Piston Valve Safety

[Tidbit77]

Im sorry that this is a noob question but would a ball valve attached before the pilot on a piston valve be an effective saftey, and would it effect the performance of the piston valve?

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

It's adding dead space and possibly constricting flow so performance certainly won't be better. Personally I don't bother with safeties, why not add a mechanical one to whatever it is you're using to trigger your pilot valve?

[Tidbit77]

Ok thanks, I'll construct a mechanical safety instead

[Hotwired]

It's adding dead space and possibly constricting flow

Not necessarily.

Tidbit, on my signature cannon there is a safety valve as you described. It does work very effectively.

After firing it with the safety on absolutely nothing happens to the piston valve but if you then open the safety valve the piston valve may then fire a small burst of gas (not the whole chamber) out of the barrel... which may be used for a semi auto I might add.

So if you do forget to take the safety off you need to pump up the vented pilot section back to the chamber pressure again.

If you had a more conventional ball valve on the barrel to physically block the main gas blast you'd have to do a lot more pumping to get it set up again and it stresses the fittings more.