Mortar Ammunition.
 

Since I'm making serious attempts to build some marketable airsoft mortars, I'd like some imput from the airsoft community in general on what type of ammo to use. My options thus far are:

1- Tennis balls, since they are basically bigger BBs. Only they show no splash damage and thus we would have to really strech a player's patience with the honor rule.
2- Carved mortar shells or Nerf footballs. Same downside as above.
3- Bags of marking chalk. Bursts into a nice big cloud when it hits, but I'm concerned about it getting into people's guns and all over the gear they spent so much money on.

I know that everyone else suggests those Nerf balls that make noise but they seem to be impossible to find. Anyone have any ideas?

Hmm... I've seen some 40mm grenades before, which simply send out a concentrated BB shower... that doesn't seem too bad. Also, perhaps foam rounds would be nice, or something that makes noise when it hits the ground?
Actually, marking chalk's a great idea. Go for it.

Use these... :mrgreen:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...s/81-mm-12.jpg

The chalk dust sounds like a good idea except for the fact that it get's all over your stuff and is not so nice to breath.

Idealy you would want an airburst round that showers the imediate area with BBs but still be non leathal / injurious (is that even a word?) if it bursts on the ground and / or you get it in the head.

New rule you must have ballistic goggles, Kevlar helmets and LVL III vests to play. 8O

use foam "wadding" with about 2000 bb's per shot (use worst possible quality). makes a very large shower, but range is limited to about 100-150 yds max from the bb's and sometimes up to 300 yds for the foam wadding. we built several mortars like this using either nitrogen at 300 psi or ether ignited in the hand-held version. the ether one makes a big BANG as well.

This is an Honor sport after all. I would think cheep and simple. Tennis balls with a streamer to mark kill zones would be fine. If i got hit with a barrage of chalk and it got all over my kit radio, heaven forbid some ones NVG. "star bursts" with 'chutes and glow sticks would be fun. Nerf rounds would be cool but i imagine alot would go missing and the "howlers" from what i understand are hard to replace.

Keep me/us posted on your development i was t hinking of doing the same last year but like so many projects nevr got completed.

Really think balloons filled with BBs and some baby powder...?

I have to agree with those against powder of any sort. I'd stick to the honour system, and something a little more solid but non-painful when it hits you (read: tennis ball, nerf howler, something like that). Something to keep in mind, a tennis ball will only fly about 80 or so yards. No matter how hard you throw it. We discovered this when we built our catapult. We used tennisballs and golf balls, we had it heaving a tennis ball about 80 yards, tried a golf ball, 120 yards. Then we cranked up the power and had the golf ball going about 200 yards, tennis ball still only went 80 yards.

WRT howlers being difficult to replace, you could always just have the person who gets "killed" by the mortar fire pick it up, and they make noise, so you could always try and track them down later. Paint them hunter orange, they'll be pretty visable at that point, and they sound more realistic as mortar rounds anyway. Plus they look kinda like'em too :D

I have an idea for a mortor round, this is not tested or anything, just an idea. what you do is you take alot of bb's, and find a glue that is really brittle, and glue the bb's together, so when it hits the ground it "explodes" fireing bb's everywhere.

If it was too brittle... it would break apon launch.
But the thing is, that would weigh a hell of alot.

If you get his by a gian BB ball, or golf ball, god forbid, then that could really cause some damage...

like i said, it was just an idea, im gona be doin some testing as soon as i make something to launch it out of.

cans of pop..... shake them first......

Not to whiz on you parade or nothing but "Marketable Mortars" are a reality, as well as safe rounds that leave clear obvious impact radius. http://www.airsoftcanada.com/showthread.php?t=21722

This would take some serious work, but what if you could make a system similar to the gas powered grenade launchers but so that it shoots in multiple directions. You could rig it up to a tennis ball or similar sphere (even a football would work). Then put a trigger or pressure sensor so that when it hits the ground the BB's fire out of holes in the sides of the projectile.

I have no idea how you'd manage something like that but I thought it'd be most effective. Probably still have a problem with losing the projectiles.

