Just a thought. One of the best refrigerants is propane. Not very safe for air conditioning due to volatility but would be perfect in cooling the tippmann C3.

A fairly simply mod could be made to the C3 to allow venting some of the propane through the gun to the atmosphere. The freezing effect of the expanding propane would be more than enough to cool the gun to the much needed lower temperatures.

With a mod like this, full auto is very probable. The Tippmann uses a calculated amount of propane per pump stroke. By raising the amount of propane the explosion could now be used to automatically pump the gun while still having enough power to reach the desired ball velocity.

Sure you wouldn't get the 50,000 rounds as promised, but you would still put the CO2 and N2 dinosaurs to shame.

Problem solved.

Send my check. :)

I'm not sure exactly which location on the C3 would be best for venting propane, but pumping the gun after a good venting should solve the mixture issue.

As for the power needed to operate the pump off the initial combustion/explosion I really can only speculate. I have read that the pump is easy to operate and don't think it would rob from the guns performance. I would be interested to know if the C3's 320 fps is a maximum value set by the explosive properties of propane, or engineered by the size of the explosion chamber and the suction valves.

Hmmm. I will bet my cookies that there will be a semi auto available in 2008.

semi auto i think is possible and the heat problem could be adressed with a gripframe made with a material that didn't conduct heat well.. the body would be hot but just dont kiss ur gun after laying down some heavy fire lol. i think that full auto would be hard tho or any high rate of fire for that matter cause u have to keep venting the gas after each time you shoot. i think if you added some sort of electrical componant to it. to suck and vent air quickly.. i dunno it would get complicated.. worth looking into tho. would be cool

I dont think you get the idea of refrigeration.

There isnt that much liquid propane in a tank. Its mostly all gas at a very low pressure. Not enough liquid, and not enough pressure to cause any cooling effect on the gun.

FYI: Propane becomes a liquid at about 140 psi depending on temperature too of course. When a tank is marked with ounces it means it's measured for liquid. The tanks are filled with about 80% liquid for safety reasons. That sure seems like a lot of liquid to me. I will partially agree with what you said about the lower pressure of propane, which when you compare it to something like CO2 it's a big difference. The more pressure you have the more energy it takes to create the pressure, therefore generating more heat/friction. With that being said you also have more potential energy from the higher pressure and thus more cold is created once it's released. Every winter several of my above ground pipes become covered with inches of ice because of the higher winter pressures. In the summer when the upstream pressure is only about 300psi, the same pipe gets very cold. EG: Winter=550psi dropping to 180psi/Summer=300psi cut to 180psi. Our natural gas is NOT liquid but seems to REFRIGERATE just fine. What gives?

I'm not claiming to be an expert but I do work with natural gas every day at work, and am very familiar with the properties of gases. I'm a gas measurement technician for a natural gas pipeline company, meaning I work on the electronic equipment that measure the temperature, differential, and pressure to calculate flow rates. Enough about my credentials though.

That being said I am not an HVAC guy, but I do know refrigeration is about expanding gas and compressing gas. Compression makes heat by friction. Expansion makes cold. I don't care what pressure you start with, if you release a pressurized gas to a lower pressure environment you get a temperature drop/cooling effect. Maybe not ice cold but colder than a hot C3.

I appreciate your reply, trust me i do, but I don't think your criticism is very constructive. Everything you said makes me think your the one that doesn't understand refrigeration. I would like to know how liquid has anything to do with this.

For anyone that thinks that 140psi is not high pressure, try cracking a valve open on a tank at that pressure. Trust me, you won't believe your ears.

Tallen702; Ok I see your point about the metal losing it's strength from rapid epansion and contraction. My answer to that is to use heat sinks to slowly and continuously wick away the heat from the metal that matters most then cool the heat sinks.

I believe it can be done properly and a happy medium can be found. I think the price of the gun would be too much to appeal to the averager user though. PROPANE IS THE ANSWER THOUGH. I'm afraid that Tippmann won't come up with any upgrade parts for the C3 and the whole product/idea will flop.

Thanks to carl the sniper for the fingerprints while trying to get the bug off my screen. lol