Talk:BB gun

article currently states "With CO2 cartridges, pressure drops as gas is expelled with each shot, thus CO2 cartridges need to be changed often as pressure available drops too low" that can't be right can it? isn't compressed CO2 stored as a liquid and thus pressure is strictly a function of tempreture as long as some liquid remains? the passage could be suggesting that because of the liquid co2 boiling off and cooling the cartridge pressure drops but then it would be suggesing that people replace cartridges because there cold and thats just silly.

Why does pressure drop when using 12-gram CO2 cartridges?

Has this person ever shot a CO2 airgun? Most "silly" CO2 cartridge users complain about losing pressure before the advertised number of shots. Then they go to change cartridges and nearly get a moist finger frozen to the cylinder!

A "12-grammer" or "cart" has very little liquid in it at room temperature and 900-1000 psi, as can be shown from an estimate of its volume and a solid-liquid-gas phase diagram of CO2. Or just hold a 12-grammer up to your ear and tap it with a metal object while tilting it back and forth, and hear the absence of a sloshing liquid ringing.

A 12-grammer can provide most airguns up to 60 or more satisfactory shots for ***slow-fire*** target practice. The article more likely refers to the drastic pressure drop experienced by users of CO2's typically semiautomatic airguns, who simply fire them too rapidly. The phenomenon is all too familiar to rapid-fire action shooters like myself, who must frequently resort to changing out frosted cartridges after only a few dozen shots--even despite the custom battery-powered resistive heaters I've built into the grips of my pistols.

During rapid-fire, pressure drops quickly because the cart gets chilled, often to the point of frostbite. I can think of several reasons for this, the first being the immediate boil-off of the cart's initial liquid CO2 load. As evidence I have observed the bottom half-inch of a cartridge completely ice over with a first dozen panic-round shots. Obviously the most effective location for heat input is near the cart's bottom.

The second point of heat loss involves the method of "cracking" the cart into the gun's valve system. The user screws or levers the cart's hermetically-sealed bottleneck face against a pin with a tiny hole in it. This small orifice acts as a Venturi nozzle after each shot: As gas flows through it to replenish the valve, the nozzle is chilled as the gas expands. The system was not designed to be a carburetor; pretty soon the nozzle temperature drops so low as to adversely affect the outgoing gas pressure. As evidence, when "uncracking" a frosted, partially used cart, the pin-sized hole in the neck seal can spit CO2 "mist" for some time afterward.

A third point is simple thermodynamics, taking the gun-cart system to be a single-stroke heat engine from the start of the cart until it's expended. In this case it doesn't matter what your working fluid is. Let it expand too fast, and you trash the efficiency of the engine, or in other words, you tried to draw too much work out of it in too little time. Not enough horsepower, see? Not even enough for my 20 watts' worth of resistors to let me pop off 20-30 rounds a minute.67.163.0.9 10:39, 5 May 2006 (UTC)semiautopellet

Why do they call it "BB"? -- Toytoy 23:44, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

There are at least two different possible origins for the name BB. One was that early guns shot a single shotgun pellet that was between the B and BBB size. Another is that the early BBs were nothing more than small ball bearings, hence BB. --Jkonrath 30 June 2005 18:55 (UTC)

The page now says why, but I'm skeptical. Is there a source for this? —BenFrantzDale 17:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

BB is a shot size between BBB and B shot. If you check out ammunition for shot sizes, you can find this information. I'm going to remove the disputed tag. Shotgun Shot at a random seller therof 68.34.41.250 22:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I'm still dubious, though. Basically, I've always thought BB meant ball bearing, so I'd like to see some citation not just that they spheres are size "BB", but that it really is a coincidence that they happen to be essentially a ball bearing. —BenFrantzDale 00:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I added a reference to the ball bearing connection. I also had been under the impression that it stood for this, and I think it's important that people who think they're looking for a "ball bearing gun" know that they have in fact found it. --BigBlueFish 18:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The first paragraph says that BB means "ballistic ball" which is confusing.

The relationship between the airsoft, air gun and BB gun articles

I think there is too much overlap between these three articles. When one looks for information on a particular aspect of this topic, one sometimes finds it scattered across all three.

Please consider the following propositions:

• 1. Air guns are currently covered by three articles: airsoft, air gun and BB gun.
• 2. Additionally, the same "airsoft" article covers the sport or game known as "airsoft".
• 3. A BB gun is a species of air gun, just like a sporting air pistol or an airsoft pistol.
• 4. There is an international sporting activity known as Airsoft. It employs airsoft pistols (and occasionally rifles) (apparently along similar lines to I.P.S.C.).
• 5. In at least some parts of the world an airsoft pistol is commonly called a "BB gun".

I propose: 1. That the BB gun article be merged with the air gun article. 2. That the portions of the airsoft article relating to the mechanics and operation of airsoft guns be moved to the air gun. 3. That the airsoft article restrict itself to the sport of airsoft (including required equipment not thoroughly canvassed in other Wikipedia articles

So, in essence I propose that we have one article for the sport/game of airsoft and one for air guns (whether designed for the sport of airsoft or not.

