AMR-1

Show us your pneumatic spud gun! Discuss pneumatic (compressed gas) powered potato guns and related accessories. Valve types, actuation, pipe, materials, fittings, compressors, safety, gas choices, and more.
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bboymatty
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Sat May 05, 2007 6:17 am

that they are my friend, that they are haha
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VH_man
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Sun May 06, 2007 8:42 pm

well, i figured out why my darts with paper cones disintegrated......

apparently, when the dart leaves the barrel, it wobbles slightly, which does:
1. decrease accuracy
2. puts ALOT of force on the tip of the cone

not suprisingly, because the tips of my cones were only 1 peice of printer paper thick and i was using finish nails, the nail simply rips itself out of the dart......

the solution (my favorite part)

NO NAILS!

i was reasearching blowgun darts and apparently there are "stun darts" which are basicaly cones with a heavy weight at the end, say a 1/4 inch steel pelled, instead of a nail. sure they dont penetrate, but they fly nice, and they are GREAT for knocking over soda cans. they dont wobble as much when they leave the barrel (the cones have to be LOOONG to allow the dart to be stable). i still havent been able to get some of those cauk tips yet but for now ill stick with my stun darts.

the other thing ive found about paper darts is that you have to dip them in superglue to make the paper hard and ridgid before you fire them.... either that or you have to use a few layers of paper. they may take a long time, but its worth it to have some "shootin fun" with your friends........
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bboymatty
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Mon May 07, 2007 3:23 am

well looks like u found out how to use them, but still, in the time it takes to make 1 paper dart i can make 2 vastly superior nail darts, and you could too, u just need the caulk nozzles like we spoke about.

try the covers of glossy magazines too, they are much stiffer and a little thicker than printer paper too. :D
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VH_man
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Mon May 07, 2007 6:37 am

yeah, i found this cardstock paper that works great....... ill look for thiose caulk nozzles. i want to make myself a target that i can actually retreive the darts from. im thinking of an archery target backed wtih 1/4 inch steel..... should that stop it? i know that nail darts make short work of plywood, and i want to actually get the darts back..............
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frankrede
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Mon May 07, 2007 6:59 am

backed with steel? Sounds like over kill.
I doubt your darts will penetrate the whole thing.
Current project: Afghanistan deployment
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VH_man
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Mon May 07, 2007 4:07 pm

try making darts, and then re-think your answer. these things will penetrate all the way into 2X4's............
iknowmy3tables
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Mon May 07, 2007 6:28 pm

you could adjust the pressure and use the strongest possible Xbow target you can find
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bboymatty
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Mon May 07, 2007 10:13 pm

vh_man that should be good, but remember the sudden deceleration could crumple your paper up as it comes to a stop.

With my darts, even though they slow down over the course of a few centimeters as they penetrate, the PLASTIC stabilizer still breaks and flies off as i think i explained to you earlier.

My best idea for retrieving your darts is a foam, styrofoam or thickly padded target, with a paper target overlay on top. This will reduce force on impact and your darts should be recoverable.
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bboymatty
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Tue May 08, 2007 5:04 am

Just thought id finally add a few pictures of what the nail darts look like after penetration.

The first lot are of the darts in a tree i fire at from about 45m away. As you can see, they TOTALLY embed themselves, and we are talking 3 and a half inches here folks into the rather tough exterior of this old eucalyptus.

The second set of pictures are a couple i fired this morning into two aluminium signs i "found" around the neighbourhood. They all went through totally, only stopped by the head of the nail. The plastic stabilisers were sheared off by the force of the nail embedding itself. The nail sticking out was the first i fired, its only like that because at first the two signs were some distance apart, with the smaller one at the back, but i changed the config after that one.


anyways enjoy! tell me what you think hey?
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poor tree got hit a few times today. those nails are in too far for me to retrieve. Have a good look and u can see the head of one nail just at the surface of the bark.
poor tree got hit a few times today. those nails are in too far for me to retrieve. Have a good look and u can see the head of one nail just at the surface of the bark.
see! im not kidding they went totally through both!
see! im not kidding they went totally through both!
overview of firing area. psi was at 130
overview of firing area. psi was at 130
front view of nail puncture through two aluminium signs
front view of nail puncture through two aluminium signs
backside view of nail puncture
backside view of nail puncture
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Hotwired
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Tue May 08, 2007 5:11 am

Well if we hear of an increase of accidents cause by random people walking into that construction site we'll know who to blame :P

The signs look like fun to shoot. I sometimes use a tree in my garden for darts and I need a pair of pliers to extract the things afterwards.
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al-xg
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Fri Jun 01, 2007 6:51 am

The best projectiles (for accuracy)I have made were carbon fibre darts (I bought a few cheap target practice arows from a sports shop cut up the carbon fibre rods and bought some arrow tips and fins) Image
and a 14mm rifled bullet. Its made from bi-component epoxy putty, and was molded in 16mm copper pipe, the rifling was cut out before the paste hardened using this formula.
Image
C = 150 (use 180 for muzzle velocities higher than 2,800 f/s)
D = bullet's diameter in inches
L = bullet's length in inches
SG = bullet's specific gravity

I haven't tried it a great distances but at 30m (and at 240psi) the the impact holes are perfectly round so it doesn't tumble. It weighs 10g.
oh and it looks like a tampon ....
Image[/img]
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VH_man
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Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:18 am

how well do those arrow darts work?
that would be fun to do a shogun spray of those things.........

i have to go get myself some discount arrows........ i know a store that sells packages of fifty for like 20 bucks.

i actually found a cheap low-pressure dart..... its basically a broad-top cement nail stuck through a pom-pom. over 50 PSI it doesnt work well, but above that its pretty accurate....

in fact, i did the stupidist thing and pressurized a soda botle to 100 PSI and ecided to shoot my pom-pom nail darts at it.........

next thing i know theres no more sawhorse (what i was resting the bottle on) and my ears are ringing (remember this was from 100 feet!). i gotta say, i dont reccomend it. ive had a few people come to my door asking to see my shotgun...... even though i dont even own any black powder powered anything.
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al-xg
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Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:24 am

The arrows are very accurate and fly much faster than nails, they probably have less drag than the pompoms too, but you have to be careful what you shoot at (ex: solid wood) because they get stuck. And you can't really get them ou undamaged unless you cut the target up.

20$ doesn't seem much for carbon fiber arrows...
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VH_man
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Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:30 am

they arent carbon-fiber, theyre aluminum i think. something cheap. is there anything that the arrow wont go straight through? like 1/4 inch steel plate? i have a big hunk of it......
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al-xg
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Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:37 am

Well they are quite light so I don't think they would go through more than 3mm steel well not with a rifle style spudgun anyway...

Edit: I just tried shooting an arrow at some steel, about 2mm thick and 10m away and the arrow went through but explodded... well the carbon tube just shattered... So they might get through 3mm with enough power but the arrows will break.
The aluminium ones will warp instead of shattering.
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