occur, and, propelling a heavier than air aircraft, through the air, "Was not possible at this time with existing technology"....

They didn't count on good ol ingenuity and determination did they? The Wright Brothers solved all of those problems with clever engineering.

 

[Remo223]

I don't know if a paint ball can withstand the high temps of burning black powder.

 

[JNewell]

There is a reason that Simunitions guns can't "accidentally" be loaded with a real projo.

 

[mr.trooper]

No, for several reasons.

* I doubt any paintball will withstand being rammed down a barrel.

* Without a patch you wont get a good seal, and you would have trouble getting sufficient velocity without putting more than 3 grains of powder into a prop gun (danger).

* even the slow shove of an air marker sometimes break balls - the sudden and violent detonation of BP, combined with heat, is sure to ruin the ammo.

 

[Dr.Rob]

While this idea might not run afoul of the ATF, you'd sure better have a pyrotechnics license in California to build such 'devices'. And chances are in CA, it would be illegal and classified somewhere between black powder and an unregistered firearm.

Any projectile that fires (and few toy gus save NERF do this anymore) could be 'ramped up (pop open said brass case, add more powder, replace paintball with rubber ball) and become potentially lethal. That's an insurance nightmare. if some idiot can alter your product, they will (see 'hop up kits' for airsoft).

Not trying to be a naysayer, but you are living in one of the most restrictive states in the Union when it comes to such stuff, and you are essentially designing a zip-gun with semi disposable ammunition.

I'd get yourself a pyro license and an entertainment lawyer.

 

[ElvinWarrior]

Dear Dr. Rob,

Good ideas both, we already have a CA lawyer on staff, he is one of our investors, and a life long NRA advocate, I will run these concerns by him. The LAST thing I need is ATF or CA Authorities on me butt, I have enough problems paying my bills without a frozen checking account !!!

There are, already, ignition systems paintball guns being marketed legally in CA, they fire a puff of compressed natural gas, and do in fact pack a significant whollop and do make a very loud "pop". To my knowledge, these guns require no special liscensing or certification at all. To my knowledge also, BP guns can be legally owned, and fired by minors as well, because of the exemption status. Now, selling a minor BP is another matter, but if a parent or relative purchased the powder for the youth, and then gave it to them, I think that scenario is also legal here. I do see some teen kids at the two ranges I visit, shooting away.... So, that must be legal...

Interestingly enough, these pulse gas ignition system paintball guns are being WIDELY utilized by CA authorities as training devices to train recruits, and existing officers in the tatical uses of all out fully automatic machine weapons. THEY LOVE THEM !!! They operate very realistically and fire nearly as rapidly as actual fully automatic assault machine weapons. They have been an invaluable aide in assisting these departments in the effective training of these kinds of personell.

So, the concept is not entirely without precident here in California.

But I do agree with you, it is always best to proceed with caution in questionable matters, and have all your issues and concerns thoroughly researched and nailed down before engaging in any endeavor that has the remotest chance of "back firing" all over you !!!

Thanks for this insightfull input... VERY MUCH APPRECIATED !!!

Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka... David

 

[ElvinWarrior]

To the others here...

We don't intend to make cartridges in any size that could be swapped out with real ammunition of any kind. We will stick with the already existing paintball standard calibers of 40, 43, 50 and 68. In fact, after these points brought up here, I may limit the calibers to the odd sized ones only, 43 and 68, very odd calibers, not likely to be swapable with real loads. These simulation shells will be of a very odd length, very short and stubby. The paintballs will be custom manufactured for us, to much higher production tolerances, they will in fact, not be balls, but conicals. The conicals will have a thicker, stronger, more resiliant outer shell, the bases of the conicals will be much thicker than the sides, perhaps even concave, mimicking a mini ball design, and made from a specialized plastic material, a variation of the material used in the rest of the conical, that has a somewhat waxy characteristic and will serve a double purpose of being a barrel lubricant.

I think, these little modifications will help significantly in safety design and features of the product.

I understand that anything, any design, can be altered and modified. If some kid is hell bent on modifying existing cartridges, and loading them up with real, gunnery grade, gunpowder, there is very little anyone can do to prevent that.

I suppose, I will, have to visit this particular topic on the web page as well, showing examples of why you should never consider this, such as an instructional video, showing a very nice model of a re-enactment gun, being remote activated in a safe test firing booth, being blown to kingdom come by deliberate overloading. Perhaps I should have the area surrounded by a "nest" of watermellons or something like that, so that the video captures the exploding gun blasting watermelon guts all over everywhere in a flash of very dramatic red pulp...

