last post SQUARE IS THE NEW ROUND
SQUARE IS THE NEW ROUND
NOW THAT A PUBLICITY MORATORIUM HAS BEEN LIFTED, FRENCHIE BRINGS US AN OVERVIEW OF THE LATEST BB DEVELOPMENT, ONE THAT WILL SURPRISE - AND POSSIBLY STARTLE - AIRSOFTERS THE WORLD OVER (EITHER THAT, OR HE’S BEEN SNIFFING HIS PRITT STICK AGAIN!)
C
hange is not something that comes quickly in airsoft, it has taken decades for us to see proper electronic triggers, despite their inherent advantages for instance. One area where that has been only one significant change has been ammunition and that change was the widespread acceptance of biodegradable ammo, mainly driven by landowners and sites. The venerable BB (Bullet Ball according to Marui) has been around forever and there was little to suggest that this was going to change. Airsoft guns are fundamentally muskets, projecting a sphere down a smooth tube. Hop up was developed to dramatically improve the range you can achieve from this basic setup since the alternative, massively increased power behind the BB, is simply not viable if we are to avoid injuring each other. Some experimentation with “rifled” barrels has been attempted but this is more to do with creating a spiralling airflow around the BB as it moves down the barrel and does nothing to improve the seal between the BB and the barrel. In real firearms the base of the bullet is forced into the rifling by the massive gas pressure release when the round is fired, and this seals the bullet against the barrel and the rifling imparts spin which stabilises the flight of the bullet. It is not possible to do this in airsoft guns, although it would make the whole process more efficient and the resultant trajectory more stable all without resorting to backspin to keep the BB in the air for longer …until now.
INVESTED INTEREST
To understand what’s going on and why there has been – and this is unusual – almost no pre-launch publicity, it’s worth understanding the nature of the production of BBs. Yes, obviously they come from factories but there are very few companies who produce our ammunition. If my memory serves correctly, there are or were only three in Taiwan and a few in China. Given the enormous variety of brands available you might reasonably (and correctly) assume that these few foundries produce ammo for many brands, big and small. The important thing here is that the production of BBs is vested in the hands of a few specialist firms who have made the necessary investment in tools and equipment. We have been extremely fortunate to see advanced samples of a new system designed to address all these issues, which has been in development between one of the largest BB foundries in Taiwan and a major Japanese airsoft manufacturer. Although we have had three months to play with, test and evaluate the system, the embargo on writing about it only ended on the first of August this year. The heart of what could be a truly revolutionary development is the ammunition and the barrel. Imaginatively dubbed the Bullet Square (BS™) the new projectile is just that – essentially a cube. This has been married to a barrel which has a matching internal structure with a low, one-in-five twist ratio. This has proven optimal in balancing flight stability with acceptable levels of friction between the barrel
“ANYONE ENTERTAINING THOUGHTS OF JAMES PUCKLE’S SQUARE BULLETS FOR USE AGAINST “INFIDELS” CAN REST EASY. THE BS™ ROUND IS SQUARE IN CROSS SECTION, HOWEVER, DURING THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS IT WAS REALISED THAT CHAMFERING THE OTHERWISE SHARP CORNERS WAS HIGHLY DESIRABLE FROM A SAFETY PERSPECTIVE…”
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SEPTEMBER 2021