First off, I'm surprised at all the positive ideas here.

Next, we though about just loading in shitloads of BBs, but that just gives us a huge shotgun and not a mortar. The alternative is a shower-idea, where you load a steyro-foam cup with BBs, then tape another cup over top.

Digital_Assasin, I like the way you think!

Zero delay, I can't see that forum as I have not been veriffied (possibly). Maybe you can give us some more info?

The main idea here is simplicity in all matters.

bb handgranades would be an alternative... but not very effective...

baby power or foot power is better then chalk as it washes out better

About Tennis balls. I have a mortar I built for Tennis balls as well as more conventional Nerf Mortars.

Thing about the Tennis balls is you won't get a lot of Range from them. Right now I am maxing at around 100-150 yards tops.

But it did work very successfully and people did call hits when a tennis ball landed near them.

The nice thing about Tennis balls is they are super cheap so who cares if you lose them. 3 for a buck at the dollar store.

But the Nerfs whistling or non-whistling can get out to 400-500 meters. But ofcourse cost is a factor and so is availiblity.

I've been toying with the idea of a mortar for many years now on the side... and i believe i have an interesting idea for an "airburst" round.

Here's the VERY crude version of it:
Take a balloon.. strech the S**t out of it, fill it with a bunch of BBs and put some compressed air into it. tie it off and there you go.

The only foreseeable problem with this is that it may not fly very well due to the light weight of it, thus, you would be limited ot a lot of BBs in one shell.

Any input at all would be appreciated. This type of round would obviously be best suited for a woodland-type scenario, so the tree branches overhead would burst the ballon and scatter the shot. Also, i am not using compressed air to power the projectile, i am using a catapault style theory. so the balloon will not break.

I realize this whole balloon idea sounds very "newb" and such, but i'm just trying to put my hat into the ring.

I think it might be too light for even a catapult. Our idea was the same basic idea, using springs to drive a shell up and out.

Here is an idea I came up with, basically you have a nerf type rubber/foam material neon in color so you can find it easily or the player that is out can be nice enough to pick it up for you.

It works on a simple principle, there is a compression cap in which a Co2 cartrige sits in the front, as soon as it hits on the ground the cartrige moves up in to the air seal and chamber, the main chamber punctures a hole in the cartrige and the cap mechanism locks in place thus all the air in the cartrige has only one place to go, up the chamber and through to the sub chambers.

The sub chambers would be constructed of a really heavy duty nylon tube so the BB's sit in there snug, the massive amount of pressure will force the BB's out as soon as enough pressure is built up inside the main chamber, the only problem I can see with this is if the BB's are too snug on some of them and others are not they might not release so you would only get a few coming out but I dont see this as a problem if they are not too snug.

Here is a simple design done on ms paint
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4..._83/mround.jpg

The design is a simple cross section, in reality the chambers would be spread out in a spiral all around the mortar round. the Bb's would fly out the sides and hit whatever is near by, the range should be about 15 feet with .12 gram BB's.

The front would be the heaviest part so in flight the round would want to land front first, the thin hollow aluminum tube can be filled with baby powder or something else so it would have a cool launching effect.

Let me know what you guys think, I am too lazy and busy right now to build such contraption but if someone else wants to do it then go ahead

Although this round looks heavy I would estimate it shouldnt weight more than a battery pack, and the soft rubber would provide a cusion if it was to ever hit a person, the front rubber cap would be a dense but soft rubber of some sort.

Why is it that people seemingly ignore the fact that when you launch something with enough kinetic energy at the muzzle to get suffcient range that if it has any kind of mass at all it essentially becomes dangerous, for example what if you were shot in the head with a battery pack at 200fps? There is a pretty good chance that it would KO you instantly and possibly fracture your skull. In theory IF you had the foam molding facilities to produce something like that CAD round you have posted it could be done, but by looking at it, it is easy to see that it is a complex design an would be difficult to set up the radially configured BB delivery barrels prior to the foam pour. Thats a complex casting and i'm certain it would be beyond the "Backyard" tinker's means to acomplish something that complex. Then there is the additional problem of the Co2 cartridge right in the front, along with the contact fuse, thats alot of metal that won't compress when it comes into contact with a human body, which means it has the potential to cause some physical discomfort to say the least. People are concerned about something like a grenade having too much mass to be thrown, how about taking that same assembly and launching it at a velocity of 150-250fps? Thats what is being discussed here.


