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.

"The "fins" impart little or no spin to the projectile; their purpose is to decrease the bearing surface of the slug to the barrel and therefore reduce friction and increase velocity."
I don't think slugs work that good if you need them to spin, a slug type bb would have a lot more area touching the barrel, lose more energy, give random results.
The cup thing, some sabot bullets work like that, but the projectile that flies in air will be a bb, and the gyroscope effect won't have much good effect on it, just the bullet shape is enough to increase accuracy and speed, because of better aerodynamics.

Hahahha, true.

Alright:

1) JOC and most of Alberta sets the limit roughly 500 FPS (JOC itself works around 480 for any marksman rifle in semi only or bolt action), chrono'd using 0.2G BBs. If I remember my basic physics correctly, the muzzle energy of is roughly a little over 2.1 Joules. How much energy is retained at range however I'm sadly unaware of.

2) Average shots as a sniper varies depending on which role the sniper chooses. As a strategic / recon sniper, it's entirely possible to not shoot a single round the entire time, or maybe just one or two. A DMR goes through a lot more ammo; with my VSR I usually ate 200 BBs a game if I was firing heavily. That also of course doesn't include practice with the weapon.

3) Mmm, I'd pick the longest range practically available that doesn't compromise any safety rules. A 10cm grouping at 40 meters is already outranging the vast majority of airsoft rifles, and that's quite a good minute of man.

Wow, this sounds amazing, it would really give snipers an advantage over AEG's while keeping within FPS limits.

Sounds interesting... if I had a BA I'd pick some up to test if nothing else.

Keep us informed! And good luck.

DO WANT

PM me when youre selling kits.

I dont know if this thing has an inner/outer barrel, but keeping it simple and make one barrel would be more simple.

if you look at real steel, the .17HMR caliber is pretty much the same as a .177 pellet gun. rifling shouldnt be an issue.

getting the proper fps so the projectile can be stable and yet under the limits is going to be hard.

do want, this sounds like my css sniper dream come true ( not really the css part )


im actually very interested in the progress of this

We ordered a tokyo marui pro sniper, friend said he designed a bullet and the barrel, so we will build them and test it, and check the results when the rifle arrives, i hope i can easily get it pass the customs :) yeah they are everywhere.

But won't hop up be useless then with these rounds?

you got a good point

not only would it render the hop useless, It would render stock magazines, the feeding mechanism... and many other things useless...

Or, it opens up a niche for other mags and parts, specific to this round. If someone wants to create and make them that is...

If this type of round showed a huge gain in performance I'd go for it for my APS.

IMO you guys should work on the Tanaka series, much longer inner barrel much more accuracy. The have similar design as their real steel counter parts.At 10 cents a bullet Im in, it less expensive than my .43g BBs!!!

If I recall correctly, the originals were rounded up and destroyed in Japan because baddies were modifying them to fire .22LR and using them as a disposable gun.

I've heard that. I don't know how many if any at all are in Canada, but the guys from Airsoft Austria that do the youtube videos have one. If you can get into contact with those guys, they might be able to answer some questions too.

Don't forget to remove the hop up. ;)

But seriously, I like the idea. Keep me posted an dI might take an interest in a sniper position.

Neat idea, I like the science, but has anyone thought of the Mag? im guessing the back is about the same size as a BB or 6mm projectile (it would have to be to catch all the pressure) so its a good length, but if the mag is spring, then the bbs may get jammed in the curvs of the Mag... can someone try to explain it better?....

Aerodynamically it will be much worse than a BB with a backspin, simply because that above design will suffer more drag due to the two rings (vorticies behind the first, much bigger vortex behind the bullet as well. At least a BB with a back spin on it has a much smaller vortex behind it, compared to a BB with no backspin (hop up generates lift as well as drag reduction).

Try a redesign with your concept, taper the back end of the bullet, same principal idea as why modern long range bullets (aka since WW1) have a boattail, reduced drag, more efficient trajectory, longer range accuracy than a flat bottomed bullet.

Regarding the hop up in guns, just need minimal hop up setting to keep the round seated in the chamber.

I really like the thought put into this though, very creative, I'm going to enjoy watching this thread!

Something like this?

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...Pants/test.jpg

That much mass in the back will cause the projectile to pitch.

No, a total taper on backside. The 90deg edges on that will still created drag because the airflow will be over it, but under that airflow line will be the vorticies that cause the drag. Just taper it like a pencil, or a gradual rounding.

Check these out:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...et/bullet1.jpg

This design would be what the initial design would 'kinda' look like (obviously at a slower speed but is a good example). You can see behind the bullet the vorticies (like a boat's wake), that is drag. Yes drag is also at the front as well as how easily the air can flow over the surface, but you can't overly help that. I'm suggesting reducing the vacuum in the rear by tapering the tail.

Here's what a boattail bullet looks like:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...et/bullet2.jpg

Much less drag due to the reduced aerodynamic 'vacuum' in the bullet's wake.

