Fox squirrel taken with homemade dart and gun

[Forum Admin]

There was a big fox squirrel getting into my trash this morning, so I grabbed a dart, charged the gun and went after it. I nailed it one shot, one instant kill with a nail head first dart at 20 yards away. The nail went in, hit the corrugated metal behind its head, and richocet back out. This is cool because I was able to recover the dart. Here's a picture of the squirrel, dart, and gun:

Here's the entry hole:

Here's the exit:

And here's the dart, note the chunk on the bottom part of the head of the nail:

I'd have to say out of the tons of squirrels I've shot over the years, this ranks top out of the cleanest kills achieved. 

[FighterAce]

Nice one! How did you aim that thing?

[Forum Admin]

It has no sights, so I align the top of the valve with the top of the barrel, kinda similar to how I aim using slugs in my remington 870. I can consistently hit soup cans at 20+ yards aiming in this fashion. I was aiming for his eye, so it wasnt the perfect shot I hoped for, but good enough to do the job.  Another problem I faced, is right now, I have to push the trigger forward with my thumb. To keep on target, I have to do so slowly, which makes the gun shoot much weaker. It probably only had 50 fpe for that shot. When I'm going for speed, I can get 117 fpe with the same gun/dart combination.

[FighterAce]

Is that a schrader as a pilot at the back? If so I can share a trigger mechanism I plan on using for my sniper rifle with you. Its 100% consistent and if you get some wood on that gun you could hook up a real trigger 

[Forum Admin]

The pilot is a small ball valve and functions as the fill valve as well. I threw this gun together for dart testing, but it performs reasonably well for plinking too. It does need a proper trigger and stock to make it more useful in the field. The barrel is friction fit like Stu has been using, but lacks the nice locking mechanism he uses. I've got another QEV identical to the one on this gun, I've been kicking around the idea of building a double barrel. 

[BoyntonStu]

The faucet washer dart?

A head first nail dart for accurate head shots!

The caulking gun ball valve action on the Trom-Boyn is fairly stable when squeezed.

It needs to open about 30* for full power.

That takes about a 2" throw.

Suggestions for a spring assisted trigger for it?

[Forum Admin]

Yes the good old washer dart. A spring trigger will make this a great hunting gun. I'm off tomorrow perhaps i can work on that.

[username1]

Unbelievable!!! A headshot at 20 yards with a raw ball valve!!! No sight at all? And the dart returned after the hit? You are really a modern day Robin Hood!!!

[Forum Admin]

The ball valve pilots the qev so it only has to be opened a bit to fire the gun. I got lucky to have a good back stop so i could recover the dart. I'm looking forward to the next chance i get to hunt.

[josephlys]

Great hunting, congrads you the man. Btw I want to ask a question. Is it possible to mod a paintballgun to shoot nail darts/ load naildarts in a paintballgun to shoot. Paintballguns can shoot shot after shot without the need to refill, so pressurizing the chamber b4 a shot will be eliminated. Plus the paintballgun is more compact and also quite accurate. So can it be done. Maybe I'll get 1to kill crows, hopefully it'll be able to shoot nails or someother form of deadlier ammo.

[Forum Admin]

yes, paintball guns can be modified to shoot darts. You could probably even breech load, since most of them have an easy to remove bolt. I've shot marbles out of one that I was modding for a friend, it wasnt the most powerful thing in the world, but a little work and you could do some damage. Simply upgrade to a stronger hammer and try to get a longer barrel, there is no reason you couldnt push a nail dart 350+ fps with one. If you do mod one, take some pics for us. 

[josephlys]

gotta start saving some money to get one, thanks again.

[josephlys]

Can the dart be easily loaded into the muzzel? Or how am I going to breech load, from the pic the ammo port seems small, only big enough for paintballs.
About the hammer, do shops sell spare hammer or stronger hammers.

[Forum Admin]

You probably could load from the muzzle pretty easy. The hammer is made stronger by using a heavier spring and/or adjusting the the spring tension to be stronger. Most paintball guns have a spring adjuster to tune down a "hot" gun. Getting hit with a 400+ fps paintball sucks. 

[josephlys]

Thanks man, paintball markers sure are pricey but if they take the pain out of refilling/re-pressurizing after every shot then maybe they are worth a try.
So i used the ftlbs calculator, and a 40 grain naildart at 300fps will have 8 ftlbs and with modding could yeild 14ftlbs. This is great, thanks again.