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Paintball Guns Go High-tech
By Shelley Borle, Thu Dec 8th
SITE Manufacturing (Redding, Calif.) has taken informationattained during more than 23 years of fabricating hi-tech carboncomposite components, such as telescope housings and applied itto the sport of paintball. "One year around Christmas, wedecided we wanted to do something else," said SITE plant managerDave Weir. " We spent the next three months scheming anddeveloping an all-carbon-fiber composite gun barrel."The product was the ST!FFI, a tournament-quality barrel with astepped bore (0.002 larger at 5 inches) available in one of aselection of bore sizes in 10-, 12-, 14- or 16-inch (254 mm, 305mm, 356 mm or 406 mm) lengths or as part of a ST!FFI SW!TCH kit(with nylon carrying case) containing a 0.695-inch bore barrelwith four exchangeable sizing breeches (0.685 to 0.691 inch, in0.002-inch intervals) used to adjust the barrel to minorvariations in available ammo. Barrels were designedwith the help of SolidWorks 3-D design software from SolidWorksCorp. (Concord, Mass.), utilizing
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woven carbon prepreg permeatedwith a resistant hi-tech polymer epoxy resin, supplied by BryteTechnologies (Morgan Hill, Calif.) with fiber-to-resin ratiocontrolled to within ±3 percent resin content. Plies of prepregare meticulously cut to within ±.005 inch (±0.127 mm) on aprogrammable computer-controlled cutting table from EastmanMachine (Buffalo, N.Y.), then table-rolled onto a tubularpolished metal mandrel (precision ground to within ±.0005 inch)and vacuum bagged. SITE declares that barrels are moulded to atight ±.0005-inch tolerance on the bore size. About the author:About The Author: Shelley Borle is a Virtual Assistant, Writer &Expert On Boys. Visit Her Country Variety Lifestyle Magazinehttp://www.countryvariety.com/CVL.htm as well as herCountryVariety.com Professional Virtual Services sitehttp://www.countryvariety.com Email shelley@countryvariety.com
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