Staruks.net Paintball Mortar
Justin Linnehan, Will Staruk, Harry Staruk
This paintball mortar is made from Schedule 40 PVC components rated at 150psi or higher. Barrel is 5' of 2" pipe. Expansion chamber is 12" of 4" pipe. It is powered by a 68 cubic inch, 4500psi, High Pressure Air tank with an adjustable regulator that can be set from 300 to 1500 psi. It has a secondary adjustable regulator with gauge to bring the final pressure down to 5-150psi.


We've added two legs so the mortar will stand in a firing position and painted it in a green/brown "camo" pattern. We were able to fix the air leak and dry fired it (no paint). We played paintball this weekend and used up all of our compressed air. We will have to get a tank filled before we can test with "live" ammo (2" paint-filled balloons).


We also applied the "camo" paint job to our shoulder-fired launcher (LAW). It still has a small air leak in the expansion tank. The expansion tank also seems to be too large for the 12-gram CO2 cartridge. We are going to replace it with a 4" piece of 5/8" copper pipe. This should give us around 150psi, enough to launch 2" paint balloons or a 2" cup of paintballs.

We were running late today so we didn't test the mortar until after dark. Since we wouldn't be able to watch the trajectory, we decided to test fire it against the side of the house. We set the mortar at 45 degrees, 20 feet from the house, loaded it with a water filled balloon in a Dixie cup and charged it to 50 psi of air pressure. The balloon was launched as expected and broke against the side of the house.

We changed the LAW's expansion chamber to a 4" piece of 5/8" copper pipe. The ball valve leaked when we charged it with a 12-gram CO2 cartridge. We will try replacing the valve tomorrow.

LAW (with original expansion chamber).

We've reworked the tripod and added a base plate. The tripod has 1" PVC legs and an adjustable screw (8" range). It is attached to the barrel with 2" muffler clamps.

Come see our paintball launchers in action at the WEST POINT BIG GAME October 9-10, 2004. We'll be with the X-Fire Platoon.


The Star-Gazette published a photo of Will with the mortar at the Spring 2004 West Point Big Game.

Contact us if you have questions or comments.