Wooden gun question

[T Ash]

Hey all, was wondering if a wooden guns shaft groove would give it the same potential for greater accuracy that is atributed to rail guns?

 

[Murat]

this depends on which wood gun you talk about, euro-wood guns with smillar shaft/band config will give the good results since they have rail too, Rob Allen and Rabitech is not the only guns out there which has rails But in my opinion, most wood-euro guns which designed and made selectively,will outperform any serial production tube shaped euroguns for my needs wheather its SA gun or anyother brand.

 

[peskydor]

The rail gun has a rib welded or glued to the barrel. Its purpose is to prevent the very thin shafts that they employ from sagging. If you intend on using shafts of 9/32 or smaller the rib or groove should improve performance. However, there are limitations. When firing these skinny shafts with heavy rubber the gun of choice is usually made with semi closed track. Spearco distribution makes a fairly cheap gun with enclosed wood track. Much is made of different specific plastics for the track. However, I doubt that they improve performance enough to justify the high cost. After all, the friction numbers they give for these plastics do not account for the fact that the arrow actually travels on a film of water.

 

[Murat]

you can apply great power to the thinner shafts as well.

In my personal experiance, i used very strong OMER 18mm bands (as strong as 20mm) with 6.3mm shaft on my alluminium gun which has no RAIL it shoot pretty accurate. Nowadays i use 18mm bands with 6.5mm shaft i think the spear speed should little higher as well, coz of this i will buy shorter bands next time. I see in the videos peoples use 6.5mm shafts with double 16mm bands or even with double 18.5 mm bands. So as you can see you don't need enclosed track or even a track at some cases to shoot thin shafts with powerfull bands

 

[peskydor]

The enclosed track is often thought of as a means to improve accuracy. However, Allen's theory, that a wobbling shaft loses energy and range, is equally reasonable. The makers of big guns, like Riffe, have done extensive testing and , even with a grooved barrel, place limits on their power offerings, and these are linked to shaft length and diameter. Generally, they will not offer more than 2 9/16 rubbers with a 9/32 shaft. I note that this shaft size would be considered large by Euro mindset.

 

[Murat]

but there are guns which shoots accurately with 6.5mm shaft and double 16/18mm bands with open track e.g totemsub tahiti and Sjedi

 

[T Ash]

This was mainly a question about theory. I'm thinking that any improvement in accuracy would be lost since most guns out there properly set up would be more accurate than I am capable of. I was talking to my dad a while back about spearguns and he was talking about making a wooden gun since he has a wood shop and likes to tinker. We have both been shooting bows for years and had been talking about spear flex and wobble.