HS Airsoft Pellets (APs)

[NI-MH]

HS Airsoft Pellets (APs)


The Airsoft Pellets (APs) are made out of Teflon in order to reduce the friction in the barrel. This allows the usage of rifled barrels.
The weight center of the pellet is near it's front, this increases the stability of the flight.
With a much better ballistic coefficient than a regular airsoft BB, the APs will keep a stable velocity during their flights at longer ranges,
allowing to achieve higher ranged shots without needing higher energy levels, while being much more accurate than a regular BB.
This also means less weight will be required in order to achieve more range and accuracy. And with lighter pellets, the velocity can be much higher with the same energy.
Faster projectile means less flight time, which gives wind less time to effect the trajectory of the APs. The rifled barrel plays a significant role in reducing the wind effect on the trajectory and increasing the accuracy by gyroscopically stabilizing the pellet.
By having a trajectory similar to a firearm bullet, APs improve the usability of scopes and similar firearm sights.
In addition, APs can be "traced" by having an orange colored back side on a black bullet. This allows the bullet to be visible only to the shooter.

First Barrel and Magazine kits will be released for Tokyo Marui VSR-10 and if possible, for it's clones.

Blog:


(Photo of the early prototype pellets)
0.4 Grams

Expected Results:
10CM Grouping at 40 meters.
Less wind effect on the bullet's trajectory.
Better aerodynamics than a regular BB.
Flight path will be similiar to a firearm bullet, so it will be possible to use scopes more effectively.

Unknown release date, testing results will be posted to here.

01.01.2009 (Happy new year everyone)

We finially have something new to show and tell.



(The actual products won't have pointy tips)
We will carry out more tests, and get more numerical results. Record some videos too.

07.09.2009

Hello people that randomly check my site.
Sorry for being quiet for so long, as we all noticed, something wasn't going well since nothing would take this much time to be developed and tested.
Sadly, my partner who was doing the "bullet" part of my project went missing a few months ago.
Reason? Serious schizophrenia which caused him to abandon everything and everyone after causing plenty of monetary loss. It's not easy to notice these, as he was doing a great job hiding his condition. As time went on, I started to lose contact with him and after a while I could only talk to him on the phone, and I started to hear things about him being held at some place against his will, having a stroke, being paralyzed etc. Which came out to be illusions he was having.
Right now, I don't have any idea where he is. But at least I know that he is well, he was one of my closest friends afterall.

What about APs?
We were getting somewhere with these, but we made no progress after the beginning of this year. I kept receiving excuses for delays and lost my focus on the topic because my part was to do the small research I did for the market, launch a site and basicly do whatever an industrial designer would do (besides making shiny illustrations which I also was going to do)
After going through the stuff of our now shut down shooting range/workshop I could find the prototype APs, but I have doubts about their design. I don't believe they were designed by following the principles of ballistics, but rather how bullets work in my partner's mind, which might be real, or delusions.

So whats next?
To be honest, I still think a non spherical projectile in airsoft community can have it's place and can make a few snipers happy. As people on ASC forums pointed out it was done in paintball, and It's only a matter of time before someone brings them into airsoft, and as some of you know, It was done before and It was working. With tecnology getting better, I don't see any reason for such a project to not to be feasible.
And I'm still interested in this project, I might come up with a new design as I've started to study about it and I tend to spread the airsoft epidemic to the people around. (Especially with that Turkish gibberish I wrote onto this site, It's about passing airsoft through our customs ) so only time will tell.

Anyway, thanks for reading and your support!

[ali_en]

where can i find rifles that can effectively shoot these bullets? Where can i buy one?

[NI-MH]

Hello, the Tokyo Marui VSR-10 Modeli will be able to shoot APs when the kits are released.
I recommend http://www.gunsnguys.com/home_ns.htm As Tokyo Marui shop. The prices on the site are hong kong dollars.
There are cheaper vsr-10 clones on the market, but we do not know if they will be fully compatible with out VSR-10 Kits.

[tunabreath]

I'm really looking forward to being able to use these

Just a couple quick questions:
I read on ASC (or at least, I think I read) that these are made of a softer material than typical BBs. Is this true? How much softer?

