SpudFiles

Yesterday I completed enough of my semi-automatic Nerf gun to test it. This was a project I've worked on and off over the past few months.




Yes, the gun is a semi-automatic. One trigger pull equals one dart fired. At the moment there is no trigger though so it's more like one button push per dart fired.

The only performance tests I've done so far have been rough at best. Range with the gun about flat at 30 PSI was about 115 feet measured with the stride method. Range seemed fairly consistent over many shots (within 10 feet either direction for 90% of the shots). The darts I'm using are too light and I could definitely get more range with heavier ones.

The cycle is rather simple and it is based around a valve assembly I designed with off-the-shelf components that allows for semi-auto functionality. It basically is a QEV piloted and refilled with a directional control valve. It's efficient and simple. I've been considering making a spud gun with a similar assembly, but with a three way ball valve instead of a DCV.

When pressurized the air cylinder (the silver tube) pushes the bolt which pushes a dart into the chamber. When the button on the DCV is pressed, the QEV is piloted and the dart is shot out. Simultaneously the bolt is retracted. When the button is no pressed the pressure chamber and air cylinder are refilled.

There's some more work and a lot of tweaking that still needs to be done but 80% of the work is complete. I won't be able to work on this again until December so I thought I'd post about it to see if anyone has any comments, ideas, suggestions, ravings, or whatever about the gun. This is prototype 1 and I'll be sure to try a bunch of crazy crap on it before moving on to prototype 2.

I'll post more photos and write more about my ideas in a later post.

hey, that is a good looking gun. i like it.

get some damage up of some harder ammo

I like it. Now to make one with shells

Ok this is definately one of the better guns un here, it is a bit complicated but i like that. It seems like a great idea i wonder how results would look like at...200psi or something and with heavyer darts. Otherwise great gob, maybe you could make a hollow stock to acomodate the whole "machinery" like a hull, wold be cool but otherwise really really good work!

Nice gun! I agree with john bunsenburner on your final version a stock to cover up the internals would give it a cleaner and nicer look. I would love to see a video of this thing shooting.

Without even getting in to much of the details of this thing...I like it....has a certain minimalist Rube Goldberg quality to it. The combination of wood, pvc, qev, copper, brass, plexiglass, braided water supply hose, pneumatic ram, etc etc...all for a Nerf dart shooter....

This is overall pretty nice work btrettel!

A lovely pneumatic/mechanical monstrosity!

I wouldn't change a thing. It's a bloody work of art!

Yes! I really do LIKE it.

Looks like an awesome prototype! (of course).
IMO it's very cool that you used clear plastic on it.
Because it seems to be a frustrating wall that the better/ more complex designs get harder to understand on this type of format. Thanks 8)

BTW I can think of a use for a semi-nerf gun involving a poor mannered cat (tears the carpet, eats off table and counter, scratches me, wakes me at 4am etc.). But that's just wrong... 8)

very nice indeed, I would hate to see all that effort used to shoot nothing but nerf darts however.

What ever you do make a NEW type 2 do not change that gun or some people including me will be pretty mad!

For a cover, I would suggest using a heat gun (or a plastic welding kit from Harbor Freight to use as one) or a propane burner and make flat sections of PVC to cut into a receiver to put on the gun. I really like it.

The wood, metal, PVC and clear plastic give it an individual and cool look now for some damage pics, i bet those darts could do some serious harm

seems pretty good... I've wanted to make a marble gun based on this principle of operation for almost a year... I hope I'll manage to finish it this year...

I suppose that you could make your gun a little bit more sturdy by making it from malleable iron threaded fittings... they really make life easier (sometimes)... this will also alllow you to use higher pressures

ohhh and there is a dead space between the tee and the air cylinder... it seems that it can be minimized... I am not an efficiency nazi like JSR but dealing with it will help to make the gun shorter

I just went over to nerfhaven to browse....

Oh my GOD......


I have never been more disgusted in a forum's population in all my years. Their grammar is atrocious, their designs elementary. Most of them can't even grasp the concept of a SEARCH FUNCTION! Half of them seem to have broken keyboards, because the only thing they seem to use 'shift' for is exclamation points whenever they see a neat looking gun with nothing more than a sprinkler valve. With those little squeakers (Aces High 2 jargon for 'high-pitched kids'), it's quantity over quality to the extreme. I will never return to that forum for any reason again.

For god's sake, one kid actually LIED about making some sort of frankengun out of 5 nerf guns! I feel sorry for their moderators.....

And now look at us in comparason! We are international, well educated, intelegent, young engineers each making their own ideas, each helping the others, each happy to welcome noobs like me. We, our mods and admins can be proud to belong to a community so great as ours is. Let us all do our best to keep is alive and the way it is for future spud gunners. Let us be proud and let us all make many, many more guns of all kinds and let us all present them in a language the average high schooler never even heard.