Paintball tank vs other air source

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LivingSavage
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Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:45 am

Hello I'm new to the site so hopefully I'm in the right place. Im interested in building an air rifle in the .30-.50 cal range. I want to get a velocity of 800 FPS and above(fingers crossed). I am not sure how to go forward with this project as I don't know if I should use a HPA paintball tank or build an air reservoir. I currently have a Pure Energy 48/3000 HPA tank. Not sure what will be more efficient or better for this type of project.Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
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i-will
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Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:38 am

First I like to think of what I want. How do u see yourself firing, loading, fueling, maintaining, and storing this rifle. All those cool features you've seen in all your favorite stallone movies. By the time u can picture yourself running through the woods reloading you'll have the thing built and painted in your head. There's just a lot of information missing here to really answer your question....
But if it was me I'd go for portability. I'd build a handful of reservoirs and call them mags. Then you won't have a whole tank supercooling the system. If one fails then its on to the next one. But that's just my opinion.
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LivingSavage
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Thu Jul 31, 2014 3:14 pm

To be honest I haven't really figure it out that far yet. How could I make the reservoirs attach and detach? Sorry, I have a lot of questions. I just want to get as much advice as possible before building this thing.
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jackssmirkingrevenge
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Wed Aug 06, 2014 9:27 am

A paintball tank typically has an output of 850 psi, that's quite a bit of pressure to deal with. A good way to connect it to your setup would be using one of these:

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Assuming you don't have machining facilities or a huge budget, I would go for a Ninja paintball tank. They have regulators which can be taken down to 450 psi, which can safely be used in a small commercial quick exhaust valve that would give you the performance you're looking for.
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dart guy
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Mon Oct 27, 2014 5:23 pm

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Ianbuckwell
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Sat Jun 27, 2015 11:24 pm

Only thing I would say from my experience using a paintball tank is to make your gun as efficient as possible otherwise the paintball regulator cant keep up with demand for air. My gun was a repeater though and my skills aren't great and my lathe is old I used a paintball tank along with a chamber on the guns input to allow for more instant less restrictive temporary supply to help maintain pressure, But if you make yours better than I did this may not be required. Cant remember the brand off top of my head but the paintball tank I use is a baby 13ci (which is also going to act as a stock as I have a plastic plate for the end of it) which I fill from a larger 300bar diving style bottles, the small tanks regulator can be set to different pressures by altering the spring and packing washers either end of it.

Just an idea, but one thing I have wondered was has anyone tried using a hammer to push the regulator pin so that the paintball's regulator valve acts as the guns main valve? Probably wouldn't work or would wear the regulator valve as it is not designed to be repeatedly opened and closed

Popular prebuilt resevoirs seem to be fire extinguishers or sodastream stream cylinders which I plan on trying neat with the valve or at least internals removed for better flow. I have used soldered copper fittings to make tanks, the advantage of this is that you can make them the exact size you require, but my worry with these is I don't know what pressure they can take, I have used 400psi with no noticeable problems, but I am not saying that is safe, just my experience.
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mrfoo
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Sun Jun 28, 2015 2:18 am

sodastream cylinders are, IIRC, TP 3600psi.
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Solar
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Sat Jul 18, 2015 6:59 am

Ninja has a V2 valve with 30 percent more flow than the pin valve version.
it uses a ball bearing to accomplish this. The SLP V2 it set to 300psi standard. Great at maintaining that pressure through the entire tank as it depletes. You won't find a better bottle reg. I would go with a Palmer stabilizer for a second stage if you want. You could feed it with a standard V2 800psi bottle reg for a fast recharge. The stabilizers have a 0-700psi adjustment. A fast, lower pressure 0-200psi solution would be a scuba tank with a diaphram valve. Just be careful not to over adjust and get a runaway reg.
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