Potatoes falling from the sky?

[joannaardway]

2 miles is an unfeasibly high range for a spudgun.
A quarter of a mile is very difficult - even with meticulously designed launcher and half a mile is next to impossible - even with aerodynamic, dense ammunition (i.e. not a potato), and a very powerful launcher.

I am therefore certain that 2 miles is utterly impossible, and therefore, I suggest one of the following as a likely possibility:
- You've made up this story.
If this is wrong, I apologise wholeheartedly, but at first glance, the story does seem far-fetched.
- The range is heavily overestimated.
Not unlikely. Even with experience, I have trouble guessing accurately.
- There were two spudgunners.
One closer to you, who's shots landed in your garden - and another much further away, who you later found, but didn't shoot at you. A big coincedence though.

Well, those are my main theories.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

2 miles is an unfeasibly high range for a spudgun.
A quarter of a mile is very difficult - even with meticulously designed launcher and half a mile is next to impossible - even with aerodynamic, dense ammunition (i.e. not a potato), and a very powerful launcher

I would question whether it was even possible with a potato - in order to achieve a 2 mile range, there is a minimum velocity requirement, and I doubt your average section of spud could survive such abuse and remain whole. In fact the only way you could probably do it is to encase the spud in a hard aerodynamic shell, but then it's not really a potato anymore is it.

[frankrede]

Okay, I admit it, it was me...



I live in Holland by the way...


the chance of two shots from something as inacurate as a homemade patatogun landing in your garden from 2 miles away is about...well...there is NO chance really.It could not even happen if the device was clamped down.

a skilled hunter would probably not be able to do that with a top of the line hunting rifle.

The longest confirmed sniper kill was only 1.5 miles I believe, and that was with a Barrett.

[mark.f]

Still amazes me how on earth they managed to lose the war.

Ah yes, they were ruled by a madman.

And they decided to invade Russia... idiots.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

The longest confirmed sniper kill was only 1.5 miles I believe, and that was with a Barrett.

Given the difficulty of the shot, I would hardly call it "only" 1.5 miles - the odds of hitting a man-sized target at this distance are unbelievably minute (indeed in this case it was the third shot that got him) -

A three-man al-Qaeda weapons team was moving into a mountainside position when Furlong shot and killed one carrying an RPK machine gun from an accurately measured distance of 2,430 metres (1.51 miles). His first shot missed entirely, and his second shot had hit the knapsack on the militant's back. The third struck the target's torso.

The weapon used was the Long Range Sniper Weapon (LRSW), a .50-caliber McMillan Brothers TAC-50 rifle.

This impressive feat of marksmanship is not typical for the effective range with a high first hit probability of the employed rifle

At that distance, the bullet rises around 45 metres, almost 150 feet, above the line of sight.

And they decided to invade Russia... idiots

It was the madman's decision...

[spanerman]

2 miles is an unfeasibly high range for a spudgun.
A quarter of a mile is very difficult - even with meticulously designed launcher and half a mile is next to impossible - even with aerodynamic, dense ammunition (i.e. not a potato), and a very powerful launcher

I would question whether it was even possible with a potato - in order to achieve a 2 mile range, there is a minimum velocity requirement, and I doubt your average section of spud could survive such abuse and remain whole. In fact the only way you could probably do it is to encase the spud in a hard aerodynamic shell, but then it's not really a potato anymore is it.

i suppose a frozen spud could go further than a un-frozen one... but still not 2 miles..

[paaiyan]

Okay, I admit it, it was me...



I live in Holland by the way...


the chance of two shots from something as inacurate as a homemade patatogun landing in your garden from 2 miles away is about...well...there is NO chance really.It could not even happen if the device was clamped down.

a skilled hunter would probably not be able to do that with a top of the line hunting rifle.

The longest confirmed sniper kill was only 1.5 miles I believe, and that was with a Barrett.

I think the point that frank is trying to make here is that the bullet only traveled 1.5 miles, in which case I respond. The bullet can travel much much farther than that, but not accurately.

And to whoever posted the cannon, that was a metal cannon with smokeless powder as propellant. We're talking about a teenage kid with some plastic pipe and hairspray.

