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Tr�buchets
Potato Guns
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Possible Future Projects
"Rifle" (pneumatic)
Rifled barrel. Air chamber acts as the stock, valve is a pneumatically modified sprinkler valve, with the blowgun mounted below it to act as a handle and trigger. Designed for easy holding and aiming. Maybe a golf ball barrel with an external bolt for breech loading.
Fully automatic BB machine gun (pneumatic)
This one will not be very practical, since it will drain ammo like crazy and require a continuous air supply. Basically I'll hook it to an air hose, and spray BBs into a trap so I can reuse them. Rate of fire should be over 100 BBs per second.
Soda bottle cannon (pneumatic)
3" bore, homemade piston valve, probably actuated by a pneumatically modified sprinkler valve. This thing will be quite large. I may put wheels on it so it'll look like a howitzer or something.
Supersonic potato cannon (pneumatic)
Golf ball caliber bore, homemade piston valve. Propellant gas will be helium. This cannon will require an extremely long barrel, so I'll probably make it in two or three sections that can screw off. Barrel will need external support. This thing will need a stand, or maybe a trailer. Of course I'll need to get a chronograph for this thing, to prove that it will actually shoot supersonic. I'm not sure at this point a potato would survive that speed long enough to go through the chronograph. Because of this, I will use a golf ball barrel, so if potatoes won't work, this cannon won't be completely useless.
Metal pressurized combustion cannon (hybrid)
I want to make this one out of metal, so it can safely deal with the high pressures involved. Instead of using burst discs like all other hybrids built so far, this will have a piston assembly which will only need resetting, not replacing, after every shot, while still giving full flow to the barrel. Another advantage of this design is that I will be able to choose, very precisely, at what pressure the valve will open. This cannon very likely will be able to shoot supersonically. I'm not yet decided what ammunition it will fire, possibly golf balls. Potatoes are not likely to survive being fired from this gun.