Air Gun Home :: View topic - shooting pellets through a paintball gun?

jlwilliams · Veteran Member

This may be in the wrong section, but I don't know if it's really 'airgunsmithing'.

I'm wondering about putting a .177, .22, or .25 pellet barrel on a paintball gun and shooting it single shot. Someone must have tried this.

I spoke to a guy from another forum (silencertalk) who tried a .22lr barrel and 40 grain lead bullets. He had pictures of pine boards he punched holes through at short range. He gave up on the project when he couldn't resolve a magazine (his goal was a Casselman type pneumatic SMG)

What I'm contemplating is a single shot experiment, and I'd like to hear about other peoples experiences. No point in re-inventing the wheel.

I picked up two used paintball guns for low money. One is a cheapo plastic job, a non topic I will let my kids demolish. The other is a little nicer. It is set up to use 'nitrous' (not sure the actual gas, but the guy refered to it as nitrous and it's in a 4500 psi tank) I will start by putting a 22 barrel into a paintball barrel and seeing how it shoots like that. Depending how that goes, I will start working on either converting the bolt to a closing, locking bolt action or building a bolt action. My thinking is that if this has promise but won't readily convert, I will build an action that relies on readily available paintballing components and gasses. The tanks can be filled inexpensively, and I know that people shoot thousands of paintballs rapid fire in an afternoon so a bolt action in a smaller bore should use a tank more conservatively.

Ultimate end goal would be something like the Gamekeeper that Beeman used to import but no longer does.

Any and all input is apreciated.

oddtodd · Silver Status Member

Somebody on here went the opposite direction and fitted a paintball action on a 22XX barrel assembly. They should be along anytime to let you know what they know.It's a pretty helpful site on things like that. Welcome and have fun!

broommaster2000 · Moderator

firemandivi · Member

I use to play paintball every weekend. The gas used is compressed air, hopefully with all the water removed. 4500psi tank needs to be hydro tested every 2-5 years depending on the make. A marker(paintball gun) is usually set to have a velocity of no more that 300 ft/sec for a paintball. Not sure how that would work with a .22 pellet given the differences in weight and such. You will probably have a tough time getting an air tight seal with .22 barrel. If you get this to work or if other people have done this in the past I would be very interested in it. I have a AutoCocker paintball gun which I wouldn't mind changing over. Let me know how it works for you.

jlwilliams · Veteran Member

The tight seal problem is one reason I want to build it as a bolt action. That, and separating the action into managable sections. A pre charged full auto 22 pellet gun sounds pretty cool, but that's a bit ambitious. I think that building up a good field gun from available paintball components would be an atainable goal (and a usable item). Maybe follow that up with a repeater manual action, and so on.

Tomorow I'll be going into a town where I know there is a paintball shop. I'll bring my second hand tank down and ask them to check it out. Maybe talk over my idea a little bit and see if they have any input.