Pneumatic ram > Rear bolt?

The basic idea would be to replace the ram assembly (rear bolt, drive spring, drive pin) with a pneumatic ram, much like the one the RT, except much larger.

Then rig up a cocker 3-way to the trigger, and an LPR to the bottom line.

Hook it all together, and when you pull the trigger, the 3-way moves, directing air to the back of the cylinder, shooting it forward to activate the valve pin.

Viola! An insanely light trigger pull

I'm not exactly sure how much force is needed to depress the valve pin, but a 7/8" cylinder (closest to inside diameter of the receiver halves I could find) operating at 250psi (max for the Clippard cylinder I was looking at) could deliver up to 102 lbs of force. And that sounds like plenty to me.


Pros:

Lighter trigger pull (depends on what kind of trigger return spring is required).

Noticeably less kick.

Velocity could be controlled by changing the pressure of the LPR, which would change the force of the piston in the ram.

No more messing with drive springs, sear's, and sear springs.


Cons:

The ram. If you used a ram that is double-acting (moves back and forth only using air), you’d probably need to use a pretty heavy trigger return spring, or the holding down the trigger would keep the valve open. And if you used a single acting ram (moves forward by air, uses a spring inside the cylinder to return), you rate of fire would be limited because the spring wouldn’t be able to return as fast as a double-acting ram could. Sorta like the same problem with the E-bolt.

Right now I don't know how the linkage arm would be attached to the piston, but I'm sure it couldn't be too hard.

Let me know what you think.


P.S. If anyone feels like parting with any cheap 3-way and/or LPR, let me know.



Edited by maroon out

Enos Shenk wrote: Sounds like the e-bolt

Except this would be completly void of electronics, batteries, and other such nonsense.

You could do the same thing but instead of it hitting the valve it could move a faux trigger that then ingages the sear. But the problem is finding a small pneumatic ram.

^^^Sweet^^^

 Hmm. I like it, but for now, ill stick with my gun as is (no electronics or complicated/new ideas or concepts to it).

Yes I realize that, but if I was going to some how attach the front bolt to the piston, the stroke would HAVE to be 1" (or somewhere around that). If the stroke was shorter than 1", it either wouldn't load the paint, or it wouldn't push the paint far enough into the barrel.