Ammo just disintegrating...

[dongfang]

Hi,

I had my first real trial shooting of the Schweizer-Valve this evening.

I wanted to get golf balls, but all I could find was ridiculously expensive even for normal golf practice, and certainly for shooting them BVR.

There is something wrong with that valve: It makes ammo disintegrate.
A hard boiled egg just splattered long before reaching the target (4 m away) at 6 bar.
After I loaded another egg at 8 bar, the blowgun hose popped off and I got some of a scare when the gun went off between my hands, sending the egg into the air in an unknown number of pieces.

Finally, I fired a chunk of ice at 6 bar into the air. I heard some noise, like tiny fragments of something coming down after firing, but I never heard the projectile come back - and that was in a forest, a quiet forest.

Does that happen to all of you? Ice disintegrating at just 6 bar?

Guess I have to pour some wax slugs. They work.

Regards
Soren

[robert23]

Sounds awesome if you're dumping that much air that fast. I would say get some tougher ammo, and see what kind of incredible results you get from that. Also a wad of a shock absorbing material behind the projectile should protect it from the jar of initial acceleration a little bit.

[dongfang]

Hi

Yeah I can't wait to make some chrono measurements (watch out for upcoming posts on my unofficial $1 Swiss chronograph!) on it.

Candles in Switzerland are just -- incredibly expensive. I'll try at the local golf driving range tomorrow; hear if my gun is welcome there or not ... hehehe....

Regards
Soren

[DYI]

I think you can usually buy solid chunks of paraffin wax at grocery stores, for sealing jam jars. They would probably be a more economical (and less smelly) source of wax. I use them to cast wax slugs, and they work pretty well.

[noob of noobs]

I don't think ice would just dissolve like that... Maybe there's somthing inside the barrel erroding at it? Also, if you really want to see disentigration, cast and shoot mortar pellets! They just exit the barrel as a white cloud of dust!

[TwitchTheAussie]

Just buy some golf balls despite the price and aim them at something that will stop them.

[goathunter]

Try putting a paper towel down first.That should be a sufficient bumper to keep the stuff(technical term) from blowing up before exiting the barrel.Although I think that's what robert was hinting at?

[dongfang]

Hi goathunter,

OK, so the wadding goes on the breech side of the projectile?

Regards
Soren

[chaos]

i can answer that one, yes put it on the breech side of the projectile.

[dongfang]

Hi,

OK I found out about the eggs. Without wadding:

4 bar: Egg comes out intact, but not very fast

5 bar: Egg peels itself mid-air, yoke hits target

6 bar: Egg disintegrates, nothing hits target.

Regards
Soren

[spud yeti]

It sounds like your egg just cant take it... So I suggest you hard buil the egg, wrap the egg in a bit off tape and try that because then it cant disintergrate with the tape around it. Just a thought though.

[Intel Xeon]

Didn't we have a thread on shooting eggs a while ago? I believe they were deemed an un-cannonworthy(more technical jargon) projectile...

[paaiyan]

Yea, hardboiling might help, but it's still an egg. You should try wax slugs, they're a pretty good density and they don't tend to fall apart easily.

[dongfang]

Hi

Will definitely try way slugs in a short while.

The eggs were hard boiled eggs from organic Swiss chickens with military survival training. Didn't help.

Regards
Soren

[VH_man]

1. thats a beautiful valve......

2. try wadding the barrel and shooting arrows.

either that, or shoot shotgun sprays of stuff.... another thing that works well is corn cobs from corn-on-the-cob. (makes a great end to a party. eat corn, pull out pipe dream, shoot the cobs across the yard.......)

and what happened to my good old starchy friend the potato?