Oh, I get it now. xD

No, Like this:

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/sp-5_bulletE.jpg

Airsoft barrels being used for firearms is nothing new, thats why ours will be produced from aluminium and similiar materials, not steel, if someone converts them to a working firearm, it can get us into trouble.
I will ask if the original design will have tapered end.
And yes, we will modify a magazine to carry tests, but if results are good and people stay interested, we will supply magazines too.
Eventually other models can have their own kits, all depends on the budget and results of other non airsoft related business my friend runs.

I meant that the back of the pellet should be able to deform to seal in the barrel. This is where most of the efficiency is lost with airsoft in that it has a very poor seal. If you can get a decent seal then the rifling will be more effective and you will also be able to reduce gas usage for the same velocity.

Now as to a spinning BB being more ballistically efficient then a shaped projectile that will come-down to what ballistic coeficient and sectional density you can achieve. In general the longer you can make a projectile the more efficient it is and the heavier it is for a given diameter the better it will perform. This is why heavier BBs don't seem to suffer for their loss of velocity, because they are more ballistically efficient due to increased sectional density and so maintain their speed better.

I would personally love to see something like a boattail round but with two small o-rings to seal it to the barrel. Also you could use some .25 caliber barrel liner as a start for your barrel, then you won't have to rifle anything yourself.
Cheers,
Grant

I have to second doing your initial tests with a Tanaka series gas rifle rather than a spring one. So long as you have a regulated gas supply to take care of consistency, it would be ideal since the bolt actually opens, allowing you to load the pellets by hand (so you don't need to figure out any sort of magazine or feed system yet.

Hahaha nicely done! I like the bitches!

Back on track, I don't expect a lot of range compared to our standard, hopuped BBs. My airguns pellets, althoug firing stronger that my 450fps airsoft M24, don't have half it's range due to the lack of BBs. Granted the acuracy is much better.

So, what are the ranges expected for these munitions? If they are kept with the same weights as the regular 6mm ammo, you don't have a lot of play with fps to keep them from being dangerous. That don't favor range.

I think that this should be primarily about consistancy. As it is there is very little adjustment for distance in airsoft because past a certain distance the accuracy just goes right out the window. What we need isn't more speed of less drop, what we need is consistant drop and wind drift.
I would love if range estimation and bullet drop were more of a factor for sniping, then the role would be much more realistic.
Cheers,
Grant

Got my tokyo marui pro sniper from our customs today, the mechanism where the bb is loaded have enough space, so my guess is just a barrel and magazine change and maybe a bit of cutting on the hop up mechanism should be enough to fit longer rounds. Gotta talk to my friend when he is back to city.

i can assume since the projectile doesn't roll down the barrel it should have some decent range as long as its kept completely centered in the barrel.

Sorry it took so long to get this started
but after weeks of waiting, and economical problems, my friend told me that the CNC shop produced around 50-70 prototypes today. Just to tell you we are still working on this topic.

thats cool

This really piques my interest especially since I'm considering 3-4 years down the road I might get a sniper setup.

It would give me a huge advantage and make it easier to enter the sniper role.
I still like assaulting however I just want to switch out setup's to mix it up a bit.

So do you still need the modified barrel? I'm assuming that you need to load the mags like a real mag so a modified mag is a definite.

How much cap do you expect in a modified mag? 15 rounds? 30 rounds?

Also you'll probably have to manufacture these modified mags yourself so how much do you expect them to retail for? How much can we expect for a bag of BB's (ie. how much for 250 rounds, or 500 rounds?)

While discussing today, my friend said the bullets can be lighter than 0.2 grams, because you don't need extra weight when you have a rifled barrel to solve the wind problem, so yes, we will produce rifled barrels. The bullet design and weight can change after some testing though. Right now the bullet is around 1 cm long, with the usual bb diameter.
"Bullets will be around 8-10 US cents each, don't know about the gun kits, depends on the cost."
We designed the bullets to work with the magazines we will produce, but it's still too early to give information about them, but we will make sure they will hold enough rounds (something around 15-30 as you mentioned) and will be affordable.
Normally, people wouldn't want to spend 150$ on a kit that was manufactured in a city that is far away, without knowing the availability of the bullets in the future. We will keep this in mind.

It's the weight that determines the range and wind-resistance, not the fact of smooth bore or rifled. Will explain later, I have to bail.

Stalker is right. The wind affect BBs like they where sailboat. The bigger and lighter they are, the more affected by wind they will be. Their speed is also a factor, the slower they go, the bigger the deviation will be. That's why 8mm sniper rifle are not that great, since the weight of the BB is limited as not to cause injuries.

Where this new round would shine, is if it was light enough to allow higer fps, so the lack of hopup is compensated by it's spinning effect to keep acuracy and range in check. The light BB will be affected by wind and loose a lot of it's energy, but since it's travelling fast, the wind won't have time to deviate it a lot.

I'm still wondering what kind of energy it will retain. and how much joules on impact they will exert.

he said the round will cost 8-10 cents. that is paintball costs. im just worried that this will sweep the airsoft world and make all my guns obsolete.

back in the good ol days, before airsoft, we had the occasional pellet gun wars, and ammo was bubble gum. You would have a wad of gum in your mouth, and you would take a little piece of it, ( a little smaller than a BB)
and place it in the barrel the same as a pellet. Worked good, although I can't recall what kind of range was effective.
Anyone with a pellet gun?, try it out. Would be interesting to hear what fps and range gum has. LOL

Yes you do need .2g weight or higher. Weight determines everything: range, accuracy.

