Paintball Mortar

[irishwarrior]

I'm thinking about making a paintball mortar. I would like to know if this sounds feasible and if so would it even be field legal?

I'm thinking CO2 powered, PVC and firing balloons filled with paint or grapeshot.

What do ya'll think?

[slim and shady]

I know that they are corse legal we use them all the time but we are in Canada. Because they are not a direct shot device there is no chance of harm. bare in mind however it is alot harder to hit a target with morters then you may think! unless you are in trench warfair with a large "no mans land" between the opposing forces. It's hard to zero in on targets that move quickly. they are real effective in real life combat because no one wants to die right! But for paintball you sit in a dead box 10 min, so usually they will charge right through a berrage. Also you need alot more then 1 to be effective, 10 or so is nice but then you have to be attending large scenarios to have enough people that some would be willing to opperate them.

[interceptorMR2]

I've always loved the idea of a paintball mortar, but how in the world would you aim at leas semi-accurately? Sure, you could make it, but i think to get it to zero in on a position well, you would need to spend an extensive amount of time on trying out sights for it. Sounds like a great project though!

[irishwarrior]

For zeroing, protractor, math skills and pen and paper.

[DFSniper]

practice and knowledge of physics. you need to know your trajectory so you can gauge where the paint will fall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajectory

basically you have your initial velocity and your height. ignoring wind and air resistance, your height will be 1/2 distance from you to the target. so changing your angle will affect your height, and generally, the higher the height, the lower the distance, but thats common knowledge if you think about it.

[slim and shady]

yup your first shot is just a ranging shot gives you an idea of what you need to do to get on yourmark. it's not that hard to do it if your target isnt constantly running ahead closing the gap. They are great for seige scenarios and any oprotunity where you may get your oposition pinneed down.

[irishwarrior]

Also if firing grape shot, as long as the balls don't break i the barrel quite intimidating. Think about it, about 500-1000 paintballs, just falling from the sky.

[SpyderMan723]

good luck chrono-ing that S.O.B

[colonel_moo]

i can't really picture this thing being very useful. Sure there might be one or two instances where it would be useful, but otherwise, you're going to have trees above you in which case none of the balls are going to make it to the target, and if you target is, for some reason, hanging around in the open, they aren't going to be there for long enough for you to calculate your shot, get it set up and actually fire. Plus, you would have to get some pretty brittle balls in order for them to break from the fall, which would make the tree canopy situation worse.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'd recommend not wasting your time.

[interceptorMR2]

well I dont know if it is a waste of time, slim and shady's field uses them all the time in their scenarios. I'm sure it probably should only be used in big scenario events though, otherwise they wont be as effective i guess.