AI at BlackHole Japan
 

For those of you living under a rock, BlackHole is likely the world's largest airsoft trade show that just wrapped this past weekend. Carl from Airsoft Innovations is currently over there promoting not one, not two, but three new prototypes that we'll hopefully see on the field next season. Video follows:

YouTube - Our promo video shown at the Japan BlackHole show!

Oh. My. God.
those prototypes are AMAZING! Carl, you're a damn genious! Hopefully the show goes well over in Japan.

(we need to clone you, so you can churn out these products faster)

Next year is going to be a great year.

*fap* *fap* *fap* *fap* *fap* *fap* *fap* *fap*

Looks like I'm getting a shit load of those 203s...

They are not Kidding
 

then they say "airsoft Innovations"

should be "Airsoft Revolutions"

These products will do to grenade use... what the Tornado did to grenades..

another set of game changers for AI !!

I can hardly wait to play test them at TTAC3 ( that was a hint by the way)

wow those r sick! really want some now :P

A launchable fucking GRENADE?

My god Carl, my god.

Legendary. You are a god amongst men.

bloody amazing. I want one of those mines as soon as they come out! :D

I didn't catch anything about the range expected for the 203 shell. What's the approx accuracy as well.

Extremely interested in all these designs. Will they be packaged together as one ultimate killing grenade?!

The impact grenade is an unknown design at the moment, may or may not be an upgrade kit.
Mine is an addon kit.
203 is something else entirely.

I've played with a Prototype impact grenade a while ago... but the 203's. Jeez, we were just talking about it! :D Great work Carl.

OMG, those look amazing!!!!! I want the impact and the bounding mine. He is a GOD for thinking like this.

I applaud your effots sir (Carl). You are truly an innovator in the world of airsoft.

It really says something when one Canadian man can do more for airsoft that most established airsoft brands (Madbull, etc, who also have some great products and innovations). He pretty much kicks ass.

That tripmine looks fantastic. Hopefully I won't knock my teeth out with it :p

I love it, cant wait to get them ALLLLLLL

I've been having some fun noodling around with new ideas. The assembly line for the Tornado grenade is working a lot more smoothly now (took a bloody year to work out A LOT of bugs) so I finally get to play in the shop a little more.

I always like to have a few new doodads on the cook because product design is a long process where I go down a lot of blind design threads, basically I bumble around a bunch like an ant meandering towards a crumb. Convoluted crooked path full of dead end turnarounds and loops. Eventually I get to the end and a proof of concept works. I start to work out a lot of bugs and usage problems and clean things up. Product design for me is accumulating a lot of "know how NOT" and finally cleaning up a tiny chip of gold at the bottom which is a tiny bit of "know how". Sometimes I just give up and abandon a product work because there's either no product (no interesting potential or it's just plain dangerous) or I find the product completely impractical. I dump about half of my product ideas for either of the two reasons. A further chuck of the remaining ideas get backburnered because they're either not as interesting as the others, or they've got such long work ahead that I decide to chase something closer to completion.

R&D is a long road for me!

Will the 203 shell have it's own "base", use another shell for propulsion, or be... caseless?

you plull the words out of my mouth!!!! SWEET a launchable nade!!!

My demolitions role is getting much more boner inspiring.

Holy Christ Carl... I need a tissue.

The 203 round will be optimally used with a custom 40mm driver cartridge. It will telescope inside the hollow skirt at the back of the projectile for a total package length around 5". You can also muzzle load the projectile with a bb blasting Moscart type driver, but you'll have to load two items with each shot and you'll lose some barrel length.

I wish I could have integrated the launch capability in the projectile, but I'm trying to keep the launch weight down for safety reasons. Also, an integral driver and shell would increase the total complexity of the system (simpler to have separate modules) so you'll have to dump the driver charge into a dump pouch, but it'll be a stubby cartridge that would look similar to a real grenade hull which is kind of neat.

i might hold off buying a standard tornado grenade and wait until the impact one comes out. i also like the idea of the trip mine. so long as they come in FDE as well im buying and i cant wait to use them in a game :D

Sweet!!! Excellent job Carl.

a bouncing betty!? sweeeeeet. . . . .

Did I mention I came 34 times?

i was just in japan and visited some airsoft shops in Tokyo. Whenever I said I was Canadian the first thing that popped to their mind was AI Tornados. They seem to like it quite a bit.

And we appreciate every step you take on it. That was an amazing demo, and I gotta say....I'm almost looking forward to triggering a bouncing betty/tornado on the field just to see the grin on the face of whoever put it there.

Dear god, I knew I bought that 203 for a reason.

The trip mine will be wonderful :)

I thank you again Carl for the brilliant concepts brought to and soon to brought to fruition.

