SpudFiles

There is no doubt that a humble ball valve works, indeed in conjunction with a properly made detent is can provide better power than any other valve. On the other hand something like a modded sprinkler valve is almost as easy to put together and gives a lot more "gun-like" experience of pulling a blowgun trigger, as opposed to having to slap a ball valve open.

I like the ball valve because it is waterproof, battery free, and idiot proof(safe for me to operate)

Edit: Post deleted for stupidity.

Just finished bashing together some fittings, cutting some pipe and reassembled an old plinker which is where my better impressions of ball valves lie.




Barrel has an olive glued to it but the compression nut can be loosened and tightened by hand for loading. The other compression fittings are tool tightened.

Valve only opens halfway when swung back with three fingers as shown but it's a plinker not a plank cracker.

Other hand goes on the barrel to hold it steady when it's not being used to hold a camera

Hotwired wrote:Just finished bashing together some fittings, cutting some pipe and reassembled an old plinker which is where my better impressions of ball valves lie.

Enjoy your Summer holidays

How about an o-ring between the barrel and the ball valve to hold the projectile in place until sufficient pressure builds up, perhaps to illustrate that the humble ball valve need not be associated with limited power?

Haven't had a summer holiday for a few years now

I have a late start for work today though, which is nice 8)

I won't fiddle with it, low power, weight and effort to pump up are what I consider key points of a backyard plinker.

Can't remember what my other cannon weighs in at, 5kg or so? Unwieldy stuff to be waving about in an urban garden and entirely capable of going through quite a few fences at high power or over a dozen properties....

So it would have to be at low power. Which then takes away much of the point of it being a large heavy cannon (relatively).

nice
I think that most of us have built a gun like this one

HunterT wrote:I like that!(144% more power) Nearly twice as much power!

Not 144% more. 144% of. Which means 44% more.

Hotwired wrote:Who primarily uses their cannons for long distance accuracy shooting at steel plate.

I'm working on it...

Hotwired wrote:Can't remember what my other cannon weighs in at, 5kg or so?

Copperhead Prime? I'd expect it to be more like half that.
In terms of size, it's a lot smaller than HEAL - which weighs about 4.2 kg.

Unwieldy stuff to be waving about in an urban garden

Not so much. That's about what my air rifle weighs, and that's not too heavy to use. If anything, any unwieldiness is because there's relatively little weight behind the hand grip.

just take .50cal, its just suonds to have more balls

jakethebeast wrote:just take .50cal, its just suonds to have more balls

Yeah, but technically, a 20 gauge has more balls than a 12 gauge.

Indeed, that was the definition. 20 lead balls (of the appropriate calibre) from a pound of lead, or 12 lead balls (of the appropriate calibre) from a pound of lead. The latter obviously has bigger balls though.

Consequently, we can determine that More Balls =/= Bigger Balls.

I like that!(144% more power) Nearly twice as much power!

That's not nearly 2x the power, 200% would be 2x the power, this would be like just under 1.5x the power. Personally, I'd go with .50 cal. because it's easier to get ammo for that, but as stated above, .60 cal. will give you more power.

I like the ball valve because it is waterproof, battery free, and idiot proof(safe for me to operate)

Sprinkler valves are battery free too if they are modified for use with a blowgun or an other pilot valve. And If you are afraid that you are going to do something stupid with it...you need to be careful. Even basic ball valve guns can be very dangerous if you don't observe the basic gun safety rules (Don't look down the barrel, always treat it as if loaded, etcetc)

I think I'll go with a .60 caliber. It has nearly 1.5 times the power of the .50 cal like jacksmirkingrevenge said "... the 0.60 cal theoretically has 144% of the power available to the 0.50 cal..." Ammo shouldn't be a problem because I'm makin' my own.

In the interest of power then, you should also consider a better valve

What do you mean by better valve? Do you mean a sprinkler valve or simply a bigger ball valve?

He means a better performing valve. Ask almost anybody on the site and they will tell you a ball valve is the least powerful pneumatic valve to use. They have poor opening times unless you build a trigger system and spring load it which I think is a pain. Upgrade to at least a sprinkler valve or a QEV, or if you feel ambitious build a piston valve