[joannaardway]

2 miles is an unfeasibly high range for a spudgun.
A quarter of a mile is very difficult - even with meticulously designed launcher and half a mile is next to impossible - even with aerodynamic, dense ammunition (i.e. not a potato), and a very powerful launcher

I would question whether it was even possible with a potato - in order to achieve a 2 mile range, there is a minimum velocity requirement, and I doubt your average section of spud could survive such abuse and remain whole. In fact the only way you could probably do it is to encase the spud in a hard aerodynamic shell, but then it's not really a potato anymore is it.

The very next words I said after the section of my post you quoted were:

I am therefore certain that 2 miles is utterly impossible

So, I question the possibility of 2 miles too.

I don't believe that many spudguns (except stuff like the SWAT gun, and a few other exceptional examples) have the power to get anything over half a mile, let alone into whole numbers of them.
Assuming this is a combustion, the highest range I know (and believe) of a combustion is no more than 0.3 miles (about 500 metres) from BigBang's Crusader (Metered MAPP, and all sorts of spectular additions)- with a more aerodynamic projectile (golf-ball).
Therefore, 2 miles range is about as likely as me being on Bill Gates' will.

The reall giveaway is that for two "unaimed" shots (presumably with an unrifled, and unbalanced projectile) at 2 miles to land within mere feet of each other is even more unlikely.

[judgment_arms]

One thing I like about this forum is diversity, in one topic we have:
The ballistic properties of a potato
Why the Germans lost WWII
What it takes to put a potato 2 miles down range
The unlikely hood of putting two or more rounds in someone’s back yard from two miles away
The accuracy and max range of hunting/sniper arms

And probably a few more…

Anyway, not even the civil war era cannon were capable of the accuracy needed to put two rounds in someone’s back yard from two miles away. As far as I know that’s not even possible for a WWII 60mm mortar.
For get the fact that it was two miles away, for a piece of home made, non powder burning, artillery to put two+ rounds on a target that small even half a mile away is simply impossible.

Now maybe this “spud gun” was Second Amendment or Old Glory, two of the largest pneumatic howitzers ever made, also referred to as pumpkin chuckers, loaded with a “grape-shot” load of spuds, then I can see three or four spuds landing in someone’s back yard, out of a 10 minute barrage.
Provided that a spud could even go that far.

Or the spud was fired in a hard, aerodynamic, case with a proximity fuse to break it open and unleash it’s starchy war head at just the right moment.

[spudbud101]

Uh... Welcome to the forums?

My simple pneumatic can hit .4 miles or so at 120 PSI. 2 miles is unlikely with a spud.

[joannaardway]

My simple pneumatic can hit .4 miles or so at 120 PSI.

I somewhat doubt that figure as well. 650 metres is rather large number for any ammo.
I can't find a topic for your cannon, but entering the facts you gave, my errorcode reader gives code 84. Checking my little book of error codes, 84 means: "Likely overestimation of range".

How was it determined?
I assume you made a rough guess at the number. I find that without practise, range guesses are usually very overgenerous.

[paaiyan]

My simple pneumatic can hit .4 miles or so at 120 PSI.

I somewhat doubt that figure as well. 650 metres is rather large number for any ammo.
I can't find a topic for your cannon, but entering the facts you gave, my errorcode reader gives code 84. Checking my little book of error codes, 84 means: "Likely overestimation of range".

How was it determined?
I assume you made a rough guess at the number. I find that without practise, range guesses are usually very overgenerous.

Now, what I want to know is do you just make those up as you go along, or do you really keep a book? Because I would be the guy who's actually enough of a jerk to keep a logbook of idiotic mistakes.

[pat123]

I checked how far i shot my combustion with google earth and it said it went 950 ft thats .37 miles

oops don't know how i got .37

[paaiyan]

I checked how far i shot my combustion with google earth and it said it went 950 ft thats .37 miles

Actually that's .1799 miles. There's 5280 feet in a mile.

[spudbud101]

My simple pneumatic can hit .4 miles or so at 120 PSI.

I somewhat doubt that figure as well. 650 metres is rather large number for any ammo.
I can't find a topic for your cannon, but entering the facts you gave, my errorcode reader gives code 84. Checking my little book of error codes, 84 means: "Likely overestimation of range".

How was it determined?
I assume you made a rough guess at the number. I find that without practise, range guesses are usually very overgenerous.

Estimation. I shot it down to road to what was about .5 miles, so I guess I could be off my a little. Even so, my cannon packs a punch for it's simplicity.