I was just thinking the same thing for my AGSA80 launcher too! But the Bouncing Betty mine, just simply awesome idea. Look forward to buying one down the road. Keep up the magic!
cheers

dear god man, that stuff is amazing. i cant wait to spend way more than i should lol

My clean pair of pants are ruined!

I make airsoft grenades. You should see Jeroon for pants: http://www.armyissue.com/

hey carl, are the 203's gonna fit in the revolver launchers? :D muahahahhaha

hmmm...cant edit my post...203..duh...the 40mm's

Cant wait to get the bouncing betty and several 40mm grenades. Would there be any chance we could get you to engineer a better electric magazine loader. My airsoft team uses the ones that use four triple AAA batteries and kind of look like an armalite magazine. I would rather have one that uses an AEG battery so its not such a pain in the ass to have to keep buying triple batteries all the time and something more reliable and robust.

Heh I've already started a bit of work on a better std cap magazine loader. The project is backburnered because the current projects are more exciting, but I've got a couple working proof of concepts. One of them is at TTAC3 for Brian to use.

I'm having problems with the 6 shooter launchers. They have a gap between the carousel and the breech which leaks a lot of gas which reduces range. I might be able to fix this with a seal kit, but I probably need the help of CAW to productize the changes. I do not intend to get into the launcher market.

Ah yes, because your new grenades actually use the barrel!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

I am running off to get the RPG-7 and starting working on an War -head mod of your launch able genade !!!!!!

OMG OMG OMG

I got to talk to a guy from Milkor at this years ShotShow. I hefted some of their latest and greatest in 6 shooter grenade launchers and asked them if they had issues with carousel to barrel leak issues. The rep said that there is piles of leakage at that junction, and that almost all of the impulse delivered to the round was done in the carousel and that all the barrel really did was apply spin and guidance to the round. Some crazy spec ops unit requested a cut down version of their 6 shooter (basically a sawed off version) and it achieved an even higher muzzle velocity because there was a shorter barrel drag. Longer range, but bigger groupings down range with the stubby version.

I don't get to use such high breech pressures for safety reasons so I have to work on fixing the carousel to breech losses, but it's neat to see the same issue crop up in the real thing.

It's taken enormous restraint from posting Homer-esque drooling gibberish since this thread came out...but...

WOW. This is just plain awesome. The guys are really liking the impact grenade. That will change game dynamics in a huge way.

Bounding mine is so-so (very cool, but we couldn't see using it)...um, maybe a stand-alone indoor CQB trip-wire setup instead? Something that could be put in place quickly, set and then retrieved when we're displacing? IR-laser trip beam...

The 40mm shell is just cool. What's the range? Stable predictable flight...or more of a hail mary shot? Was it coincidence that it went off slightly after impact or is it an impact device? Would it be possible to get it to air-burst?

BTW...at the last CQB event it was so hot inside that 3-4 grenades cooked off. Plug was in, short timer setting...immediate "detonation" when pin was pulled. The one with the spoon set without the plug vented in Duckman's hands. I think that the only grenade that worked ok was the one set for long delay....at least gave Brian time to huck it before it went off! LOL

Also...took a couple of mine apart...figured out what you meant by being able to fill it really quick. Neat trick. Checking the alignment between the holes in the main body and the shell did the trick...they blow 100% (in a good way!).

Hi Tys,

I'm working on a bounding mine indoor deployment kit so the mine can be deployed inside as well as outside. I might even be able to make it a shootable target that blows up which would be really interesting for meth lab entry scenarios.

The launchable grenade appears to fly pretty straight, but there's a lot more work still to be done. The current build is triggered by impact to the head of the projectile. I doubt I can do a good airbursting round which would be really cool, but a lot more difficult for me to implement. Besides it'd be difficult to control what range it blows up because launchers vary from model to model.

In hot weather you really need to use the longer delay setting and you always need to remember to put in the rubber plug.

I'll make a beer run when you get back and settled...provisions for the troops.

I'll bring my M79 blooper if you want to test that with the rockets.

A "backdoor sentry" kit would be great. If it fit a "standard" admin/general pouch that would be perfect. Flower petal unfolding box type thingy that can be clamped onto a door frame (or not if it's IR...but then you'd have to rig something to pull the pin).

I'm having trouble with rigging triplines off the std tornados...the pin is really held in there when the pressure is up. Don't want the "wire" to be too much of a tripping hazard to hurt someone running at full tilt though. Maybe spoon setups will be easier.

It's all good though...the only problem I'm having is explaining to the wifey why I need a G note worth of grenade stuff! LOL

****EDIT****
OH>>> can you please make a shell (add on, replacement for existing or whatever) that's see-through and has spots for LED's/Batts? I WANT/NEED/MUST-HAVE a "tracer" grenade....
***********

Tys

I want them all!!!

holy tity fucking christ!!

AI at BlackHole Japan
 

its not just japan thats been working on it :/