How many shots are there in a carbon dioxide cartridge?

This is a straightforward query that is frequently posed in the airgun community. Although the question is straightforward, the solution is regrettably not.

To accurately determine how many rounds a CO2 cartridge can deliver, too many factors must be taken into account. Depending on the temperature, valve settings, rate of fire, and blowback, a single 12g CO2 cartridge can deliver anywhere between 30 and 200 shots.

Let's examine how each of these variables impacts the number of shots you receive.

Size of CO2 Canister

Because CO2 cools as it is used up, decreasing its efficiency, the canister size is crucial in this situation. There are more rounds you can take before you need to wait for the tank to warm up again the bigger the tank is, and we're talking about 88 to 90 gram tanks here. You can get 20 to 30 nice shots out of a single 12-gram tank before stopping and letting it warm up once more.

A dual 12-gram airgun has twice the capacity for quick fire, making it more effective than a single tank airgun. Thus, there will be twice as many quick shots before a pause.

Blowing Back Operations

Blowback is either something you love or detest. While simulating the slide movement of a semi-automatic pistol and providing some recoil, it also steals CO2 from the tank during the blowback operation.

Because of this, blowback airguns are less effective and powerful, allowing you to fire fewer rounds per round of CO2 than non-blowback airguns.

Aiming Speed

For the fast and the furious out there, I have bad news. Although shooting quickly and aimlessly is a lot of fun, you end up receiving a lot less shots due of the CO2's cooling effect. You're actually better off shooting steadily and allowing the CO2 tank warm up in between shots if you want to stretch your CO2 tank. You'll probably also be more accurate.

Some firearms have both a semi-auto and a full-auto mode of fire. Additionally, they only feature a regular 12-gram CO2 tank, while having a full-auto option. You might have two 25-round magazines of ammunition if you used that type of weapon in semi-auto mode. This is not awful, especially when compared to how many shots you would get from a single magazine if you were utilizing full auto. Not to mention that in order to get the remainder of the magazine out of it, you would need to switch to semi-auto after letting the tank warm up for a long period.

When used with 12-gram tanks, full auto airguns are incredibly inefficient in using CO2. You had better bring those canisters with you since you'll run out of gas in no time.

Temperature

The effectiveness of CO2 is greatly influenced by temperature. You've probably observed that your rifle is much less effective and strong when it's quite chilly outside. Tanks are significantly impacted by cold weather, as we already explained.

Warm weather benefits the tanks and the quantity of shots you'll get out of them because CO2 needs heat to grow. We require less CO2 from the tank when there is greater heat!

Valve Position

On airguns, the CO2 valve setting is a typical setting. More CO2 will escape during firing if you prefer to make more powerful shots because you'll have the valve open more. More CO2 was used, stronger shots were fired, but significantly fewer shots were fired. Also the opposite.

Fewer CO2 will be emitted, resulting in fewer powerful shots but more shots per cartridge.

Although the majority of people are aware of these settings, it might be challenging to put them all together and really see why you aren't receiving as many rounds per cartridge.

How you use your airgun, how you use it, how the gun's actual CO2 valve settings are adjusted, and of course the size of the CO2 cartridge can all have a significant impact on how many bullets you can fire. We can gauge how many rounds we'll obtain from an airgun if we are familiar with all of its components.