If you have anything less than .2g it will be useless.

Hell I don't even bother using .2g outdoors.

No worries on that; this will be banned from sale in Canada as it fits under the definition of a replica firearm. Darn Canada

I designed a 45 round drum magazine for .43 paintball ammo and I cannot legally sell it, and that's just because it holds more than 5 rds.

.

your thinking waaaaaaaaaaay too deep.

Only snipers are going to use it, and snipers rarely fire(absolute Max 100 rounds a day from what I've seen, usually more or so 30ish). So that would equal $10 per day at the most?

I use up like 1000~2000 rounds with my AEG in a day. And that's like $10~15 ish.

so in the end it all works out

That makes no sense.

All because it holds more than 5 rds. Paintballs at that.

I've heard on occasions that snipers will only shoot 10 times a day. From what I understand they are mostly used for intel gathering and relaying tactical info back to HQ so that the assaulters are able to come in and engage the E.

My primary is a TM VSR-10...

Average game I shoot about... 150-200 shots...

But I tend to get right into the mess of things.. + Using a stock TM VSR-10... I end up shooting at a target more than once.

That doesn't mean anything. They don't hold real ammunition.

i guess with my post i was more worried about this new system turning all of ours obsolete since we need special mags, what if i cant find said mags for the gun i need. etc etc. still the idea is interesting.

It's meant mostly for snipers, not for regular AEG's.

Any update on this? This and a RealSword SVD would be absolutely killer.

Actually yes.
We got our machines, and finially got some prototypes.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../prototype.jpg

I will be trying to launch an English-Turkish board on http://www.HsAirsoft.com but there is just a myBb board on the site, until i get a real website done.

What is the weight on these proto's?

They are 0.4grams, we will be making lighter ones for lower energy rifles, and maybe heavier ones for higher powered rifles.
But the first ones will be for ~530 FPS rifles.

By the way, they look a bit dirty, thats because they aren't grinned, marketed products will be made all shiny and smooth hehe.

Beauty. These sound like they could potentially be a great idea..

Do you have proto guns ready? ie, with proper barrels, loading units, magazines, etc.?

Precisely my thought - probably could only do this effectively with a rifled barrel. You need some type of spin to create cyntrifical (sp) force to keep the projectile on target.

Interesting design indeed.

How are you going to deal with the hopup, isnt that going to interfere?

We just have bullets for now, it took a few hours to decide on the design and a few minutes to build the prototypes (around 30 bullets i think) and months to get our economical status better so we could get machinery.
Unless the country or we have another economical crysis, we should be making the rifled barrels soon too.

Beautiful.. I think this is a very interesting idea. Hope things keep going smoothly and quickly.

I really need some name suggestions, don't want to just call them "Airsoft Bullets"

BBBs (Balistic BBs)

BBB already stands for BB Bastard.

But as for a name.... Since its not really a BB, because its not a sphere of 6mm.
We need to find an original name.
But I'm really not sure lol.

Plajectile....... plastic/projectile

Tammo or trammo? training ammo. Or simmo, sim. ammo. Sort of like simunition, but.. not

how about "sniper munition"

looks like it would be ideal for revolvers as well though im not sure if the ones that take shells chamber 6mm or 8mm bbs. probably both.
something like this http://redwolfairsoft.com/redwolf/ai...l?prodID=24792

Hmm. How 'bout sniper + plastic = "sniplastic"

I think the spelling would need some work so most people wouldn't mispronounce it.

Plammo. Plastic Ammo. Plammunition.
Fammo. Fake Ammo. Fammunition.

Tacto. Tactical ammo.

lol i like the ammo/ammunition theme as you can tell.

AR-T Rounds or AR-T Shells
(Assault Rifle - Turkey [since they are made in Turkey])

Why not "sniper BBs"? ;)

linear BB

BB stands for ball bearing
this is no longer belong to the BB class

AMMOX - ammunition extreme :D

Sniper AMMOX
for airsoft
made in Turkey

;)

I like where Aquas going with the name but AR doesn't really fit since it's designed for sniper rifles.

Maybe Snipe-T???

How about "Airsoft darts"? (Cause it goes in a straight line almost, kinda lie a dart)

how about SAP rounds? it could stand for sniper airsoft projectile or specialized airsoft projectile.

I liked the SAP name, but SAP also means men with no women in Turkish,
I'm naming them AP (Airsoft Pellets) Since they have a pellet design, and for airsoft.
With the company name (HavaliSilah - HS)
HSAP

Or just APs

I like both AP and HSAP

"Man, I'm sniping this dude with AP rounds.... he's so dead!"

Hahaha

You could verify your ballistic by using a regular pellet gun and making smalled prototypes to fit in. Maybe a .22 pellet gun would prove a good idea of their ballistic property.

I'd love to see these in an M4.

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;

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

"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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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