As John said allready once in this thread, people are generally very good about calling impact hits with the foam Vortex or tennis balls, those things are inherantly safe. Where is the logic in obsessing about potentially dangerous designs that are literally "pie in the sky". The same guy who fails to call a direct hit from a Mortar delivered Vortex is unlikely to bother calling a hit from a low velocity BB delivery system anyway. Unless of course he is knocked unconscience from the impact of a 16oz projectile hitting him in the top of the head.

Indirect fire weapons like a mortar are completely capable of delivering BBs (i've used them lots of times to do that) but generally they should be used as support weapons, deployed against fortifications or other targets such as open roofed strutures, where they can add another dimension to the game in terms of complexity and realism.

To put it into prespective it took the allied weapons design engineers and the best scientists (namely Vannevar Bush) they had at the time, years to develop the proximity fuse that allowed an Arty round to detonate at a pre-set distance above the ground. That kind of complexity is unlikely to be replicated in airsoft any time in the near future. It could be done with pyro to some extent but that it in itself is another huge discussion.

mmmm... now while you get your a** handed to ya, you smell all nice in the process lol

or better yet, fill it WITH babies lmao

lol What about Kinder Surprise eggs? Though the drawbak is, that they're kinda small and light. But when you fire it, the shell cracks and BBs spread out everywhere. :)

and, you can EAT THE SHELL!!!! lol, hey, it works if you ever get lost with your trusty mortar, just eat the ammo lol :)

ok

how bout this

you grab one of those $2 fireworks like "airbombs" that shoot an exploding shell into the air, and then you partially fill it with bb's then you pop it into a tube or something and light it...

that way the bb's in the firework get shot out with the exploding shell then the shell explodes and scatters bb's out in the air, creating a certain radius for bb's to land



I guess it's pretty safe as long as you dont point it at people


i mean it's a mortar right, so you shoot up into the air




just a thought

WTF the last post was 12-21-2005

oh by the way

there's already an airsoft mortar

go check WGC

i know but it couldnt hurt to reply

:)

Oh my god... resurrection.
necropost!!!!!

oh btw this thread is really old (2005) and I'm pretty sure everyone knows this now seeing as it is 2008, lol good necro tho :)

Would bags of water be reasonable?

I mean it would SUCK to get hit head on by it, but it's safe and shows splash damage. You could launch it with a cardboard base so that the initial blast doesn't break the bag.

Take a tornado grenade, attach a parachute to it, set the timer and launch it up into the air? Could make for a pretty effective spread/area effect. Tho the parachute would have to work 100% cause im guessing those grenades weigh a fair bit.

Why not just lob a paintball grenade? The pink or green would definately tell you who got hit. :rolleyes:

I love hosing my aeg down after a good game of paintsoft...

but the problem with paint and water is that you dont want any on your gun...


then the Tornado grenade idea, that stuff is expensive, and i wouldnt want to go pick those things up after a game

I'd just like to make a point here that we used while making all of our mortar shell designs:
Just keep in mind that sooner or later someone WILL get hit in the head with one of these rounds, it's your job to make sure it won't kill them :)

what about cherry bombs? they make a small flash and bang and are fairly cheap?

Fire hazard and now your going more into the flashbang side of things. They're talking about mortars.

Wow, my first necro-posted thread! I feels special....

