Birth of the Twins
or
Yet another contraption from the Pukin' Dogs
by Billy Goodman

For some reason, some of us always seem to have spare paintball guns lying around, and what better way to put those to use than to create a dual gun for scenario play. We had tossed around the idea for a few years as a way to arm a paintball tank, which at this point it appears we're not going to build. However, the concept of a dual gun still presented a challenge to tackle, and yet another avenue to spend more time and money on paintball, which sometimes seems to be our sole purpose in life.

The two older model full body Spyders are externally identical and looked like a good way to start the project. Plans called for the guns to be powered off a single 20 lb Co2 tank, so the first step was to connect the guns' air systems together using brass fittings, and a steel braided hose attached by a quick disconnect coupler.
 
 
 

The tri-pod used for the gun is actually the stand to a shop light. The stand is topped off by a U-shaped bracket which holds the light, allowing it to pivot right to left, and up and down.  We created another U-shaped bracket to fit inside the light stand piece, and this bracket in turn is bolted to the bottom of the two guns via their grip frame screw mounts.  In essence, we merely replaced the pivoting light with the twin guns.
 

Another bracket is connected to the rear grip frame screw mounts to provide some stability. Using the grips frame mounts to also include brackets requires longer than normal grip frame screws. Slots were drilled in the brackets to allow some adjustment in the windage of both guns, while washers are used to adjust the elevation of the guns.

Aftermarket electronic grip frames are used on both guns. This part of the project would have probably been easier if the frames were of the "select-fire" type, but we were using what's readily available, and both of these frame fire semi-automatic only. More details on one of them can be found in a review written several years prior to this project.
In order to give the guns a "full auto" capability, we utilized an aftermarket accessory designed originally for the Tippmann Model 98. I have owned this unit for several years and can't remember the brand name or manufacturer. The unit is a motorized version of the "crank" trigger actuators currently sold for Tippmann guns. It has a small variable speed DC motor connected to a cam, which was originally designed to rotate and trip the trigger on a Model 98. It has a rheostat to control speed of motor, thus controlling the rate of fire.
 Two lever switches were purchased from Radio Shack (ironically the exact same switch used in both Spyder e-grip frames) and wired remotely -in other words the wires going to the switches on the e-grips were merely extended to the new switches. The new switches were mounted around the cam on the Model 98 trigger unit. When the motor turns, the cam trips the lever switches firing each gun.  The switches were mounted using a small plastic "project box" from radio shack which was mounted on the Model 98 Trigger unit itself (a plastic box containing the cam, motor, batteries, etc.) The entire unit was then mounted on an L-shaped aluminum bracket which was attached to the brackets holding the guns together.

Finally, the a lever switch was added to activate the motor, and that switch was placed inside a spare manual Spyder grip frame. The mounting of this switch required the removal of the trigger latch and sear, and the drilling out of one of the mounting holes in the switch itself. The switch was secured using mounting pin which normally holds the sear spring. The grip frame was mounted to the L-shaped piece of aluminum already attached to the gun.
 
 

The Twins recently got their first work-out at a scenario game as a base-defense emplacement and pretty much performed as expected. Being unregulated Spyders, they seem to vibrate enough to feed balls without the use of an agitated hopper, and they make plenty of noise, while throwing plenty of paint – which is generally the point.

This project was a team effort, with Johnny Bucy, Mike Young, Chris Demartini, Travis Lawson, and myself all working on different aspects. Going into this project we realized the use of these guns would be limited for a variety of reasons, but we were more interested in the concept of twin "machine guns" for the novelty of it.  Eventually we plan to do some cosmetic work to the Twins in an effort to use them to add to the atmosphere of scenario games.