I am in Victoria and would like to make a gel blaster for fun, The gas ones on the market are all too realistic to be legal in Victoria or are to expensive.
I am looking at making a bolt action gel blaster sniper. I already have a clear idea of how the rest of the blaster will function, however I am unsure of what sort of green gas (propane with lubricant in it) tank I could use. As it is a sniper it dosent need many shots before a refill.
I thought of making a tank from PVC piping because the PVC pressure rating is 170psi and propane is 120psi at room temperature, however I realised I cannot guarantee that it will always be at room temperature and would be a huge safety hazard.
It might be annoying, but maybe a redesign might save you some safety issues. Can you not design it to feed from a Glock/2011 magazine? Then you wonāt have to even have to worry about designing a release valve mechanism, and will have a possibility for a reliable feed mechanism. A sticky thing jutting out the top of your plank of wood might go a long way towards making it not look gun-like, too.
Whatever you do, make sure youāre consulting VicPol along the way. Sending them a CAD design or blueprint before you print/build would save you the headache, if you discovered it was illegal after having put all the work in.
Thank you for the quick reply and advice JazzyWard
As I was reading through firearms licensing VICpol I noticed that it said āThe exception to this is when the gel blaster appears to have been modified to operate like a firearm.ā, using a realistic mag could make it appear as it were modified to operate as a real firearm
Also I forgot to mention that I want the whole thing to be mechanical. How should the quick burst of pressure be done? I have seen QEV (quick exhaust valve) however I struggled to find how to operate one and how it works.
Any help will be greatly appreciated
Cheers, Evan
EDIT: also what would be the best suited ausgel gel balls for this long barrelled blaster?
Good catch on the VicPol thing. Glad you know your laws!
Unfortunately, Iām not a mechanical engineer, and donāt really know how to properly design one of these things. I would recommend at least googling/youtubing how a green gas magazine works, so that you can maybe work out the valve stuff there.
As for the āwhich gelā question, that I can actually concretely help with. Ultra Elites, hands down. Thereās cheaper alternatives out there, like the X-Force Blacks or iHobby super-hards (forget their name), but I swear by the old Ultra Elites any day.
Most GBB/R use a gas filled magazine made of metal. PVC wonāt cut it in my thoughts, too brittle. Hard to get the air seal that is needed with a secure connection of any sort. Definitely want to converse with your local POL before you do anything see what you can and canāt do. Legislations can be easily misinterpreted.
Mr. Policeman/TRG in your house looking at a homemade highly pressurised gas canister could also be misconstrued as a āPipe Bomb/IEDā in the eyes of the Law as well
Not sure that I would be wanting to go down the path of trying to explain/argue that charge in a court of Law.
Tbh going the gas route is going to get you in trouble some how. Vicpol donāt fck around with their legislation if a nerf blaster had a locking slide and used gas to shoot a gel then you can have fun spending the night with some actual criminals. The best thing I can recommend for having gel blasters in vic is nerf shells and gen 8 gearboxes or something along those lines and as you pointed out already would be worth it putting aeg mag internals into a more family friendly shell
After thoroughly reading through firearms licensing vic I have found that gel blasters are illegal in Victoria. Everything was pointing towards it being illegal aside from one very contradictory sentence from the rest of the article
ā2. A gel blaster that does not have the appearance of an operable firearm and couldnāt be mistaken for a firearm are now classified as a toy firearm and not regulatedā
I am disappointed however I have decided it is not worth the risk.
Yeah itās a minefield mate, which is why I mentioned about building something homemade in the back shed.
You might have the intention of not doing something illegal such as owning a Gel Blaster, or trying to create a non lethal hobby toy that complies with appearance lawsā¦ā¦ but they can still be of the opinion that you are trying to build something much more sinister and charge you accordingly
Like Squiddy saidā¦ā¦ spend your time and money getting involved with NERF, much easier, safer, fun and legal than the alternatives
Donāt direct any hate towards people serving as police officers though because the ones who write the laws are the problem they write the laws in a way that allows the government to have as much control as possible in as many situations as possible. As bob mentioned before aswell might run into issues with random wires sticking out of objects we live in a post 9/11 world the war on terror never technically ends
Yeah cheers mate, thereās a method to my madness behind my comments.
I do personally have Police officers, Detectives, TRG/SF, Undercover, HQ button punchers, SIFA and quite a few other law enforcement/business owners as long term mates that I can freely chat with any day of the week
They are all long term mates that I can always talk to about anything related to laws and procedures that they do for a living.
Probably half of them have now left their positions due to the absolute clusterfuck that they had to try and deal with, but are still in the scene through their own mates still serving the various positions throughout many different levels of law enforcement.
Thatās why I made the comment to old mate about being very wary of putting together something in his backyard whilst commenting online about building a āfirearmā.
Itās a deep rabbit hole if a piece of paper is written out from an investigating officer as being something considered a āterrorist threatā
Vas from X-Force has been pretty adamant in his online reviews about the legality of gel blasters in Victoria.
Last I heard he was waiting on confirmation from VicPol that the new blasters X-Force is bringing in are in fact legal in that state. Scifi themed, bear no resemblance to any real steel. Apparently thatās the loophole, their laws regulate replicas that copy real bang bangs.
That said, I seem to remember reading that the law was based on blasters being air powered and firing projectilesā¦ so who knows?
The air powered laws were set with some very tight legal descriptions about their power, design and operation.
Legally, original AEG Gelblasters didnāt actually go against any of the current law descriptions,ā¦ā¦ but itās arguable with GBB being of a compressed air/gas type powered āfirearmā that is considered coming under the rule of law.
The appearance laws are bullshit and were already ruled against in a previous high court case years ago, but somehow they still get implied by those in lower positions of power.
Thatās the whole stupid thing here in WA where their only argument for having them banned was all over appearance issuesā¦ā¦ and yet itās totally legal here to have full sized metal/wood 100% replica firearms of any type without any laws regarding important or licensing
The WA Government just simply outlawed Gelblasters altogether, along with gels being considered as āammunitionā along with them
This was much quicker and easier than rewriting the actual real firearm laws to try and include blasters and gelsā¦ā¦ so in reality, was only an amendment added to existing laws, not a change in the WA firearm laws themselves.
Unfortunately thereās nothing stopping the Victorian Government from doing the same thing
I donāt remember if it was a law, or a police enforcement guideline, but I remember seeing an official Vic gov document outlining that permits for replica style ones were specifically outlawed, by name. Movie prop armourers, and RSLs and the likes were permitted stuff like āreplicas that emulate the function and form of an automatic firearm EXCEPT for gel blastersā.
