unless you have been hiding under a rock, you probably have heard about the tiberius arms first strike rounds(FS). these are self rifeling rounds that fly much further and more accurate than standard paintballs.

real FS rounds.

the only down side is that they cost (if you buy them in bulk) arround 44 cents each.


that's expencive!
most paintballs cost about 2 cents per shot.
marbalizers cost 3.5 cents per paintball.


so I set out to see if I could create a self rifeling paintball. I thought of a possible solution, tried it, and here's what I built.


It's just a regular rps stinger paintball that I glued a paper tail fin onto.

test one was done with hot glue(because it was getting dark and I needed a fast drying glue.)

to load the paintballs I simply unscrewed the barrel and inserted the round like this:




on the first few shots the hot glue was unable to stay attached to the paintball durring flight. it was ripped off and landed about 10 feet infront of me. the paintballs however did get the 90 feet to the target but were way off target compared to a regular paintball.
I needed a stronger glue so I made up a new batch.

I used epoxy on most of the rounds and super glue gell on the last 2.

I let them dry (upright) over night and fired them the next day(today).

BTW: I was shooting them from my 98.


RESULTS:
all except one of the epoxy'd rounds made it all the way intact to the fence.

one of the super glue rounds made it, but one broke appart durring flight.

I could visibly see that the rounds were spinning!

unfortunatly none of the home made FS rounds landed as high or as accurat as the regular paintball shot.

grouping was terrible.

two of the rounds survived the impact. because one of them landed in a pile of leaves just below the fence. I'm not sure how the other one survived.

grouping from 90 feet:


CONCLUSION:
yes, the tail fins did make the paintball spin in a similar way as the FS rounds.

no, they didn't go nearly as far as a FS or a regular paintball.

I think that the reason for the lack of distance is because the tail was creating excess drag.

the reason the grouping was terrible was because: A. the sight was not sighted in to the FS rounds. B. I made the tail fins all different sizes.

Is this a viable option? not currently I need a new tail fin design. I also need to try to make all of the tail fins the same size/weight.

I'll probably try again sometime and I'll post my results in this thread. please feel free to comment, discuse, or try it your self.

EDIT: UPDATE!

I decided to try a new batch. They are still drying so hopefully I can test these tomarrow. I am trying the cone type and a smaller version of my original design.


I also tried Damifino's suggestion and used a string as a tail.
I only made 2 and here is the grouping:

notice the 2 new paint dots. it's not bad, seems comparible to regular paintballs though.


all that's left.


update 4/29/10:
ok so I fired the new batch of rounds.
the first shot was what I think was the best round that I had made. It was a cone type that I had glued SLIGHTLY BEHIND THE SEAM. as far as I could tell this worked exactly as planned. I fired it at the same part of the fence as the other rounds. I was unable to find where the round landed. I am pretty sure that I saw it going on target so I am pretty sure that it cleared the fence. aproximatly 2 feet higher than the regular paintball. I was very excited and quickly reloaded and tried again. unfortunatly the next 3 rounds never left the barrel. I had foolishly glued the paper ring on the seam. this caused a ungodly ammount of friction and allowed most of the air to vent out of the porting before the round ever left the barrel. (no I didn't fire multiple rounds while there was still one stuck in the barrel) sooooo....... obviously the key is to glue the paper slightly behind the seam.

now on to my modified original design type.
as you can see in the picture that I posted earlier I had 2 types of rounds. a cone type and a smaller version of my previous design. after having the first shot flying over the fence I wisely aimed lower. the 3 shots that I took after that all landed within a 12 inch spred very close to where I was aiming. one went slightly higher than my aiming point and 2 went slightly lower. and I could still see that they were all still spinning.

so I need to try again. this time i think I will make 10c.t. (cone type) and 10m.o.t.(modified original type) and I need to go to the place I usualy play paintball so I can shoot them further distances.


UPDATE! 5/1/10

I tried again and here's what I got so far.

This whole batch was a fail but I am learning from my mistakes.
I took hubb's suggestion and made a press. that is where I am getting those little ridges from.

reserved.

Does the paintball have to spin? The purpose of adding the tail is to stabilize it and make it more accurate, not necessarily to make it spin. Try just putting a piece of string on the paintball and see how that does. Just make sure the string is significant enough to stabilize the round and that each one is cut to the same length.

no I guess that it doesn't have to spin but I am trying to make it spin like a FS round to hopefully get more distance. you know like rifeling.

Damifino on x7og suggested just using a piece of string. so I tried that and.... well i only made 2 and the spread is about 12inches appart and lower on the board. so i don't know If it helped or not.

original post updated.

Rifling doesnt increase distance it is supposed to increase accuracy. If your getting worse range you should try new designs.

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Actually the spinning is incredibly important. It adds both accuracy and range to your shot. The spinning causes a gyroscopic effect which stablizes it and make it move through the air more efficiently(which causes more distance). The tail is use to 1. Have the lines to cause the spinning. 2. Keep the paintball spinining in one direction perpendicular to the direction of travel. What I think is the problem is that this has added way to much surface area which causes more drag. Also the fins that are meant to cause spin seem to be to big. Paintballs dont weight that much so that big of wings will cause spin but will also cause alot of drag. Id try cutting angles slits into the 1st 3rd 4th 5th on in your first update pic. Just those cuts may be enough to cause the needed spin. I really like what your trying here . Mind if I give it a try and put my own spin(no pun intended) on it?

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of course, the more the merrier. I was planning on cuttin those slits like you said. so far it is the only way that I can think of to make those ridges on it. and yes rifling makes a projectile go farther and straighter.

But normal paintballs have at least twice as much paint in them as a FS round does. And, due to the physics and all that, the liquid is going to spin slower which means that the paintball, regardless of the tail design, will have irregular spin patterns because of this.

I've not tested it, but it would seem that that the shell would need to be spinning at the same speed as the paint inside. I have no idea on how to do this, but maybe if there was a way to start spin slow and allow the two to catch up with each other?

Anyway, don't stop experimenting. You will eventually succeed and then we can have a sniper mod named after you

freezer time! that would thicken up the the paint alright. all I need now are some refrigerated 10 round tubes.