That may make most kids think twice about doing something like that, but not all.

If I remember correctly, years ago, when I was a kid in the Ohio countryside, I think, one day, they showed us an NRA film, demonstrating why you should always unload your rifle before crossing over or under a barrier such as a fence. It was a simulation, but very well done, where some kid, leaned his rifle up against a fence post, spread the barbed wire, and went through the wire runs, as he got nearly over to the other side, the rifle slid towards him and fired.... They didn't show the actual blast hitting the kid, just him laying there, covered with blood, motionless, laying in the dirt...

That little film did the trick for me, I never crossed a fence without unloading my arms after that !!! In fact, every time I crossed a fence, after that, I thought about that poor kid, laying there, in the mud, and sometimes, I even said a little prayer for him, even though I knew HE was acting, it had happened in real life to other boys, sadly.

Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka... David

 

[ElvinWarrior]

Okay guys...

One more time...

We are NOT going to use BP or any other type of gunnery grade powders at all.

We are negotiating with a major manufacturer of model rocket propellants to custom design a specific modified solid fuel pellet expressly for this purpose which is NOT a derivative of any type of explosive or detonation mix of any kind whatsoever. It will be a rapidly burning modified rocket propellant that can be legally sold to, and purchased by, minors. The modified rocket propellant pellets will burn very rapidly, but will not explode or detonate. The design of the chemical mix and burn rate will be such that a deliberate overload and overpressure will be impossible because the fuel pellets do NOT BURN rapidly enough to ignite multiple fuel pellets all at once. These propellants will burn evenly, from the back to the front, they do not explode or detonate outward with a powerful shock wave as explosive and gunnery grade gunpowders do. A deliberate overload would result in one and one half, to, two of the pellets igniting, with any others being blown out of the barrel, un-ignited and scattered harmlessly across the field.

We are NOT going to use standard paintballs, we are going to have a new conical design custom manufactured for us that has a sturdier, more resiliant outer shell and a very thick bottom that will be able to withstand the stresses of an ignition driven propellant. The thicker bottoms will also be manufactured with a concave depression, resembling the mini balls used in large bore rifles of the past. They are also going to be held to a much higher standard of tolerances, to insure consistancy from conical to conical, and to insure a good snug fit in the barrels. For the muzzle loading versions, requiring a patch, we will offer a heftier ball type of paintball with the re-inforced outer shell. We will offer a special patch for these purposes that are specifically designed to offer heat insulation and flame protection to the ball style paintball.

We ARE going to line the barrels and cylinder chambers with thin stainless steel barrel liners that have spiral etched rifling. This will increase the strenth of the barrels and re-inforce the base metals from which the guns were cast, it will also protect the base metals of the barrels from the heat and pressure of the ignition propulsion fuel charge. The spiraling should increase the accuracy of the re-inactment guns significantly. We have not yet determined the best spiral twist configurations to use, we will need to perform some experimentation to determine that design criteria, which may vary from gun design to specific gun design, due to caliber vs barrel lengths. Single shot muzzle loading guns will also have a thin stainless steel breech plug pressure fitted into the bored out cast metal barrel, with the barrel liner pressure fitted down onto the breech plug, sealing it into the casting permenantly.

I hope this clears this one up.

Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka... David

 

[ElvinWarrior]

On a lighter note...

I came up with a video commercial idea that I think is really cute and fun, and I want it to become our "trademark" add, perhaps even our product trademark....

A re-enactment of a very famous scene from "Home Alone" starring MaCaulay Culkin...

The camera is focused upon a TV screen with the scene of the guy with a tommy gun about to gun down an accomplace of his. A very cute, blonde, angelic young boy picks up his replica "Realistic Replica Paintguns" Thompson Sub-Machine Gun, WITH the drum magazine, cocks the gun, and points it at one of his playmates in the room with him, cowering, and pleading for "Mercy" !!! The blonde boy opens fire, laughing hysterically, yelling out at his playmate... "Die you Filthy ANIMAL !!! DIE !!!". After an appropriate burst time, the camera shifts over to his playmate, who has this shocked look of amazment on his face, he looks down at his torso covered in goey gelatin, looks back at his buddy, then looks at his gun with complete envy... He announces to his friend... "I have GOT to ge ME one of THOSE !!!"

LOL

Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka... David