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Old April 19th, 2006, 18:04   #7
Mantelope
Scotty aka harleyb
 
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Toronto, Ontario
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Potential spring energy is defined as E=1/2kx^2 where k is the spring constant and is specific for a specific spring. When the sector gear disengages with the piston, the piston's kinetic energy comes to a stop nearly immediately. If the sector gear is moving infinitely slowly then the piston's kinetic energy when the sector gear disengages is 0, and then the spring's energy is converted to kinetic energy. The only way this can be impacted by the speed with which the gears pull the piston back is if the momentum of the piston when the sector gear disengages is enough to continue moving against the spring and thus increase the x in the spring equation. Since the mass of the piston is so damn low compared to the force with which it is pulled by the gears, I'm going to wager that the situation I've described has practically zero impact on the muzzle velocity of a BB.
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