AI - Impact grenade

[Conker]

Do I spy some kind of hint regarding the 40mm launchable impact grenade or... it's just me?

[Brian McIlmoyle]

Originally Posted by Conker

Do I spy some kind of hint regarding the 40mm launchable impact grenade or... it's just me?

I think it's just you..

It's been discussed .. in general terms but it is fraught with issues beyond the technical

[Conker]

Oh snap. After seeing the Blackhole video, I had some hopes.

[Brian McIlmoyle]

Originally Posted by Conker

Oh snap. After seeing the Blackhole video, I had some hopes.

I won't give up hope if you don't!!!

[Conker]

I never give up!

I hope there is a upgrade kit as my original grenades are sitting in a drawer because the timers are way too irregular.

[R.I.T.Z]

looks like resetting the pin would be a bit of a bother....other then that, room clearing will never be the same

[Forever_kaos]

YouTube- Airsoft Innovations Tornado Crash Impact Grenade - Redwolf Airsoft

Redwolf already has their hands on them, really hope to see these at TTAC 10 convention!

[Amos]

Wow.. that's a brilliant trigger mechanism!!!

[coach]

"You can actually pull the pin out ahead of time. And now the grenade is armed but still safe to carry. I can put this in a vest or in my pocket, and so as long as I don't go around chest pumping people it won't go off.".

roofles!

someone needs to test to see if shooting an armed nade will make it go off! also, now you have to make sure any nades in your vest/on you aren't armed if you're about to breech a room and someone from inside tries to get out slams the door back on you. lol

[MadMax]

Hey all. I've been burning the midnight oil trying to push things to launch with this grenade so I haven't been browsing ASC much. To answer some questions:

Is the Impact Grenade (IG) available as an upgrade to timer version?

Sorry, no. Initial proof of concept (POC) trials were done with modified timer grenades so it looked like an upgrade kit was possible, but further developments were hampered by having to make so many performance tradeoffs to get this grenade variant to work well. It was quite difficult to get the grenade to be sensitive but not prone to misfiring. Some early POCs were very sensitive, but they sometimes went off on pin pull. Making them less prone to pin pull misfires required making changes which sometimes resulted in in slow openings. In order to get the impact sensitivity high enough to trigger on a 1" drop on concrete, open reliably, and be tolerant to slightly bent pins I had to reduce the axial force exerted by the shuttle. Basically I had to change the diameter of the fire valve flange (the end where the fill valve goes) to reduce the net force applied to the trigger stack. Reducing the net force also made those parts more durable. Early POCs had very high axial forces which sometimes resulted in the bits in the trigger stack getting dinged despite them being made in hardened steel. The production bits are still made in hardened steel, but the reduced axial piston load doesn't exceed their bearing pressure limit like earlier builds did.

1" blasts on concrete is impressive, but it relates to approximately a 36" (3') drop on grass. Grass is much more cushioning than the sudden impact on concrete. I'm not sure if the grenade works in sand, but any reasonable toss on grass should work. Hard packed earth or concrete are fine as well as most firm walls.

Inconsistent timer grenade?

We've made a relatively recent revision to our timer grenade which was supposed to have been announced, but I never got around to making the web content because I'm up to my eyeballs in impact grenade setup. We've moved to a CNC machined shuttle assembly to replace the injection moulded shuttle we used to use. The machined shuttle has much smoother seal grooves so we don't have to glue in the U-cup seals on our shuttles. This allows the seals to be more conformal so it reduces the static friction in the tube so the newer shuttles have shown to be more consistent. Also the seals are replaceable because they're not glued on. When I can clear my desk a bit I hope to make the shuttles available separately as an aftermarket part so users can up-rev (up revision) their grenades to the current build.

Spoon kit compatibility: not compatible

The novel IG trigger mechanism relies on an axial pin (timer grenade is a radial pin) which is not amenable to a spoon kit application. The straight length of the pin (a functional requirement) is quite long making it difficult for the short arc on a spoon kit to reliably extract the pin fully without bending it. The spoon kit is not compatible with the IG build. There really isn't much need for a spoon kit on an IG grenade as there is no timer which inexorably ticks away.

It is NOT recommended that users "prime" their IGs by removing the pin and holding them in a gear pouch. While it may be not very likely that you'll run face into a wall, it is quite conceivable that you'll have a brain fart error and walk back into the safe zone with an ARMED and ENABLED IG. I note that many players are not diligent in the practice of disarming their grenades by removing their valve covers so I do worry that players may be similarly negligent with the IG. Do not bring armed grenades into the safe area. Do not prime your IGs by carrying them around in a gear pouch with the pin removed.

40mm launchable grenade

I continue to work on this project, but it is still a long way off. I am currently trying to deal with safety issues requiring the automatic arming of the projectile round as well as the need to automatically disarm the driver charge unless the round is in a launcher.

The safety requirements of a launchable grenade are multifarious. Included but not limited to:

-exploding projectile must be FUN: actually blasts bbs, flies reasonable far, combat deployable etc
-projectile must be lightweight
-projectile design must be inherently disarmed during loading procedure (usually done in the safe zone)
-driver charge design must be naturally disarmed until it is in the launch pipe

The first two issues seem to be dealt with. The most recent POC is pretty cool. It blasts 100bbs on impact and flies in a stable manner (non tumbling). The projectile and driver charge (driver charge propels the projectile) are fairly short (equivalent length as a 165bb moscart rnd) and they attach together so you only have to load one thing. You do have to eject the "expended" driver charge which is kind of cool too. The current projectile flight weight (total launch weight including bbs and propellant) is also quite light at a little over 50g which I'm pretty happy with considering that 20g of that is the expendable bb charge. I was surprised that I was able to pare down the non expendable weight of 30g to only 60% of flight weight.

The last two issues are quite a challenge. If I cannot come up with a reasonable solution for either, the project is a bust. It is unacceptable for me to release a product which has no safe direction (it explodes in all directions) and is easy to accidentally discharge in the safe zone. It looks like I can do a projectile which is armed by the launch pressure exerted by the driver charge, but I still have to work out a way to automatically disarm the launch charge because accidentally sitting the trigger plate of the launch charge on say a loose bb would launch the grenade and arm it which is a bad scenario. There is significant variation between grenade launchers (tube diameters etc) out there so it's tough to make a robust arming solution for the driver charge.

It is likely that it will take quite a long time for me to complete this project unfortunately. The small marketing director in me is pissed that I'm talking about it at all because it'll distract from the upcoming product launch so I'm going to cap the discussion on the launchable grenade. All I can reveal is a bit of an intimate peek (hey it's Valentines day!) on this new product in the works, but I can't dwell on it. I figure the launchable grenade is at least a year away for me to dig through the R&D process and work up the financing to start paying for tooling.

I know it's exciting, but it's not practical to open a lengthy design discussion on it online and I need to refocus on getting the impact grenade out to market. Just think: every timer or impact grenade I sell goes to paying for the R&D for the launchable grenade and it's incredibly expensive Canadian manufactured injection mould. I actually haven't drawn a wage in nearly six years now. I'd like to start contributing to my RRSPs someday because I'm starting to get old.

[Cushak]

MadMax is the man; and we love what you've added to the sport, and continue to add to the sport.

[MadMax]

Thanks! I strive to keep up with the namesake of my company. Making stuff in North America is expensive. We have to offer novel stuff if we can't compete on price.

[Zeonprime]

interested

[Duckman]

uhh..carl...you havent told us if we can get our hands on them at tac10 yet....suspense is evil!!