Coleman propane

[Dannn]

Well I've gone down the propane route and it's great!

£ 8.50 per bottle and I've just ordered a $10 fitting to refill them from a big propane bottle making it 15% of the cost of gas from airsoft suppliers, it's a win win situation ??

Do it.

 

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

Don't do it it's incredibly dangerous, unsafe and potentially illegal.

There is no way to regulate the pressure, there is no way to monitor moisture and there is no way to mitigate or manage the transfer from liquid to gas.

Liquid Propane expands at 240 times in atmospheric air, and is incredibly volatile.

It can be done but has the potential to be catastrophic.

 

[Dannn]

All you are doing is transferring gas from one container to another, just like filling a lpg car

The pressure doesn't need to be regulated

Remember we are all using propane already just under different names in cheap Chinese gbb pistols we are all messing with it every day

 

[GiantKiwi]

Don't do it it's incredibly dangerous, unsafe and potentially illegal.

There is no way to regulate the pressure, there is no way to monitor moisture and there is no way to mitigate or manage the transfer from liquid to gas.

Liquid Propane expands at 240 times in atmospheric air, and is incredibly volatile.

It can be done but has the potential to be catastrophic.

It's completely legal; Safe if you adhere to common sense. And incredibly dangerous? Eh no.

There is no need to regulate the pressure, we are maintaining pressure in both vessels, and the smaller ones usually have expansion release valves, the only reason for having a regulator is when using propane for residential reasons where the high pressure would be unsafe, thus need a regulator to reduce it, as we are specifically after that high pressure we don't have that issue.

If you are referring to ignition for volatility, yes it is. But common sense should prevail that naked flame/ spark etc + propane release = boom.

Catastrophic is possibly a little bit more on the fear-mongering side..

 

[TheGrover]

Both the pound bottles and GBB mags are self regulating. The bottles have a release valve to deal with over pressurisation and the outlet of a GBB magazine will release gas if the pressure gets too great, long before a structural failure of the gas well.

The only downside is that it's dirty, so get used to cleaning crap out of your gun

 

[two_zero]

Never had anything but good experience using propane. Cheap and more reliable!

 

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

I wrote a spiel here:

http://www.airsoft-forums.co.uk/index.php/topic/25995-carrying-gas-into-games

Believe it, or don't, if you don't understand the relevance of pressure in gas transfer I'm not going to sit here arguing about it.

 

[TheGrover]

The pressure cannot be an issue. In your post you mention the AI GasCan, which indeed doesn't ha e a pressure release valve, but a one pound propane can has an emergency pressure release valve on case the can is left in the sun and the magazine outlet valves will naturally let some gas escape before a structural failure because the spring holding the valve closes is only so strong

Yes. It can be ignited. But no more readily than green gas already is. Yes using a cheap propane tank you have to be clued up on pressures and gas laws, but Coleman's cans are designed to be safe if left in say the boot of a car with the sun shining on it in the middle of summer in a campsite.

 

[Dannn]

Every time we fill a mag up we have a pressure transfer and we let propane escape in to the atmosphere as most gasses we use are propane based mixes without any agents added to make that propane smell

 

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

Pressure isn't the issue, expansion is the issue, pressure is your only reliable measurable quantity that would calculate the mass of propane to safely be decanted into a can.

You cannot 100% fill a colemans bottle as it needs expansion space. See the combined gas law to understand the relationships.

This is also why GHK recommend you only fill for 6 seconds.

That Relief valve is designed to be bespoke to colemans specific mass of gas and is designed to vent as their ceiling is broken, but it's only an emergency vent for high pressure, it's not for regulating safe internal pressures. If that vent goes you are filling the atmosphere with oxidised propane, which is the dangerous bit.

Liquid propane is safe as demonstrated in the videos, it's expanded vaporised propane that's the dangerous part.

That's why LPG cars are safe, they have the failsafes built into the pump and tanks, they are not simply metal receivers.

Pistol and m4 mags use such a small amount of propane it's negligible, 3g max in most instances, and it's burn off time is sub half a second, so any ignition is very short lived.

But we are talking much much greater masses and volumes of vaporisation in a 400g colemans tin. For the sake of £8.

 

[Dannn]

Take that saving and add it up over a year and it's a lot of cash.

It seems we are way behind the U.S. And China like in most cases as it seems they've been doing this for years

But we as a country like being wallet raped whenever we can so its not surprising.

The only reason the Coleman cans are dispose is that the gas thet hold is only worth a few coppers making them not profitable enough to re use.

 

[proffrink]

Propane eats your internals (particularly the o-rings) and screws up your hop up rubber. Stove propane is so much less pure than what we use in green gas and should frankly be avoided. Not to mention that it's banned on many sites because it's an obvious fire hazard.

Maybe try some Smart Gas off Gunfire.pl if you're worried about price; It's not worth the extra lubing and possible replacements you'd have to make.

