Heavy Balls - why aren't they white?

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sonofsammo

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I've just got hold of some .5s, which seem to work well in my SRS - except for one thing.
I can't see the fuckers in woodland when I'm playing. 
The ones I have are Geoff's and are silver - this makes it really fucking hard - cos if the target doesn't at least flinch then you have not one single clue how close you were.
Does anybody make good quality heavyweight weight BBs?
If not, why not?
TIA

 
Geoff’s do .48s white. 

From what I remember due to the composition of the BBs they never come out fully white, usually a little creamy.

 
seems to be a common thing with heavier ammo, i don't like it either for the same reason- you can't track the shot so you need to be damn sure of your gun and your sight.

 
Given that a 6mm steel BB masses 0.86g, I really do question what those 0.5g BBs are made of.  That's denser than barium sulphate which is commonly used as a heavyweight plastic filler.

I'm particularly sceptical of claims that BBs of that mass are biodegradable, and would be very interested if anyone's done any actual analysis on them.

 
Rogerborg said:
m particularly sceptical of claims that BBs of that mass are biodegradable, and would be very interested if anyone's done any actual analysis on them.
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I know less than nothing really about bb’s, but do know a little about materials. A steel bb is WAAAAAAY more biodegradable than one made of any sort of plastic

 
I always thought they were grey because they were mixed with a metal powder to add weight.

 
Wo1f said:
I always thought they were grey because they were mixed with a metal powder to add weight.
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that was my understanding as well. I believe that you used to also be able to get ones with a ceramic compound in which were white, however being ceramic they had a tendency to shatter which was not such a great idea so I haven't seen them around recently (nor would I actually want anyone to use one)

 
Longbow via their website & Kicking Mustang (Via Skirmshop) both sell 0.48's in white, not sure why you'd need to go any heavier

I also use an SRS - 0.48's should be all you need

 
Rogerborg said:
I should note that the definition of an airsoft gun is one that can shoot only plastic pellets, and which cannot be modified to shoot anything else.

This is not something that I'd like to see become an issue.
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They are plastic. A lot of ‘plastic’ airsoft guns also have metal powder inside of the plastic compound. It’s not like it’s iron filings. It’s so fine it’s like icing sugar. There’s only so much you can do to get different weights from the same tiny 6mm ball. Providing its safe and doesn’t shatter easily, it’s fine. 

 
As many have said already, it's the additives to make it heavier. Very hard to get above .5 without using something metallic as the plastics just aren't dense enough.

 
Wo1f said:
They are plastic
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They contain plastic.  Whether heavier BBs are plastic- in either the chemical sense, or the physical sense of deforming on impact - might be debatable.

Non-bio BBs are apparently made of ABS which has a density of around 1.07 g/cm3.  For a 6mm BB, that's... hmm, 0.12g.  So the much derided 0.12g BBs might make the best claim to actually be plastic.

Anything from 0.2g upwards is going to be increasingly adulterated with minerals.  Barium sulphate seems to be the popular choice but at 4.5 g/cm3  even pure barium sulphate would only get you up to 0.5g.  To get there with ABS in the mix means using something heavier than barium sulphate, i.e. steel filings (you could assume iron, but that's lighter than steel, i.e. worse for the argument).

ABS 0.12g + steel 0.86g / 2 = 0.49g.

So at a glance, that suggests that a 0.5g BB is going to have more metal than ABS in it. ?

There's a better case for biodegradable PLA BBs at 1.25 g/cm3, but not by much - that's still only 0.14g native mass, which means a 0.5g BB could be exactly 1:1 PLA / steel.

It's not something that's likely to become an issue for us, but I would sound a note of caution about BBs over 0.5g.

 
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You can have a plastic compound with metal in it, but can you have a metal alloy that contains plastic?

to be perfectly honest, I’d rather they were made from metal. That way you know they’re not gonna shatter. As a general observation, Nuprol RZR .25 tracers shatter at sub 350 FPS firing into a metal post from 15ft. A Geoff’s .45 fired from a 500 FPS SRS doesn’t. Having picked shards of BB out of my eye, I’ll take the metal dust over plastic any day of the week. Your skin doesn’t care if it was hit by metal or plastic given the mass and energy are the same. 

i think this is one of those subjects that nobody is talking about, and by us airsofters talking about it can only do us harm in the long run.  Anything that can get used against us should be left for the people who would see the sport banned to find. Not handed to them by the players themselves.

 
That's a fair point, but the other way to not hand ammunition to those who want harsher laws might be to ensure that we are following the current ones.

I have some 0.46g bio BBs and that's as heavy as I'll go for the reason given above.

 
MikeMarden said:
Longbow via their website & Kicking Mustang (Via Skirmshop) both sell 0.48's in white, not sure why you'd need to go any heavier

I also use an SRS - 0.48's should be all you need
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I'm using .5's purely cos the FAST hop I have, when set to zero, over hops .48s.
I'm hoping to address this with a different nub - and then I should be able to use .48s. Maybe.

 
sonofsammo said:
I'm using .5's purely cos the FAST hop I have, when set to zero, over hops .48s.
I'm hoping to address this with a different nub - and then I should be able to use .48s. Maybe.
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My fast hop setup is pissing me right off. It ranges from 0-9 and by 3 the bucking is that far into the barrel the B.B. just farts out the end. I can’t seem to get a ‘standard’ hopped flight path where it goes straight, lifts a touch and then drops. That being said, I tagged my brother with it 7/10 times at 87m the other day with Geoff’s .45

 
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