So I'm wondering what I should look for when getting a Co2 bottle for my 3 unit cruiser. Do I want a pin valve, or a on/off valve? How many ounces of Co2 do I need. ( I think I read somewhere that you need about an ounce per unit, is this correct?) Also, how long/wide is a 3.5 oz bottle from BC, as well as the 5 oz bottle from Strike? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Beaver
Strike has the dimensions for the 3.5oz tank (which should be the same as the BC on/off one) and 5.0oz on their website. I think they have their 3.5oz tank labeled as 2.8oz. You only need a 3.5oz tank, you could do a 5.0oz but its not necessary.
Yup. A 3.5 oz works well for a cruiser. Nearly all of the 3.5s are the same size, so a bit of research online on 3.5 bottles should get you very close. I recommend a on/off valve. Nearly every club requires a means to turn off the gas in a ship. A pin valve bottle wold require another valve someplace in the gas system to turn off the gas.
Is the 2.8oz bottle from Strike actually a 3.5? Going that way is a little cheaper than BC. I was just wondering, what exactly is a pin valve? Beaver
I think so, I've never heard of or seen a 2.8oz bottle. A pin valve is a valve that is opened when the pin at the centre is depressed by the regulator (for example). Not all regulators have pin depressors. I have both styles, but I honestly prefer the on/off valve style. Its just easier to turn the gas off.
That should still be enough for a cruiser though, right? Thanks for explaining that, Absolutek, makes sense now. Beaver
Also, the "pin-valve" style bottles are primarily designed for paintball use: you screw the bottle into the gun, and the trigger mechanism is your on-off valve. For our use, you'd need a seperate valve. And on that topic, I'd highly recommend getting a bottle w/ a 1/4-turn on/off vs a "throttled" valve. For our use, you either want max volume or none, so a throttling valve is just a pain in the butt (I speak from personal experience here!).
We got the cylinder through Guerrilla Air. It really is a 7 cubic inch HPA tank rated for 3000 psi use. That comes out to 2.8 oz of CO2, which is fine for 2 and likely 3 cannons (if you know you can get good fills). I ordered these when Catalina had a very long lead time on their 3.5 oz cylinders. The 2.8 oz cylinder is shorter, but has the same width and weight as a 3.5 oz one. So far as I know, the only group that had rule issues with pin valves was NTXBG. I did a quick search through the IRC and MWCI rules and did not find anything. There can be practical issues with pin valves, however. The two big issues with pin valves in this hobby were that the Williams regulator did not have a pin depressor, and many people removed the pin depressor in their CO2 fill stations. NTXBG had a problem with the possibility of unscrewing the valve from the bottle instead of unscrewing the regulator, but the manufacturers have added safety features to mitigate that issue many years ago. I do not know if NTXBG has actually modified their rules to account for that or not. Stephen
I'm also looking for a bottle for my Hood. Can someone please tell me the physical sizes of these bottles (I suppose 5 or 7 oz) so I can plan the space needed.
