Sniper bullet for airsoft

[Sha Do]

Originally Posted by Auhydride

......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.

I see some misconceptions in what you have posted above in the aspect that your proposed design actually has a much larger surface area than a standard airsoft BB. This in itself would creat greater drag and would overall increase the rate of which the BB loses velocity (ie, shortens the overall effective range). However, your design will allow the BB to maintain a straighter tajectory for that shorter range. As well as it being a 0.40 weight will aslo lend itself to good ballistics.

Less flight time?? This is an incorrect assumption. Compaired to a sphereical BB, your design (as stated above) creates more drag, therefore a standard BB would hit the target first if fired at the same fps as the BB of your design.

You are also implying that with a cross wind, the BB will "fin out" to compensate for the cross wind, and in all practical aspects, this does allow the BB to (again) maintain a true trajectory. However, this also creates additional drag along the BBs flight path, and would again result in an additional loss of velocity.

Your design will probably work very well, but would require a higher fps to have the same overall range of a standard airsoft BB for it's weight....and this is where we will come into a problem. We have standard restrictions implace for safety reasons (but yes we allow bolt action airsoft rifles a higher fps to off set the lacking rate of fire) with is usually 400 fps using 0.20 weight BBs (450 or 500 fps for BAs). We would have to use an even higher fps in order to gain the same over all effective range, and with your BB being only available in the 0.40 weight, it could be pushing it close to (if not over) the Canadain Fire Arms limit.
Now I'm not trying to knock your product, but I'm just making you aware that players are going to have to decide on either over all effective range OR increased accuracy at shorter distances.


Now this is an awesome idea that could only be done with your product;

Originally Posted by Auhydride

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.....

The only real only way to improve on airsoft BBs would be to go way of the golf ball...dimples. Dimples also increase the surface area of a sphere, but reduce the drag by creating a type of increased air displacment. It's a weird concept that works...

SHA DO

[Auhydride]

"your BB being only available in the 0.40 weight"
We got some 0.23g APs done just today

Sadly i'm not good with ballistics, I will try to get some answers from my friend, who designed the bullets.

[Mitchell12]

Originally Posted by Sha Do

You are also implying that with a cross wind, the BB will "fin out" to compensate for the cross wind, and in all practical aspects, this does allow the BB to (again) maintain a true trajectory. However, this also creates additional drag along the BBs flight path, and would again result in an additional loss of velocity.

SHA DO

I'm going to have to disagree on that part. If it turns into the wind then it will have less surface area in the relative airflow and will in theory be more efficient.

This being said a normal BB will still have less surface area to any airflow other then a direct headwind where they should theoretically be the same.

[Sha Do]

Originally Posted by Mitchell12

I'm going to have to disagree on that part. If it turns into the wind then it will have less surface area in the relative airflow and will in theory be more efficient.

When the BB "fins out", it will have less surface area being affected by the cross wind that is causing the BB to "fin out".
However, this surface area just does not disapear. The surface area of the "tail" or "fin" that is affected by the cross wind moves (teh BB pivots) to be in line with the cross wind, therefore the affected area of the "fin" is now being exposed to the "head wind" caused direction the BB is actually traveling..... Increasing the directional surface area and resulting in the loss of velocity.
Also as a note, the design shows two "ribs" that (I assume) are there to help stabalize the BB as it travelled down a barrel. From head on, these "ribs" would be hidden from the forward directional wind resistance because they are the same size as the BB heads OD. But these ribs will became expose to the forward resistance if a cross wind affects the "tail" causing it to "fin out" (as the BB pivots).
The effects will be minimal, but they are there.

SHA DO

[Mitchell12]

Originally Posted by Sha Do

When the BB "fins out", it will have less surface area being affected by the cross wind that is causing the BB to "fin out".
However, this surface area just does not disapear. The surface area of the "tail" or "fin" that is affected by the cross wind moves (teh BB pivots) to be in line with the cross wind, therefore the affected area of the "fin" is now being exposed to the "head wind" caused direction the BB is actually traveling..... Increasing the directional surface area and resulting in the loss of velocity.
Also as a note, the design shows two "ribs" that (I assume) are there to help stabalize the BB as it travelled down a barrel. From head on, these "ribs" would be hidden from the forward directional wind resistance because they are the same size as the BB heads OD. But these ribs will became expose to the forward resistance if a cross wind affects the "tail" causing it to "fin out" (as the BB pivots).
The effects will be minimal, but they are there.

SHA DO

Oh ok I think I see what your getting at, Though I am very interested in this project.

[The Lettonian]

heh....AP sounds really cool. Has that "Armour Piercing" connotation to it....

[Hectic]

RAP4 airsoft has some finned airsoft ammo that works in a Super 9 sniper rifle but it is only .19g
http://www.rap4.com/paintball/os/rap...00-p-2945.html

[kalnaren]

Originally Posted by Sha Do

I see some misconceptions in what you have posted above in the aspect that your proposed design actually has a much larger surface area than a standard airsoft BB. This in itself would creat greater drag and would overall increase the rate of which the BB loses velocity (ie, shortens the overall effective range).

Not necessarly true. A sphere is a horribly innefficient aerodynamic shape. Something that is streamlined with create less drag despite having a greater overall surface area.

For example, a football creates far less drag than a sphere of equal diameter, despite that fact that the football has more surface area.

