The Next Generation - Thinking up a new type of gun

[Adrian]

My friend is going off to a paintball tournament this weekend, and that got me thinking about whether the tech behind paintball/airsoft guns could somehow be adapted to create more powerful, more realistic (in terms of looks and size) water guns.

I was thinking specifically of pre-filled, pre-pressurized tanks of water and some gas (possibly CO2 like in paintball guns) that would contain a certain number of shots, probably the number of shots from a real gun today, between 5-15. The guns would have to be semi-automatic only (or some variation of the XP 90 technology) and would shoot a pre-measured "burst" of water. The tanks might be small enough (since they're for only a limited shots of shots) that the guns could be scaled back to a realistic size (and they wouldn't have to carry pumps and tanks, since both pressure and ammo would be stored together already compressed).

It'd be pretty expensive, since a good chunk of the gun would have to be metal (like some airsoft guns these days), and the tanks could only be filled by professional dealers (like with CO2 now), but I think the cost (if it worked) would even out if it caught on.

The only thing I really see being the problem is the pre-pressurized tanks. I'm not really up with the physics of that kinda stuff... would the CO2 blow the burst apart coming out of the gun? Would gravity dictate the angle of the tank? Would it even be possible? If possible, would it be any more powerful than what we have now?

Just throwin' some thoughts out here,

Adrian

[isoaker]

Everything is possible, but price makes it prohibitive. If you make the reservoir small so that it can be made to look more realistic, the problem is that the amount of water expelled won't be enough to create a stream capable of travelling very far. If you attempt to shoot too small a volume of water at a higher speed, you'll end up doing a mist shot.

For water guns, a good chunk of the power lies in the volume of water it can push.

This, of course, is a rather incomplete explanation, but I need to run for now. Others can add in more detail if they feel it necessary.

[Field Marshal Yang]

If price is a problem, then speciality soakers can be manufactured for those who wish to spend as much as they would for paintball or airsoft. But all that depends on the interest level for high powered water weapons across the potential consumer board.