Also, I'm curious as to if the materials they're made of react badly to high temperatures, which could occur in a cap-firing or otherwise combustion powered gun.

[NI-MH]

Hey glad to see you here!
The material is teflon, It's softer than the BBs. But this doesn't mean they are flexible rubber, just softer than ABS plastic. (Think of the transparent packaging of writeable CDs, they are softer than ABS)
There is a reason to use softer material though, rifed barrels need softer material in order to form a tight fit inside the barrel but still allow rifling to grab onto the bullet without wasting too much energy via friction.
Teflon can stand up to 260 °C (500 °F) and is a material used for inner coating of cookingware, so unless you try to fire them using a firearm (just the pressure would be enough to destroy the bullet), they will be okay.

Also the first test batch (around a hundred bullets) finially got produced (via CNC)
They are black, 0.23grams and they are at the perfect diameter (unlike the older white bullets which were having issues inside the barrel called "it doesn't fit" so we couldn't test all of them)
We actually fired some of them, but results will be only poster after controlled tests and comparing them to ordinary BBs.

The market APs will be produced via injection molding, they will still be at the same diameter, shape and weight, but mass produced in order to reduce the cost.

[tunabreath]

Sounds good (as always )

Since I'm not holding any in my hand, I can't really comment, but I'd like to know if there are any major differences in terms of energy on impact compared to regular BBs. Like was covered over at ASC, one would presume that since they're more aerodynamic, they would lose less energy in flight and hit harder for the same muzzle velocity, consequently requiring a larger minimum engagement distance.

Now I understand that you can't post performance results yet, but if you could give me a rough idea - I'm guessing that less mass should be required for equivalent performance if they're less affected by wind, so that would bring energy levels down a bit.

Have you considered a softer (shock absorbent) material for higher weight/impact applications? Would that mess up anything with regards to the rifling? What about just soft tips? Would that be too difficult/expensive to manufacture with any consistency?

I definitely believe that pellets like this are the future for sniping in airsoft. The closer we can get to a real firearm's trajectory (without injury ) the better.

[NI-MH]

A softer material would still hurt, the energy still gets transferred to the skin, even though the material would dampen some of it by changing it's shape, the results would be similiar. It's the weight and speed. And yes such thing would be really hard to fire or manufacture.
I can't say anything about bullets losing less energy over range, but thats not the only thing that would make APs more effective. But after tests (on ourselves) if we notice a problem, we can make a chart for fields to set new FPS limits for our APs.
For example, If the field and players allow 500 FPS with 15 meter minimum engagement distance, we would say (for example) 430 FPS with our APs would give similiar results on human skin when they are fired at 15 meters, but the rifle must be chrono'ed to 400 FPS (Since you won't have 0.2g APs to chrono with, the FPS has to be set for 0.23g APs)
But this can also mean with similiar energies for longer range, bad accidents can be prevented even if rifle is fired below the minimum engagement distance. At point blank, a regular 0.23g BB and 0.23g AP would deliver the same amount of energy if they are at the same FPS and weight.

They will have a firearm's trajectory, maybe they will lose more altitude when compared to regular BBs with hop up, but they will do it in a predictable way, so you can caliber a scope to 25 Meters, and after some practise you can hit a target at 30 meters by aiming higher and using notches on the scope. You can't easily do this with regular BBs because of the unpredictable (though, some players manage to do this) trajectory.
Not to forget, compared to regular BBs, a bullet shaped projectile would have much smaller groupings on longer ranges, thanks to it's shape (less barrel wobble and air leak, aerodynamics, balanced weight etc.)

[tunabreath]

Ooh, shiny! Those look really good. They remind me of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini%C3%A9_ball

It also occurs to me that using a skirted/grooved tail not only assists in engaging rifling and reducing friction in the barrel (less area = greater pressure = less of a tight fit required), but provides far greater potential stability than the previously attempted finned projectiles (aka corkscrew shot) since there is much less and much more controllable variance about the longitudinal axis of the projectile (contained basically entirely in the run out of the lathe cross-feed in this case).