This can be locked/trashed/whatever. These ideas haven't died, just 'evolved'.

dont trash the thread it still has good ideas. it is just that someone necroposted.

its great we are all wondering creating, home-made ways to make this work, but how about we put our heads together and suggest the producing companies a REAL idea. I mean we have airsoft grenades (you know the ones that dont spray but just blow up and if ur 20yards away ur out), so we just need to thing how can you engineer a similar 40mm item... Something that can be propelled by gas up to 100 yards(or even 50 would make us happy), and as it is propelled out is should strike the fuse, so it will explode around the time it drops. I think its a reasonable idea and its possible. what do you guys think?

Styrofoam cup packed with BB's and the opening taped shut. It hits the ground and WHAM BB's go flying....

Now getting one of these bastards on the forehead would be a bitch....

Here's the first idea that I thought of.
Reusable mortar round seems mechanically simple and can be made of materials that for the most part, wouldn't hurt if hit directly. Also a direct hit won't shoot BBs into your face as they come out the back.

It would have to be fired with either some serious pressure or maybe some sort of spring system. The round can be wide enough to create a seal around it if a gas launch is used.

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/6...rtartc2.th.jpg

Its just an idea but an AI grenade as a motar round wouldnt work to terrible. As long as it was fired using compressed CO2 and not pyroblasted out of some tube.
However it would get costly if you kept losing them and well...theres that other thing....you know ...that thing...about someone accidentally getting beaned with one.

Ive got a bunch of ideas on some decent motar shell designs but none are cost efficient.

Making a hollow projectile from craft foam and using "spent" bb's from an indoor airsoft place is probably the most managable thing, as the foam is cheap and the bb's are usually free as they usually get swept up and go in the garbage. Oh and basically sticking with honour system. As well the very idea of using golf balls and tennis balls is absolutely ridiculous, you will seriously harm or even kill someone doing that. Also the bb shower idea is another alternative.

Anyone contemplating building mortar ammunition needs to keep one simple concept at the forefront of their design - would this hurt if it hit someone's bare head at 100 fps? Something tells me shower grenades, Tornados, and golf balls do not fit that criteria.

Honestly, I've seen several airsoft mortars in several games. They are a novelty and always will be. You cannot make this a practical and useful weapon in the same manner the military has because you have target safety to consider, and consider heavily. Real mortars tend not to have that problem.

Remember people, it's a game.

Its a little more footwork but why not divide the playing area into a grid. You can use a faux mortar and then target a grid and an admin can decide the casualties. Not as fun as pyro or firing things, but its simple and cost effective.

Difficult to administrate because you'd need clearly defined grids or areas that you can define with boundaries. Once you pick the area you have to send admins there and it's possible by the time everyone sees you coming, they've all ran somewhere else to avoid being killed.

It's an interesting suggestion; just playing devil's advocate. I tend to take ideas and think of why they wouldn't work rather than how they could, because if life has taught me anything is that somehow, someone will always find a way to fuck something up.

Really?

*4 guys walk through a forest
Admin: ugh sorry guys mortar just went off your all dead, I guess you all have to walk back to respawn now.

And how much would that hurt if you hit somebody with it?

Your talking about something with a Gas cartridge and firing pin on the bottom.

You might as well be launching lawn darts!

Styrofoam cups and BB's.

End of discussion.

You're not going to come up with a disposable "revolutionary mortar round" that will be cost effective... and no one wants to go retrieve mortar rounds.


Also, for anyone that's interested I'm able to build these things in a wide assortment of configurations... I'm currently working on one that uses the AI propane adapter and pressurized propane as a propellant :)

Just need to sell the old version first to make enough funding for the new one.

out of pvc pipe and using styrofoam as ammunition

static = spark
spark + propane = PVC pipe bomb

Why not get a metal tube, and a 40 mm airsoft shower grenade shell.

take a bottom plate and weld a small "pin" in the centre.
Weld the plate so the bottom pit is facing inside the tube pretty dead centre.

Take the grenade shell and use a grinder to grind off the "lip"

Once completed, just fill up the grenade shell, drop it in, it slides down... the pin inside triggers the shell to go off and BOOM.... a blast of bb's raining down.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y21...40mmmortar.jpg

Good thing the materials I'm using crack instead of splintering.

