Yes, Marty, here is a photo of what's going on inside. When the piston is actuated, one of the bb's is pushed through the o-ring and is then fired. The spring returns the piston, another bb drops into place ready to fire again.
Not really, the piston is made out of stainless steel, and there isn't really anything wearing on it.
A bit of an update on the sideways piston gun: Tests show that the selector works great with no tweak. Once I start tweaking the O-ring, shot selection becomes iffy. Sometimes I get one shot, most times two, and a few three shot blasts. I'm thinking that the problem has something to do with the pressure building up in the gun when the bb seats on the breach O-ring. The pressure buildup before the shot is fired might be affecting the piston, possibly causing it to cycle back and forth pushing more than one bb through the selector O-ring. I think throttling the co2 to either the breach or the piston could solve the problem. I just haven't had the time lately to experiment.
I think there are a couple of possibilities for what's happening. 1) Tweaking the cannon to shoot hard increases the pressure. With 1 o-ring in the breech and 1 in the selector, you essentially have two breeches. If sufficient gas is leaking around the piston, the in-rushing gas at higher pressure "fires" the 2nd BB thru the o-ring in the interrupter. 2) The increased pressure from the hard tweaking causes the piston to compress the spring a little further, so the piston travels further into the interrupter, perhaps enough to press the 2nd BB into the o-ring far enough that the in-rushing gas sucks it thru via the venturi effect. 3) Maybe a combination of both Would be interested in knowing if both BB's come out together or if there is a small delay...
Well, if this was happening, I would expect it to happen with no tweak as well. Since gas leaking around the piston should still force a round through the selector o-ring at no tweak. The piston can only move one bb length. There is no room for the piston to go farther. Back when I was testing the gun, it seemed like both shots (or three) came together, but there might have been a minute delay between bb's.
Is your magazine sealed? Are you compressing the breech o-ring or can you compress it more to make it harder for the BB to pass?
Yes, magazine is sealed. No, the selector O-ring is not compressed, but I could make the space that it goes into smaller to compress it some.
She hasn't been fully finished yet. I've been building ships that provide more fun when battling. Someday though. The 3d printed guns had issues that couldn't be solved in that configuration. I may or may not redesign it. Depends if I decide use one for this boat.