[FOX_111]

Take it from a guy that have shot millions of BBs and pellets in airguns and airsoft.

Pellet, will behave more constantly under the effect of wind as long as they have enought momentum and spin.

BBs from a BB gun behave differently compared to airsoft BB, mainly because of the hopup. But BBs are naturally inconsitant is they travel without spinning.

The main factor that will mess up out acuracy here, will be, like Sha Do mentionned, drag, energy and flight time (fps). The bigger the round (ignoring it's shape), the higher the wind deflection there is. The higher the energy (joules) the less deflection there will be in a given amount of time. The faster the round is, the less deflection there is; A constant wind value deviate a round in a constant amount. Take into account drag (reduce speed of bullet), lost of energy (joules) because of drag, and you get something that is more sencible to displacement.

Think of it like a car on a highway with very strong cross wind. The trafic move at 100km/h. Large semi truck get flipped to the side by the wind. Cars are only rocked a bit.

Also, when breaking, trucks take longer to stop (more energy, more weight). Cars can stop faster (less weight, less energy).

When I teach airsoft ballistic, I draw BBs with little sails on top of them to people can visualise the size/drag factor vs velocity/energy.

[Sha Do]

Originally Posted by Mitchell12

Oh ok I think I see what your getting at, Though I am very interested in this project.

Agreed. This could still be a "magic bullet" in terms of superior accuracy, even if the range is marginally shorter (on that note, I can only speculate on the actual amount of fps lost....the overall loss of FPS may be only nominal).
Just going to have to wait for some test results

Originally Posted by kalnaren

Not necessarly true. A sphere is a horribly innefficient aerodynamic shape. Something that is streamlined with create less drag despite having a greater overall surface area.

For example, a football creates far less drag than a sphere of equal diameter, despite that fact that the football has more surface area.

I'm going to agree with you on that theory. However, a foot ball is tapered from end to end, where as their suggested design not only has the spherical head common to our BBs, but it also has an abrupt tail along with those two ribs along its width.
The abrupt tail will inherently cause drag, causing the BB to travel straight (similar to how the fins on an arrow keep the arrow straight behind the arrow head), and the "ribs" will also create drag. Unfortunately, I see nothing in the design that would create lift....where as lift is created with typical BBs when a back spin is applied through use of a hop up.

Again, I'd love to see test results once they become available (based on the same weight of BB and using the same spring, with results measured over various distances).

That, and the use of teflon may be an issue. Teflon is completely non bio degradeable, and this may limit your selling market (ie, Finland has a stipulation (By Law, where all airsoft BBs they use must be BIO BBs). Not so in Canada, but just a note.

SHA DO

[Auhydride]

Teflon is less hazardous to the enviorment than bio bbs that aren't completely biodegradeable, as you said, it doesn't biodegrade, but it doesn't poison the enviorment either, I still recommend picking the bullets up on sight (after you get shot by them maybe), and maybe we can make a discount (sadly thermoset plastics can't be re-used)
Still, the amount of sniper shots on a field can't even get close to the amount of BBs shot, the amount of pollution you add to your enviorment just by using plastic bags is a lot more than using teflon pellets.
Though, if these were bbs that are shot by aeg, it could become a problem by filling up the field.

[Sha Do]

Originally Posted by Auhydride

Teflon is less hazardous to the enviorment than bio bbs that aren't completely biodegradeable, as you said, it doesn't biodegrade, but it doesn't poison the enviorment either, I still recommend picking the bullets up on sight (after you get shot by them maybe), and maybe we can make a discount (sadly thermoset plastics can't be re-used)
Still, the amount of sniper shots on a field can't even get close to the amount of BBs shot, the amount of pollution you add to your enviorment just by using plastic bags is a lot more than using teflon pellets.
Though, if these were bbs that are shot by aeg, it could become a problem by filling up the field.

LOL...excellent point. Teflon dosen't break down at all, period. So there is no "leakage" of the PCPs (or what ever) into the enviroment.
The other point is also valid....BA snipers do tend to utilize a hell of a lot LESS ammo than AEG operators. Typically, I will go through roughly no more than 50 shots in 7 hours (of scrims or mil sim games), mainly due to the limited enguagements and superior accuracy of a bolt action.

I'll be looking forward to seeing some test results of your prototype, to see how things work out.
In Canada, we are restricted to 5.7 joules before it is considered a fire arm, so I'm hoping the numbers work out to to be compairable at the lower fps, cause I really don't want to run the risk of injurying anyone to reap the potential benifits of your design.

Good luck;
SHA DO

[Amos]

Am I the only one that thinks it's gonna REALLY suck getting shot by a pointed anything other than a round surface at 450 FPS +?

Edit: I must be a shitty sniper lol.. I go through atleast 300 rounds in a simple scrim... But.... My play style is more of a "Run and gun" I go to my enemy instead of waiting for them to come to me.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Amos

Am I the only one that thinks it's gonna REALLY suck getting shot by a pointed anything other than a round surface at 450 FPS +?

Edit: I must be a shitty sniper lol.. I go through atleast 300 rounds in a simple scrim... But.... My play style is more of a "Run and gun" I go to my enemy instead of waiting for them to come to me.

Check out page 5. unless the wind turns it or it tumbles it will hit round tip first.

[Evan Scobbie]

The front of the bullet is rounded off, it will probably end up being the same surface area on impact than that of a BB.