You mean like this?

Range isn't really that good.


http://www.wgcshop.com/pcart/shopper...de%20Launchers

Instead of a mortar why don't you build a small field gun or Recoilless rifle. Fire a spread of bb's instead one one shell so it would be kind of like a large shotgun. It'll make a Better Anti personal weapon anyway. The bb's can be held in a cartridges to ease loading.

How about a potato cannon just run it off hairspray Potato cannon plans are all over the internet.

Demco11: Way too expensive for something that'll only fire BBs less than a hundred feet.

Tennis balls are nothing more than two-inch diameter BBs. In testing, they didn't hurt any more than a 6mm BB at 400fps. If you are that worried, best start wearing a helmet.

Ever try to hit someone with a tennis ball from 600 feet? lol
Mortars are dangerous, we've got one that will peel the bark off an oak tree using 300g styrofoam projectiles

Hot damn, that doesn't sound very fun...
I'd like to think that even though airsoft mortars would add a whole new level of realism, how feasible are they really? I've seen paintball mortars that work half decently, but BB's are much smaller, thus making them lighter; they would be severely affected by wind so you'd be running the risk of hitting an entirely different target!

Imagine you're pinned down and call for a mortar strike, you hear the thump of the mortar going off and a next thing you know, you're being nailed by a swarm of BB's destined for a different location. :P

Even if the wind is barely noticeable, I'm sure the BB's would deviate from their course no matter what! A more realistic solution would be an airburst, but that mean it will be more expensive and you have a fairly heavy object flying through the air, not to mention a possible explosive charge.

Just my $0.02, but I don't think it there can ever be a cost effective AND reliable/efficient mortar.

Oh it's really fun for the enemy and allies alike. Very realistic, no issues with people calling hits or anything. But do you really want to spend hours the day before the game making 100 mortar rounds for 10 minutes of bombardment? And drag an air compressor and extension cord around the field? And if theres no electricity you have to bring 4 bicycle pumps. 4 because we had 2 fill valves on the mortar, and bicycle pumps are in no way 100% duty cycle devices and at least one would break everytime we played with the mortar. They all overheat real bad too. Its 33 degrees out we're pumping non stop and throwing pumps in the shade and pouring ice cold water on them lol
Anyway its just way more work than fun for the guys on the mortar that's why we stopped doing it.

Run it off compressed gas kind of like an airsoft LAW or Grenade launcher.

Then you gotta drag ALOT of gas around with you, that gets expensive.
Our mortars get spectacular range (650 feet under good conditions) and the volume of the air tank is 1500 cubic inches, and you need alot more than 1500 cubic inches of gas to compress it up to 60 PSI to get that 650 foot range.
If you want to take the time and money to use compressed gas, that's definitely your best option for making it portable.
But besides gas the option is to get 2 guys in real good shape and 2 custom made 100% duty cycle air cooled pumps and pump away lol
Doesn't take that long to charge it up with 2 pumps

That is pretty much the way to go, but try carrying a 20 litre tank of 200+ PSI CO2 or air with you. Your basically talking about huffing a scuba tank into the field with you.

Duster and paintball CO2 rigs could work relatively well.
But surprisingly the best luck we've had is disposable Co2 catridges. You can buy a gadget that uses them to fill bike tires and the like with a std Schroeder valve on the end. But with a mortar you need 2 per shot, they still have weight and there not cheap.


and before anyone says it *cough*AMOS*cough*
PROPANE IS A DUMB IDEA
PVC OR ABS + FOAM = STATIC
STATIC = SPARK
SPARK + PROPANE = PVC PIPE BOMB

PVC shrapnel is extremely dangerous. Not only does it fragment into razor-sharp (like glass shard sharp) shrapnel, it doesn't show up very well in X-rays. PVC pipe is prohibited for use in fireworks mortars in Canada for this reason; HDPE and FRE are all we use now.

That's precisely why we don't use anything with greater than 50lbs of pressure.

PVC and ABS is only rated to 100lbs and even then you have to factor in the valves, and joints you probably glued incorrectly.

