field trials with ammo

taterjim · Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:21 pm

well, we have done some ser ious damage and it has been a lot of fun. Jake shot up all my potatoes while he was here for the weekend. t he dish is riddles with holes and you c an see that a few missed.

EDIT:Air cannons a re ve ry dangerous , especially if you use lead slugs made from fishing sinkers and lug nuts .pushed out the barrel by wooden dowels. One slug that we made to fit the barrell ,actually made a cookie cutter type hole in the half inch plywood.with the larger slugs the cannon had a lot of re coil . I have a light bruise on my face from the recoil I didn't expect..I have a shooting range and live out in the country ,or else I couldn't do this . My nephew Jake really eats this stuff up. but he shot up all my potatoes while he was sown for the weekend. He did however help me make the bulles for the cannon trials.

sergeantspud2 · Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:53 pm

what did you use as a mold to cast your lead slugs? i'm going to try to mold some slugs but the only thing i can think of as a mold is copper

julz · Tue Aug 23, 2005 2:36 am

this looks great, good work, i wish i had a range to shoot on... do you reuse your slugs? i guess you would have to remould them after use but it would still be good. how wide is the barrel?

taterjim · Tue Aug 23, 2005 10:34 pm

the barrel is one inch, We did not mold the lead although I may try that sometime. we shaped the lead with a hammer and vise and it wasn't that hard to do , some of the slugs bounced off the target and we found them but they had to be hammered back in to shape because t hey were flattened out a little. We aslo made some wax bullets by pouring hot wax into pvc fittings ,while it was still soft we would push in a piece of lead or screw in a small bolt. we made about a dozen of these and they worked really well. The wax would get totally smashed but the slug would sometimes penetrate. The slug in this case didn't have to be round at all ,we would just cut a chunk from a tire weight.. Large fishing sinkers ar e pretty soft and flatten out easily when hammered. If you had a thick piece of steel with a one inch or whatever size you need hole you could probably put in a chunk of lead and hammer it until it fits , I'm thinking of trying this out.. The pieces of wooden dowell I used will push out anything you can get in the barrel . We used lug nuts as well as the lead ,and they worked well. I bought a bag of marbles yesterday , 102 for a dollar , now thats cheap ammo.

taterjim · Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:41 pm

Since I posted this two months ago , I have poured some lead slugs. I found a very thick washer with a center area about the size for a 1/2" barrel. I poured the slugs by heating old tire weights with a torch filling the area inside the washer while it rested on a thick piece of metal. Fifteen of these slugs were made in just a few minutes. I shot them out of my marble cannon.

Damien · Tue Jan 10, 2006 11:42 pm

sounds like you have a few cannons.
we should make a forums showing plans for cannons u have made
and lengths and that kinda stuff.

taterjim · Wed Jan 11, 2006 10:02 pm

I have several cannons I have never posted ,but maybe I'll get around to it.
One I just built is an under over pneumatic ,a big one ,3" tank 2" barrel
I borrowed an Idea I saw here a few weeks ago and I built a power ram to open the 2" manual valve ,since I didn't want to spring for a 2" sprinkler valve.
It works better than I even thought it would ,it is so loud when it shoots that I lenghtened the barrel to 75" and it may need more.It seems to shoot about a quarter mile. The ram is opened via a blowgun which taps air from the cannons air tank. I built the ram out of 1 1/2" pvc ,a long bolt ,two washer ,two nuts, piece of ruber,two endcaps,one fitting to let air in. So far I have only launched potatoed in it but I have a tennis ball barrel that will fit it.