# Styrofoam ball cone substitute



## Lightgeoduck (Dec 8, 2012)

Well I tagged along with my wife and kids to the craft shop. I figured I could find something to use for my hobbies as well.

First, I picked up some rods that are used to make flowers, but of course they will be darts in my hands.

I found some styrofoam balls the perfect size for my .50 cal BG and was curious to see if they will work out.

Well they work quite fine. I am not sure yet, if I can say they are better than cones, but I can say they work at least just as well. (For spears at least)


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## NaturalFork (Dec 7, 2012)

That is brilliant!


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## Turtle (Dec 6, 2012)

good idea, let us know how they work out for you.


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## Raptor (Jan 15, 2013)

Try to use 2 foam balls on your dart shafts this should stableize the dart more..just a idea.


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## Pelletor (Jan 6, 2013)

That's a great find LGD....


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## Davem (Feb 27, 2013)

I wonder if the ball is cut in half if that would change things.


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## NaturalFork (Dec 7, 2012)

Davem said:


> I wonder if the ball is cut in half if that would change things.


Cut in half is a pretty good idea too.


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## ducttapeanddarts (Apr 22, 2013)

did they have any in 5/8"


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## Ridge Runner (Jan 2, 2019)

Hmmm... I bought a bag of marbles at the dollar store. There were about 50 of them between .61 and .635" sizing was not more consistant than that. Anyway I selected ne that I thought was reasonable and weighed it 82 grains. Similar in weight to a .625 stun dart. Performance through the tube was close to half the speed of a stun dart. Watching the trajectory was easy and painful. I seriously doubt a ball shape in the tube is close to as efficient as a cone that fits as well.

Or, it's just me.


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## Ridge Runner (Jan 2, 2019)

OK, Closer analysis...

I plugged the mouthpiece and started dropping marbles down the 5 foot tube at approximately 45 degree angle.

Of the 81 marbles in the bag I bought

3 were oversized.

12 were close enough to the bore size that they took over 5 seconds to roll to the bottom of the plugged tube. These are select ammo for the purposes of this evaluation.

66 were small enough that they slid down the tube faster. If I had set a 3 second limit I would have probably twice as many as my 12 select marbles.

I shot two select marbles at a cardboard target 30 feet away.

They punched two layers of cardboard which is a bit better than typical performance for a stun dart in the same environment.

So, in review, I got 12 or more good marbles for blowgun ammo from the bag and the rest will be reasonable slingshot ammo.

After testing in my 5 foot CS .625 I tried to test with the 4 foot CS professional .625. The professional has a smaller bore and only would pass 8 of the marbles. Something worth noting.

Never trust a first impression.

Your dollar store marbles may be differently sized, etc.


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## Utistotoumb (Sep 19, 2019)

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