Sniper bullet for airsoft
 

Hello people, a few days ago i contacted a friend and asked if it would be possible to make non spherecial rounds for airsoft, for sniper usage.
He usually runs research & development projects for military, he is a physics engineer, ballistic expert.
So he said, something like this would work
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...kredikulum.jpg
(not the exact design, but the idea is like this)
It will be made out of teflon,
Barrel and magazine will be custom. Barrel will have micro rifling.
We will try it on tokyo marui VSR10 pro sniper, because it's really similiar to an airgun.
Unless we don't have any big problems, it should give results like these.
0.3 Weight.
400 FPS
10CM Grouping at 40 meters
Less flight time, and won't get effected by wind as much as bbs.

How it works?
1. Bullet's balance center is at it's front, it's back has a hollow body, so it's lighter than it's front. This causes wind to effect the bullet as if it has fins, when the wind blows from right, the bullet's tail will drift to left, and bullet will try to travel against wind, at the end, bullet will get effected by wind less than a BB.
2. Gyroscope effect, bullet will rotate because of barrel's rifling, it will be more stable, and will prevent bullet from spinning randomly.
3. Better aerodynamics, bullet will lose less speed in air.
4. Since bullet will be losing less speed, it can be lighter than the other sniper BBs, the energy will be kinetic, and bullet will travel faster than the other BBs, when the same amount of energy is applied, this reduces the flight time, your target will be hit sooner and wind will have less time to effect the flight path.

Fun side, it can be only seen by the shooter's side, the bullet can be black, with some orange paint applied to it's back, so the shooter will see the bullet's orange behind, but the target won't be able to do so. Same thing can work with tracers, but it would be hard to glue two materials and keep the same weight.
It will have a flight path similiar to firearm snipers, so you can use those scope notches for longer shots.

I don't see any big reasons for it not to work, airguns have been doing it for a long time, it's just lower FPS.
We will do safety tests, the FPS, weight can be changed if necessary.

We will start selling kits whenever we finish it.
Bullets will be around 8-10 US cents each, don't know about the gun kits, depends on the cost.
We have a few airsoft projects that are waiting just because we don't have the budget for them, if these give good results, friend might pay more attention to the airsoft topic.

Sounds really cool if it works out.

My interest is piqued. Keep us posted.

Good ldea. I think you might have better luck with a thinner rear skirt that seals the bore. Basically we would be looking at a pellet but done in plastic and 6mm. Also I would personally prefer to see it around .4g or so.
Cheers,
Grant

I have a few questions,
Whats the usual joule limit for snipers in games? There are 10-20 meter limits because BB loses most of it's speed at those ranges (so the actual allowed joule is the energy BB has at 10 meters, bullet shaped projectiles tend to keep their energy at further ranges)
How many fires do you shoot in a game with a sniper?
How many meters would you want your gun to work at?
What about point blank range accidents with snipers, what happens at what energy?

It's a very interesting concept. However the cost per round and limited availibility would probably prohibit it from any widespread useage.

The bullet have two rings on it, since the barrel will be rifled, the contact area with the barrel have to be small, so the rifling can notch the bullet's surface and get a grip, i didn't exactly get what you meant with thinner rear skirt, you mean it should have larger diameter than the front ring, so it seals the air?
Problem with weight is, when the bullet shape is good enough, you don't need much weight to store the energy, 0.4 would mean slower bullet, longer flight time, and more chance for the wind to effect the bullet.

True, these don't get widespread quickly, but do you want them to be widespread? Everyone would snipe that way, most airsoft guns are so mass produced, they lose originality, it would be nice to see someone using totally new on a field.

I might mention that Auhydride is quite the scratch-builder.

Hmm, this looks like somewhere Tanio Koba twist inner barrels could really shine.

560fps with 0.20g bullets at our field

they dont work with guns firing over 328fps

wouldnt a system similar to the one of a slug being fire out of a shotgun work better?

BB is held in some sort of cup and when it exits the barrel the BB leaves the cup.

Watcha think?

Those are nice for bbs, but the rifling of the barrel is done by making canals, so the air leaks around the bullet, this causes air to keep the bb in the middle.
Our bullets need rifling that have smaller diameter, so the rifling opens a notch on the bullet and air doesn't leak around it.

Ah thanks Skladfin.

Check out http://www.classicairsoft.org as well because there WERE some classic guns that used bullets like these. They are very rare these days along with the ammunition but I do know this has been tried. The folks on that board that are familiar with the systems may be of some help figuring out what worked, and what didn't. Hope this helps.