*a happy new year to you as well

[aznpos531]

any more updates on these sniper pellets?

[NI-MH]

Hello again,
Thanks for the interest!
We are trying to produce a few rifled barrels for testing and I will be posting news to this thread.
I know it's taking more time than it should, things are just a bit busy.

[tunabreath]

Glad to see this is still moving along.

Yet another quick question :p
Since you're producing your own barrels, I'm wondering if you can produce different 'weights' of barrels as well as length. Most airsoft sniper rifles have a LOT of room between the inner and outer barrels. I imagine an inner barrel that is thick and stiff enough to be held free floating on its own without being supported by an outer would help accuracy a bit.

[Debris]

We are waiting .

[hawkeye]

any updates? or is this a dead project?

[alvander]

We thinking about building some prototype bullets from nylon, and use Tonio Koba's twisted barrel.
Airsoft Poland

[NI-MH]

Hello everyone, I know I have been quiet for a while, mostly because whatever I say won't be much different (or any better) than the previous ones. Sadly, my partner hasn't been doing well because of his medical conditions.
I'm trying my best to keep this project not to turn into a vaporware.

As for the last post, From what I know about koba's twisted barrels, it works by leaking some amount of air around the projectile in order to keep it stabilised in the barrel by forming a some kind of "air bag" around it. As it was designed for spherical rounds, it may or may not work, gotta try it!
As for building the APs, I'm unable to provide more than the already posted photos.

Thanks everyone.

[alvander]

It just was discussed concept. I started it on some forum, but didn't know about Your project yet. Few guys (thanks people!) tried to help me with resolving the problem.
Your project is earlier, and much more advanced. We stuck on theoretical discussion and some "hand-made" new-projectile-type prototype. It seems You have much bigger possibilities than our small and young team :-)
I consider sending an e-mail to main-producers (Systema Jp., TM, maybe Guarder and others too) about our project, with some conclusions. I was counting on them - maybe some of, will interest in this idea. Better airsoft - that's all i want.
(I wanted to do this before reading this topic, but now... i don't know if it is good idea)

Good luck, guys! Keep us inform, and "keep the pedal to the metal".
____

PS. Sorry for my poor English, i learn with myself.

[NI-MH]

Hello people that randomly check my site.
Sorry for being quiet for so long, as we all noticed, something wasn't going well since nothing would take this much time to be developed and tested.
Sadly, my partner who was doing the "bullet" part of my project went missing a few months ago.
Reason? Serious schizophrenia which caused him to abandon everything and everyone after causing plenty of monetary loss. It's not easy to notice these, as he was doing a great job hiding his condition. As time went on, I started to lose contact with him and after a while I could only talk to him on the phone, and I started to hear things about him being held at some place against his will, having a stroke, being paralyzed etc. Which came out to be illusions he was having.
Right now, I don't have any idea where he is. But at least I know that he is well, he was one of my closest friends afterall.

What about APs?
We were getting somewhere with these, but we made no progress after the beginning of this year. I kept receiving excuses for delays and lost my focus on the topic because my part was to do the small research I did for the market, launch a site and basicly do whatever an industrial designer would do (besides making shiny illustrations which I also was going to do)
After going through the stuff of our now shut down shooting range/workshop I could find the prototype APs, but I have doubts about their design. I don't believe they were designed by following the principles of ballistics, but rather how bullets work in my partner's mind, which might be real, or delusions.

So whats next?
To be honest, I still think a non spherical projectile in airsoft community can have it's place and can make a few snipers happy. As people on ASC forums pointed out it was done in paintball, and It's only a matter of time before someone brings them into airsoft, and as some of you know, It was done before and It was working. With tecnology getting better, I don't see any reason for such a project to not to be feasible.
And I'm still interested in this project, I might come up with a new design as I've started to study about it and I tend to spread the airsoft epidemic to the people around. (Especially with that Turkish gibberish I wrote onto this site, It's about passing airsoft through our customs ) so only time will tell.

Anyway, thanks for reading and your support!

[stellarkyle]

How much will the APs run for? What about the kits and the mags?