I'm posting this on the talk pages of all three articles. Please give us your thoughts. If there's no great opposition to this I'll go ahead and make the edits, but I thought it was only fair to raise the matter with contributors first. Wulfilia 19:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge with Air Gun

For or Oppose? Dudtz 8/25/05 5:29 PM EST

Oppose The article is a decent stub, is about an area in Wikipedia that is obviously underdeveloped; I can't speak for the rest of the world, but there's enough cultural history in 20th century America related to the BB guns to fill out an article by itself. VermillionBird 22:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose I agree, BB gun has a unique enough history that if fleshed out it could make a good sperate article. Ari 20:33, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose I also agree, this article has grown to the point where it deserves to be a unique article. Daler 05:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge with Airsoft

For or Oppose? VermillionBird 22:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose It's similar, yes, but a different thing. While they have been used to shoot at other people recreationally, they certainly weren't manufactured for that purpose. BB guns are a class of things with a history and are only tangentially related to a developing sport. VermillionBird 22:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose I agree again. BB guns shoot a steel or lead ball and not a plastic one. They are also used similar to a pellet gun not an airsoft gun. Some BB guns shoot at speeds that make them more dangerous than airsoft. Ari 20:33, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose Though similar both BB and AirSoft weapons have different aspects. Generally BB guns are far powerful and can do considerably more damage then a AirSoft gun.. Simply different type of weapons and sports. --JE 13:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose I agree with the above users. I have not heard of individuals shooting others with BB guns for sport, as is done with Airsoft guns. Also, to the best of my knowledge you cannot use a Airsoft pellet in a BB gun, or vice versa. --OmegaPaladin 17:00, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Pneumatic?

The article currently states: "A BB gun is a pneumatic gun usually powered by compressed gas, electric revolution, or a spring." First off, if the BB is fired by electric revolution or a spring, it's not pneumatic, is it? Secondly, I could use a little clarification on "electric revolution". Does that mean the BB is spun around inside a disk-shaped cylinder and fired via centrifugal force? I think those two points could be improved in the article. KarlBunker 15:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I think I was able to clear that up, still could use a little work, though. Daler 05:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Do any BB guns use the electro-pneumatic operation, like the airsoft AEGs and electric blowbacks? So far the only electric BB guns I've seen have been CO₂ based ones with electric hammers. scot 18:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

CO2 cartridge dimensions

What are the dimensions of the CO2 cartridges?--SeanMon 21:35, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to remember to grab one tomorrow, take a picture, and get sizes. I have created a number of links to powerlet, so I might go ahead and create and article stub there for that data. scot 18:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Replacing with on-topic content

The article previously contained way to much information, much of it completely irrelevant or downright wrong. I replaced this with historical information from the Daisy Museum website, plus personal experience with Daisy and Crosman BB guns. For the purpose of the article, I have restricted "BB gun" to mean an airgun with a BB sized bore, i.e. .175-180 inches, and intended to or capable of firing spherical steel shot. This implies a smoothbore barrel, or an oversized rifled barrel with a mechanism for retaining the steel BBs. The PCP big bore airguns from Korea don't fit the definition, nor does the Lewis and Clark gun. Those are air rifles, not BB guns.

Operating mechanisms are covered in air gun, which is a superset of BB guns, so I think details can be left for that article; I breifly mention the types of actions used on common airguns on the market now. The "spring rod" type of action described is just crap--the only way direct action works is when the projectile is MUCH heavier than the connector, such as with bows. Any direct action BB projector is a toy, not a BB gun. Legal issues are the same; BB guns are a subset of air guns, the only reasons BB guns would be more or less legal is due to power and operating mechanism issues.

If anyone feels I have removed too much, feel free to grab the data from the previous edit and add it back into the article, along with a justification, please. I'm going to think about ways to source some of my generalizations about BB guns, such as dual-use pneumatics, CO₂ pistols, and spring piston guns. Probably the best way to back that up would be to provide examples of commonly available BB guns in each category, maybe in a chart. scot 18:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Ammunition

The pellets cannot be classed as 'Ammunition' for obvious reasons: they dont use any muntion- no explosive shot system. Jonomacdrones 18:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

From the first definition at dictionary.com: "the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon, as bombs or rockets, and esp. shot, shrapnel, bullets, or shells fired by guns." Seems to fit to me. --Eyrian 20:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Picture

IMHO we should add a better picture sonoricercatore 11:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I've been shot close blank with a BB Gun and it did not penetrate my skin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.58.4.231 (talk) 07:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

BB Gun as Plot Device

I vaguely remember watching TV shows from the 60's (in reruns in the 80's) where a child's first experience with death was accidentally-on-purpose killing or wounding a small animal (usually a bird) with a BB gun. Does anyone have specific examples? --75.161.84.72 15:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The only film I recall having a BB gun as a central plot element was A Christmas Story. I think if you can find the name of the movie you're thinking of, as well as a few other examples of BB guns playing important roles in the arts, I'd support adding another section. Daler (talk) 08:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Teenagers with guns

Teenagers and yobs often use BB guns as fun, but if you are confronted by a teenager threatening to fire contact the police or run. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.160.145 (talk) 12:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

steel?

its usally plastic bbs isnt it ive never seen steel or copper Luke12345abcd (talk) 19:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)