# Gel balls.



## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Im sure most of you know about these newish gel blaster things, the kind that use expanding gel balls for ammo.

The ammunition is based off a of garden moisture retention ball.
They are insanely cheap, hard enough to shoot, blast apart on impact and melt down to nothing, biodegradable and safe for the environment.

The balls used in blasters are 7-8mm, but I've just found some on ebay that are 13-16mm, random colors or clear, 5000 of them for about $7. I think i might order some clear ones and just see how they go, why not?

In case anyone doesn't know of these things, I've attached an image of three different sized balls, before and after being expanded in water.


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## Hoss (Jun 3, 2014)

That's the first time I've ever seen them, are they pretty firm after being soaked in water?

Sent from my SM-T380 using Tapatalk


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## SLINGDUDE (Aug 15, 2018)

I've never used the dry ones as ammo, but I have used the expanded ones as targets. If you buy the clear ones, you can add food coloring to the water when you expand them and you can make them any color you'd like.


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## Winnie (Nov 10, 2010)

Water gel beads


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## StringSlap (Mar 2, 2019)

Sold as children's play things and commonly known as Orbies. I'm staring at a bucket filled with several thousand of them right now and not once did I ever think that I stumbled upon a treasure trove of slingshot ammo! In fact, I can't wait for my son to get tired of them so I can throw the whole mess away!


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Hoss said:


> That's the first time I've ever seen them, are they pretty firm after being soaked in water?
> 
> Sent from my SM-T380 using Tapatalk


Well the gel blaster ammo certainly is, others tend to be very soft, but how long you soak them and let them soften can keep them pretty tough. Ive bought some cheap, small garden style ones. When they arrive ill let you know if they are remotely firm enough.


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Hey Slingdude,

No i meant expanded.
Maybe only gels designed for gel air guns are tough enough, I intend to investigate.


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## Slide-Easy (Aug 16, 2020)

Gel Balls from a Pee_Drizzle ?

At first my mind went to all the silly spam we were inundated with lately and thought this was more of the same.


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Don't feel bad, you just weren't ready for my nonsensical gangster monika.

Yo yo yo,

Pee Drizzle coming at ya

Better dodge

Better duck

Betta get an umbrella


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## Slide-Easy (Aug 16, 2020)

Pee_Drizzle said:


> Don't feel bad, you just weren't ready for my nonsensical gangster monika.
> 
> Yo yo yo,
> 
> ...


Are you Pee_ing down my back and calling it rain? :uhoh: Or maybe, just maybe, Pee_ing in the wind. :thumbsup:


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Definitely in the wind, though not into the wind.


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## SLINGDUDE (Aug 15, 2018)

Pee_Drizzle said:


> Hey Slingdude,
> 
> No i meant expanded.
> Maybe only gels designed for gel air guns are tough enough, I intend to investigate.


Gotcha!

Yeah, in my experience the ones that expand to golf ball size and larger get pretty soft and kind of fragile when expanded.


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Oh yeah, for sure. Mostly I'm curious about marble sized gel balls. Possibly even under-expanded.


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## Tobor8Man (Nov 19, 2020)

"They are insanely cheap, hard enough to shoot, blast apart on impact and melt down to nothing, biodegradable and safe for the environment."

This generally describes clay ammo - the downside is that clay is often too light and inconsistent in size and weight. Also, the clay dust destroys your bands.

I have tried a lot of clay ammo - including homemade. The best clay ammo is Saunders' Clod Poppers. It is symmetrical, consistent in size and weight. Heavy enough to fly accurately. It is coated - so no clay dust. Reasonably priced. Highly recommended.


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## cromag (Jan 17, 2021)

The weight may make them a perfect analog for steel , just a tad larger like marbles. Consistency in size could be a trick. Walmart sells some in the kids section that I may take a shot at. If they don't work out they will be good moisture retainers for the desert garden.


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## Slide-Easy (Aug 16, 2020)

Pee_Drizzle said:


> Definitely in the wind, though not into the wind.


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## Cass (Nov 16, 2020)

Great, I ordered some today to try! Thanks for the idea.


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Cass said:


> Great, I ordered some today to try! Thanks for the idea.


Awesome sauce!
Let me know how it goes.


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## Tag (Jun 11, 2014)

Fun idea


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Tobor8Man said:


> This generally describes clay ammo - the downside is that clay is often too light and inconsistent in size and weight. Also, the clay dust destroys your bands.
> 
> I have tried a lot of clay ammo - including homemade. The best clay ammo is Saunders' Clod Poppers.


Heck yeah! Ive got a big bag of clay balls from when i was growig some.hydeoponics years ago, they do indeed shoot quite well.
They are just cheap ones and incredibly inconsistant in size, fortunately, i made a dirt sorter a few years back, to sort good bonsai sized dirt chunks out of random soil. It can easilly be set up to divide my clay bas out by size.

Ill definately order some Sunders, cheers.


