RE: Home-made markers [TANKS]

["Douglas Shannon" <professor03-at-hotmail.com>]

I think the critical issue here is related to pressure vessels, not markers.

Paintball in general is having this problem to some extent in relation to 
home-made bazookas.
Most bazookas are made from schedule 40 PVC, but it has a top pressure 
rating around 400psi and degrades with prolonged exposure to sun light; if 
you accidentally over-pressurize your air chamber, you're carrying a p!pe 
bomb with you.
Most feilds flat out refuse to let you use a home-made bazooka because of 
the insurance liability.

I have seen a few nice home-made ones that use pressure-washer handles as 
the trigger/valve and regulated high-pressure air tanks.


While gas pressure does affect velocity, range and accuracy, this is 
lessened due to the regulation of muzzle velocity. It makes little 
difference if you are using regulated HP air/N2 or un-regulated CO2 or even 
regulated CO2, because everyone has the same max velocity. The problem with 
CO2 is that your velocity will fluctuate with changing weather conditions 
(temperature, humidity, storing the bottle in direct sun-light, etc...).


I think the rules specify to use only "approved gas containers", if not, you 
might want to modify the verbage.

Doug S.


>From: "Doug Conn" <dwconn404-at-comcast.net>
>
>Isn't there already a rule that home-built marker system must use 
>commercially available, properly pressure rated equipment ? Isn't that 
>sufficient ?
>
>If there's a new pressure restriction rule enforced, I think it should 
>apply equally to both home-made and commercial markers. Allowing commercial 
>markers to run at a higher pressure would give them an unfair advantage. 
>This is particularly true when tankers in some locations cannot acquire 
>commercial markers.
>
>       - Doug