Is Anyone Successfully Shooting with a Belt?

[COL Woodchuck]

As a engineer who has spent over 20 years designing belt conveyors I think there are some significant losses that need to be considered with using a straight line belt shooter vs a curved track wheel shooter.
First you need to consider the losses from the slider bed behind the belt. Using "standard" rough top PVC belt with a polyester fabric carcass the friction coef. is about .28 using a metal backing, .24 using uhmw, and mabe you can get it down to .20 using Teflon.
You also need to consider the losses of bending and unbending the belt as it goes around the drive and idler rollers. We have seen this factor play a significant roll in overall losses as the speed of the belt increases such as is needed for a shooter.
Finally you have losses from moving the bearings on two wheels and the load on the bearings from with belt tension.
Using a curved shooter with a single wheel the only losses are in the bearings of the wheel and the deflection of moving the rubber of the tire.