I bought a magazine off someone on Zero In who swore it'd only had green gas through it - not only was it a clone mag (could tell by the base plate), but the o-rings were torn and it smelt like the devils bumhole.

 

[Dannn]

Pretty much every gas used apart from duster gas as a propelent for airsoft is propane/Butaine based

I normally use garder power up, that's 100%propane without the Smell and silicone oil added

C and p

From wiki

Green Gas is used as a propellant for airsoft guns. It is an alternative source of power as opposed to spring- or motor-driven airsoft weapons.

In 2004, it was determined by Carlton Chong (of Airsoft Innovations) through gas chromatograph analysis that green gas is in fact a mixture of propane, silicon oil, and odour modificants.[1] This discovery prompted his development of a propane adaptor, allowing users to administer their own green gas derivatives using retail propane and silicone oil.

 

[proffrink]

When did I say it wasn't?

Stove propane is different to what is used in green gas - it's dirty as hell and will rot your o-rings fast, even with the addition of silicone oil you're going to need to disassemble more regularly. There's also the 'smell of 1000 pickled shallots' to contend with.

 

[Dannn]

You mentioned the fire hazard, which to me meant you were un aware of green gas being just as much of a fire hazard, being basically the same stuff.

As for the dirt, there's a filter that can be used inline that removes dirt partials down to so many thousand micron, that alivates the dirt factor.

It does stink though !!

 

[TheFull9]

I doubt Coleman gas does any damage to rubber components. Between gas blowback pistols, rifles and 40mms I have roughly 50 gas containing devices and I've used cans of Colemans propane with some silicone oil from AI that they recommend for use with their adapters. Every single mag and shell is stored with said lubrictaed Colemans inside, many of them for half a decade or more. Number of leaks or U/S seals I've encountered is so close to nil it makes no odds. I've had some TM 1911A1 mags in my collection for bordering on 9 years now and they've had colemans inside them for pushing 7 of those years, literally not a single sign of a leak, 100% solid. I see nothing to backup the idea that camping propane does damage to your airsoft stuff amongst any of my collection, including all the hop rubbers for the GBB pistols I've owned for many many years and have been shot using Colemans for the vast majority of their usage. If anything I had way more troubles with stuff leaking back when I wasted my money buying cans of green gas.

The filling up Colemans green cans from large bottles I have no idea about, don't have the space for a large bottle even if I really need to go down that route.

 

[proffrink]

You mentioned the fire hazard, which to me meant you were un aware of green gas being just as much of a fire hazard, being basically the same stuff.

As for the dirt, there's a filter that can be used inline that removes dirt partials down to so many thousand micron, that alivates the dirt factor.

It does stink though !!

Fair enough. I meant more the way it's stored and dispensed is a hazard - those bottles are huge.

I doubt Coleman gas does any damage to rubber components. Between gas blowback pistols, rifles and 40mms I have roughly 50 gas containing devices and I've used cans of Colemans propane with some silicone oil from AI that they recommend for use with their adapters. Every single mag and shell is stored with said lubrictaed Colemans inside, many of them for half a decade or more. Number of leaks or U/S seals I've encountered is so close to nil it makes no odds. I've had some TM 1911A1 mags in my collection for bordering on 9 years now and they've had colemans inside them for pushing 7 of those years, literally not a single sign of a leak, 100% solid. I see nothing to backup the idea that camping propane does damage to your airsoft stuff amongst any of my collection, including all the hop rubbers for the GBB pistols I've owned for many many years and have been shot using Colemans for the vast majority of their usage. If anything I had way more troubles with stuff leaking back when I wasted my money buying cans of green gas.

The filling up Colemans green cans from large bottles I have no idea about, don't have the space for a large bottle even if I really need to go down that route.

The one bit I don't trust is the additive that gives it that stench - Ethyl Mercaptan (most of the time). It's rather alkali, an irritant and all round bad for the environment. By law stove propane has to have an additive so you can smell when there's a gas leak or whatever (green gas doesn't have it because it isn't used as a fuel in the conventional sense). It's there is very, very small amounts and obviously has a boiling point around room temperature (much higher than Propane's boiling point, mind) and will condense in magazines and around o-rings when they get cold.

I wish someone would just produce cheap cans of clean propane without additives, then I'd seriously consider switching. Perhaps I'm more adverse to the smell than others, so I can see why you'd want to especially when green gas is so ludicrously expensive.

Edit

Not long ago I was looking at refrigerants and how they perform. Obviously they don't have the smell but are still quite cheap to buy from European retailers (around £40 for a massive cylinder). The environmental implications aren't great with some of the gasses, but then I suppose we're literally throwing bits of styrene into the woods most of the time we play so hey.

If I go down that route then I'll let you all know how I get on.

 

[Dannn]

I think I'll look into propane with out the smelly stuff, see if it's available...

 

[Fatknees]

Ok so I use Colmans propane with the adaptor on my tm 1911 for over 18 months now with no ill effects (apart from it smells like crap) anyway don't forget to use some silicone oil every 3-5 mags to lube the o-rings