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Thread: Paint Darts? Discs?

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    Insider Davros's Avatar
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    Paint Darts? Discs?

    Was just speculating in my mind, and was thinking about other shapes for paint ammo. Considering physics, game fun, engineering, safety, etc, not marketing, legacy issues, etc, would there be benefits to making paint darts or discs? Shapes that are more aerodynamic than paintballs, but partially symmetrical so they could be manufactured with gelatin shells and paint interiors like a paintball.

    Could this be made to work in a marker designed for them? Started thinking out loud so members here, many of whom studied the physics of paintballs and know how to put together a marker, could chime in on my theoretical discussion. Would these be better than regular paintballs, or am I not thinking of factors that would make them not perform well?

    First Strike Rounds (FSR) are expensive and more difficult to manufacture and many concerns people have with them seem to stem from their non-gelatin shell. This just got my brain wandering about something not as accurate or long range as FSR, but better than regular paintballs while being closer to regular paintballs in material.

    So again, hypothetical discussion. I know we cannot expect this to be real due to the difficulties of creating a whole new marker and selling new ammunition just for it.

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    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    IMO the real difficulty is manufacturing anything besides a sphere that has better properties.

    Bubbles are spherical for a reason. It is the lowest energy state of the liquid - another way to think about it is that you've minimized the surface area to volume ratio. The material is as relaxed as it can get, given the constraints of internal volume and surface tension.

    When paintballs come out of the encapsulators, they're really, really soft. Spheres are their "natural" shape, if they could be made to float while they dry (which is basically what the tumblers do) they'd be very spherical. See 3:35 in the following video.



    Without spending a ton of time and money investigating it, I don't have much to contribute. The barrier for me is I don't know enough about potential manufacturing processes.
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    The Hydrotech shells would probably be the answer for non-spherical paintballs. Too bad they're not around any more.
    I don't know, fly casual

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    there are probably many different polymer shell type materials with limited shrinkage and a brittle cured state.

    but they all have the expensive manufacturing associated with them that FSRs do. and FSRs are a pretty good shape. i don't see there being a middle ground between the two.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Davros View Post
    Was just speculating in my mind, and was thinking about other shapes for paint ammo. Considering physics, game fun, engineering, safety, etc, not marketing, legacy issues, etc, would there be benefits to making paint darts or discs? Shapes that are more aerodynamic than paintballs, but partially symmetrical so they could be manufactured with gelatin shells and paint interiors like a paintball.

    Could this be made to work in a marker designed for them? Started thinking out loud so members here, many of whom studied the physics of paintballs and know how to put together a marker, could chime in on my theoretical discussion. Would these be better than regular paintballs, or am I not thinking of factors that would make them not perform well?

    First Strike Rounds (FSR) are expensive and more difficult to manufacture and many concerns people have with them seem to stem from their non-gelatin shell. This just got my brain wandering about something not as accurate or long range as FSR, but better than regular paintballs while being closer to regular paintballs in material.

    So again, hypothetical discussion. I know we cannot expect this to be real due to the difficulties of creating a whole new marker and selling new ammunition just for it.
    The safety paintball (aka "Macho Fire" which was actually the gun) was designed to be a gelatin-based, better performing projectile. On paper, it would have performed better than a regular PB but, it never made it past the demonstration phase, and eyewitnesses reported that it didn't perform significantly better. I'm not sure why things didn't line up- was it a failure of the projectile (I've heard that the designer wasn't able to get the optimal dyes and instead used a horse caplet dye that was rounder, or was it a matter of getting the proper eccentricity on the projectile in the drying phase, etc) or was it a failure of the rifling to properly stabilize the round?

    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTheWookie View Post
    The Hydrotech shells would probably be the answer for non-spherical paintballs. Too bad they're not around any more.
    Has anyone ever actually reported on how these things impact on people (particularly on bare skin), if the shell material isn't as flexible as gelatin, the edges left can cause the same minor cuts/scratches on bare skin.

    Quote Originally Posted by cockerpunk View Post
    there are probably many different polymer shell type materials with limited shrinkage and a brittle cured state.

    but they all have the expensive manufacturing associated with them that FSRs do. and FSRs are a pretty good shape. i don't see there being a middle ground between the two.
    I think there could be more aerodynamic shapes that are easily manufactured but, they most likely will not be all that good on impact.

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    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    Yeah, that's often overlooked by a lot of people - if you're doing anything with the leading face of the projectile, what will travel through air better will also travel into skin better.
    Ever so many citizens of this republic think they ought to believe that the Universe is a monarchy, and therefore they are always at odds with the republic. -Alan Watts

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    Insider Davros's Avatar
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    I remember the macho fire ads in magazines and was excited for it. Always wondered what happened to it. Too bad the performance part never worked out.

    PBSteve, I was picturing sacrificing a little on the aerodynamics front by blunting the front for that reason.

    Seem to recall they did use a prototype hydrotech ball at public event once. Would like to hear how they felt.

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    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by UV Halo View Post
    The safety paintball (aka "Macho Fire" which was actually the gun) was designed to be a gelatin-based, better performing projectile. On paper, it would have performed better than a regular PB but, it never made it past the demonstration phase, and eyewitnesses reported that it didn't perform significantly better. I'm not sure why things didn't line up- was it a failure of the projectile (I've heard that the designer wasn't able to get the optimal dyes and instead used a horse caplet dye that was rounder, or was it a matter of getting the proper eccentricity on the projectile in the drying phase, etc) or was it a failure of the rifling to properly stabilize the round?
    I'd never seen macho fire before, but just googled it. Without sufficient spin from the rifling, that's going to be a pretty unstable projectile. I'd put money on it being a failure of the rifling to stabilize the round.

    Edit: just qualitatively looking at it, my intuition is not actually sure you could ever stabilize them to any significant degree. Maybe the "long" round, but the "short" just doesn't seem sufficiently prolate to create a pronounced principal axis of rotation.

    Last edited by PBSteve; 07-09-2015 at 01:29 PM.
    Ever so many citizens of this republic think they ought to believe that the Universe is a monarchy, and therefore they are always at odds with the republic. -Alan Watts

    I work for the company building the Paragon

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    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    pewpewpew vijil's Avatar
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    wow ^

    I'm wondering exactly how strict the FS patents are. Could you make something functionally the same but without the "fins" and get away with it (use some other aero method to spin up)? Could you make the front 3/4 filled and get away with it? Maybe I should look up the actual patent...

    Not impressed by RAP4's upcoming alternative.
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