I've hurled nerf vortex footballs 600m on 35lbs of air. If you need more pressure you're doing something wrong.

Actually the highest we've charged it up to was 90PSI, I'm pretty sure it's rated to 125

use a paintball grenade shell. from like r.a.p.

Run it off Hairspray like a spud gun.

yes lets run all airsoft launchers off compressed flammable propellants.

Then lets all go to the hospital to get the PVC shrapnel taken out of our asses

Are you freakin insane? could you imagine getting hit with those friggin things?! holy crap! rofl!

My thoughts: same as what someone else said, use a thin easily breakable foam ball (hallow) and fill it with 2000 bbs that are like 3 bucks per 1000 pack.

Keep in mind 2000 round of .2s is 400g
That's alot of interia at 280fps (ya that's right, we chrono'd one of our old version 1 mortars)

Yeah, I guess that is a lot of weight to be fireing through the air, you'd need a large mortar cannon :P. I'd say you're only gonna get about 200 feet outta that beast if it's the best you could make :P

We got 650 feet using a 40" mortar using 400-500g projectiles :)
Dangerous as it may be we've never had to fire further than 200 feet in a game, however we lent our mortar to the enemy team at keystone and they were laying down a good barrage from 300 feet until they broke it lol

Well that works :D

I’m curious on what type of safety devices you guys use on these pneumatic launchers?

... When it's pressurized It'll shoot.

When it's not.... It wont.

So its okay to have a vessel pressurized above 14.9 psig without a safety device to protect against human error?

Mortars are only pressurized right before they're going to be shot.

and most of them are shot from a stationary position... so no one's going to be running around with a 5 foot piece of pressurized pipe.

Whether it is stationary or mobile, pressurized for a few seconds or hours, human error or system error can still occur. I have seen what pressure can do to piping with no form of blow off and it’s not pretty

That's why you use pressure rated pipe, fittings and connectors... Most of the mortars in Manitoba are using pipe that are rated to 120 PSI, and most of the mortars are shot at about a 60 PSI max.

What type of piping do you use?....is it rated for air, water, steam. Using the correct type of fitting and piping is great. But if you look at it, what wrong with putting on a safety blow off, just in case.

Like Amos said, our mortars our only ever charged before firing, and they always have a pressure gage on them.
Our launchers on the other hand are charged well before firing, they have pressure gages too but they also had safety valves rated to 100PSI.
The last safety measure on the rocket launchers is coincidental; we recommend 40PSI max since your shooting it towards people and not straight in the air. Well if it's shot above 60PSI the rubber on the valve gets destroyed lol

Furthermore, theres always leaks no matter how hard we try to stop them they always appear somewhere. Up to 60PSI its not noticeable. But try pumping a mortar with a tiny leak past 90PSI, it's a LOT of work for one guy to get past 90 PSI

How much volume are you putting in these tubes?

Well after some very basic quickly done math, the volume of the air tank is approx. 300 cubic inches of 60PSI air, being fed into a 2" barrel (125 cubic inch inside) via a HIGH flow valve. Although since the valve was custom built there's no telling how many gallons per minute it is, but it's a huge step forward from the 1" sprinkler valve we were using before lol
The second valve we use (the firing mechanism) was a 1" sprinkler valve, but we changed it to a 1" plastic ball valve for reliability, safe decompression of the mortar, and no longer having to depend on batteries or worrying about wiring faults or rain.

i was shopping for my young niece and found bags of 100 ball pit balls for $3 at the local superstore. i got her a couple bags for her playpen
i was thinking they could be launched from a pneumatic device and since they are very light air filled soft plastic balls they probably wouldnt hurt at all if hit
and they are extremely cheap bright coloured and easy to see

If you made a huge multi-tube launching system that could actually be really neat to simulate cluster munitions or multiple strikes. I'd back that. You won't get much range but this is Airsoft, you don't need range. Having your arty support closer to the front lines forces teamwork, as the combatives have to assist and protect the supporters.