Piston Shooter?

[Barceloco]

Would making a piston shooter be a good idea? (One that works like paintball gun.) Or is it even possible? If so is there any example out there? I've been searching fore one and I still haven't found one.

[Ninja_Bait]

You're thinking of one that compresses the air behind the ball and doesn't actually contact the ball at all, right?

Our team considered it; as many have said on a few other threads, loading is a little more complex than for other systems, and with the likelihood of there always being horrible inconsistent balls, it doesn't seem like an effective system for any large amount of accuracy. We decided not to test it at all, so if someone with some evidence would like to correct me, feel free to do so.

[pyroslev]

I threw the idea at my team but they couldn't get their heads round it. A prototype of some type will have to be made, but if someone already has one or knows more on how to make one work, love to hear bout it.

[George Nishimura]

If you want to take inspiration from guns, I suggest looking at air soft guns, using spring or elastic power.

[Ernst]

I'd also take a look at how Nerf Guns shoot darts.
They're cheap, and will give you a pretty good idea of how these "piston shooters" work.