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## SLINGDUDE (Aug 15, 2018)

Tobor8Man said:


> "They are insanely cheap, hard enough to shoot, blast apart on impact and melt down to nothing, biodegradable and safe for the environment."
> 
> This generally describes clay ammo - the downside is that clay is often too light and inconsistent in size and weight. Also, the clay dust destroys your bands.
> 
> I have tried a lot of clay ammo - including homemade. The best clay ammo is Saunders' Clod Poppers. It is symmetrical, consistent in size and weight. Heavy enough to fly accurately. It is coated - so no clay dust. Reasonably priced. Highly recommended.


I find the clay ammo simpleshot sells now is just as good as saunders in terms of consistency and low dust. I actually prefer the simpleshot clay ammo partly because it's all the same color and partly because it's light enough in color for me to see it well in flight. Im not a fan of the dark color clay balls, I tend to lose track of them on longer shots. If you tried simpleshot clay in the past and weren't impressed, I'd recommend giving it another shot (pun intended).


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## SLINGDUDE (Aug 15, 2018)

Tobor8Man said:


> "They are insanely cheap, hard enough to shoot, blast apart on impact and melt down to nothing, biodegradable and safe for the environment."
> 
> This generally describes clay ammo - the downside is that clay is often too light and inconsistent in size and weight. Also, the clay dust destroys your bands.
> 
> I have tried a lot of clay ammo - including homemade. The best clay ammo is Saunders' Clod Poppers. It is symmetrical, consistent in size and weight. Heavy enough to fly accurately. It is coated - so no clay dust. Reasonably priced. Highly recommended.


Im also curious about the comment "the clay dust destroy your bands".

I've shot A LOT of clay, including many thousand poor quality 'unsealed' balls, and I don't think I have ever experienced any noticeable decrease in band life compared to the steel ammo i shoot - mostly .177 bbs and quarter inch.


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## Tobor8Man (Nov 19, 2020)

SLINGDUDE said:


> Tobor8Man said:
> 
> 
> > "They are insanely cheap, hard enough to shoot, blast apart on impact and melt down to nothing, biodegradable and safe for the environment."
> ...


This could be a function of my DIY clay ammo, which are air dried and not kiln fired. There is a lot of dust that gets on the bands and eats them up. Also, they are very inconsistent in size and weight. My experience w/ DIY clay is why I shoot Saunders Clod Poppers.


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## EllipsisNL (Mar 2, 2021)

I just ordered a bunch of these, I'll see how they hold up to my abuse. I can't see me using them over hard clay ammo, though


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Ok, im back with some preliminary results.

These are my milky whites, actual gel blaster balls, they expand to 7-8mm (pretty consistantly 7.8mm actually)









They cost me $15 australian for 10,000 gels (yes that pack has 10,000 in it)
Thats what? Like 10-12 bucks american.

Heres roughly fifty of them, unexpanded.









Then, after an hour and a half in a bottle of tap water:









Here are five that i pulled out of the bottle.









These gels are frequently shot from gel blasters at 400+ fps.
Heres what happened to those five gels:

The first one, i exploded in the pouch as i drew it back, i naturally grabbed just on the front half of the gel and squeezed it tightly as i pulled it back.it didnt like that.

For the second one I adjusted my grip, grabbing the pouch more in front of the gel instead, this shot very nicely, flew straight and burst in a cloud of goop on my clothesline pole.
The third one i shot as hard as i could, and it burst as it accelerated, making a pretty fun, but useless, cloud of gel.

The fourth and fifth i shot at normal comfortable draw length, and they fired just fine.

From this experiment, im guessing that the standard garden style gels will just be too weak.
Good, harder, gels designed for shooting, can certainly work. These milky whites i have are far from the hardest, strongest gels around, as far as gel blasters go, these are just cheap cruddy ones.

Ill let you know how i go with my 13-16mm non ammo designed gel balls, though its probably not going to go very well.


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## spewing (Mar 13, 2016)

Pee_Drizzle said:


> though its probably not going to go very well.


It may not go well, it will probably be messy but I bet it will be fun


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## cromag (Jan 17, 2021)

They sell a similar thing at Wally world called Orbies for the kids. As I was walking through today I splurged for $3 and bought 1000 pack. They are not hard enough for me to even try to shoot them even after soaking for 6 hours and they were about 3/8 or a little larger. Hopefully the "shooters" with a harder skin will work , for the price it would be hard to pass up as long as they don't stay so slippery.


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## Pee_Drizzle (Mar 23, 2021)

Yeah, ive only ever experienced the actual ammo, it sounds like the non ammo versions are significantly softer.

So far the 7-8mm ammo style works pretty well, but im going to see if i can find the hardest ones that exist.

With the milky-whites I showed above, to pop them by hand I have to squeeze as hard as I can, and I've got pretty strong hands. Still, a couple did fail as I shot them. But, a little practice and a little change in how you hold the pouch and they fire just fine.

https://bigbosstactical.com.au/product/aka-alpha-king-super-hard-heavier-7-8mm-gel-balls/#:~:text=Get%20it%20now%20with%20for%20%245.25%20%2B%203%20payments%20of%20%243.25%20%3F&text=The%20Hardest%20Gel%20Ammo%20in%20the%20Market.&text=The%20Hardest%20Gel%20Ammo%20in%20the%20Market.,-%E2%80%93%20Genuine%20Original%20Alpha

These claim to be the hardest on the market, so i might give them a go, an 80g packet is probably about 10,000 of them.


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