So why not combine the best of both worlds? That's what I've been playing around with for the past day or so. I'm prototyping the gun with 1.5" Sch 40 for the valve chamber and media reservoir. The barrel will be surrounded by .75" PVC with machined spacers to keep the barrel straight and concentric inside the PVC shell. The barrel is planned to be .18" ID and .25" OD. So far I've only finished machining the valve and valve chamber. The valve itself has a .001" slip fit into the PVC and locks into dead center of the barrel with 3 10-24 set screws:
The ground pin is there just to show the location of the future barrel. If this works well, I'll machine a full metal version in both .177 (same as this prototype) and 6mm forms for some airsoft fun
. In this design, at the bottom of the T in the picture would be a cap with a converging air nozzle directing HPA (100psi for the prototype, up to 450 psi for the metal final product) at the side of the sphere furthest away from the barrel opening. Theoretically this will agitate the media or ammo awaiting firing, and the sphere will facilitate the ammo towards the barrel opening regardless of where they impact the sphere. Just like with the vortex gun, the media is ejected through the barrel with the expelling air. I'll post the rest of the project as I get too it. I'm always looking for comments and ways to improve so if you have any suggestions let me know...
