Ok, first off all, yes, I am an individual easily smitten with boredom and equally easily amused, well, almost. I have also been accused of being slightly off my rocker, (quite often by people who have read that embarassing slingshot article), but anyway.
The subject this experiment was conducted on is an elderly Brass Eagle Silver Raptor which sported a stock bolt with an exremely bad do-it-yourself cone job. The balls flying out of the barrel in a corkscrew was neat looking, but not very practical in combat environs. Due to the nature of my proffession, (I work for a ceramic tile contracter), I have access to a great deal of plumbing equipment, electrical supplies, etc. So I got it in my head to build a silencer for this Raptor. I would first find a way to fit a 1" PVC, (no, not the best material, but I had alot of it to work with), core to the Raptor's stock barrel. I did this by measuring the outside diameter of the barrel, then the inside diameter of the pipe, (this was the end of the pipe with the bell to interface with another pipe end). I discovered a 4 mm discrepancy, I fixed this in the most advanced form of redneck tinkery available. I carefully wrapped 2mm of duct tape around the first 2" of the barrel. Perfect friction fit and perfect alingment, (had to fiddle with the thickness of the tape abit). I sawed it (the pipe, not the barrel or tape), off at roughly thirteen inches. Then shot through it.
Frankly, I was amazed at the increase in accuracy. The corkscrew was eliminated completely. Let me explain what I think is happening, if someone more knowedgable can teach me, please email the site and I will gladly post corrections, but here's my theory: The 1" pipe's inside diameter of .75 is significantly larger than the barrel's (supposed) diameter of .68. After the ball has traveled down the 12" barrel it has accelerated all you want it to, so there is no more need of the gas behind it, but at the end of the barrel the gas just pops out without accomplishing anything more. With the pipe in place, the gas is still somewhat contained. The large "bore" allows the gas to escape around the paintball as it travels down the pipe. I think its this escaping gas which cushions the sides of the ball evenly, (remember, gas expands evenly to fill its container, this gas would be expanding [evenly] around the paintball). The cushioning effect of the escaping gas serves to straighten the balls' initial flight path. I don't have quick access to a chrono but it doesn't seem to effect velocity either. It does sound rather like a pump though.
Measuring down the sides, I ported the extension all down its length. This cut way down on the noise, (here I remembered my original goal was to build a silencer, but figured to pursue this end of the project a little further), with only a slight reduction in accuracy. I intend to experiment with maximum effect vs. minumum length in the near future, to rig up a neater, cleaner way of attaching it, perhaps try some experiments with some nice copper pipe. I'll post my findings in subsequent articals, please let me know if anyone else has any info on this sort of thing. |
