HEAL 320psi 20mm copper cannon (now with damage videos)

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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Ragnarok
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Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:46 pm

That's about all I'm expecting. The choice of ammo will be tough though - I need something in reasonable quantities that's consistent.

Paintballs won't fit tightly, spuds won't be that consistent, and most other things either don't fit or cost a lot.
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mopherman
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Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:47 pm

why not make a marble barrel? its quite consistent if you can avoid spinning the marbles.
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Ragnarok
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Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:54 pm

I could get a copper barrel with an ID of 17.6-17.7mm.
Paintballs are 17.3mm, the marbles I have are about 11/16" (17.4-17.5mm)
The problem is, it's about £20 for a 2 metre length.
Last edited by Ragnarok on Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ALIHISGREAT
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Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:00 pm

Ragnarok wrote:I could get a copper barrel with an ID of 17.6-17.7mm.
Paintballs are 17.3mm, the marbles I have are about 11/16" (17.1-17.2mm)
The problem is, it's about £20 for a 2 metre length.
£20 for 2m of copper?!? that can't be true... although it probably is, where is this copper from?

edit: althought a 2m barrel would gve good power
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Ragnarok
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Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:30 pm

That's 20mm copper, it's a rare size.
£18.80 for a 2m length of it from BES.

And I certainly wouldn't be making it a 2m barrel.
I'd probably buy a 3 metre length and make a 1m barrel, one in either 125 or 150cm, and a couple of muzzle attachments in that size - a hop up, porting, maybe something else...
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POLAND_SPUD
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Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:43 pm

what about ball bearings? I know that 0.5" are cheap (well at lest they are cheap in poland ) but i am not sure about 11/16
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Copperboy
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Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:42 am

What a beautiful thing! :P I especially love your breech and the fact it's made out of copper.
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Ragnarok
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Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:41 pm

Well, if you like it, watch this space - a video is coming.
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Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:40 pm

this cannon lives forever :lol:
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Ragnarok
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Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:29 pm

DYI asked about HEAL's mods in the "Adios" thread, and this was what I would have posted if the topic hadn't been locked when I tried to. It may be out of context slightly, but I spent the time typing it, damned if I'm wasting it because of a silly prank.
DYI wrote:How are the modifications for HEAL coming? What happened to the vid you were going to post in the comp?
The mods are going all right - I've got the pilot and dead volumes down just fine, I couldn't physically make them any smaller now without actually harming performance.
As for the planned 30 bar compressor, that's sitting in the pipeline as well, but it's going to take a while longer.

Unfortunately the video got delayed, I was missing the steel plate I thought I had, and I didn't have time to sort it in the occasional weekends I'm back from university, so I'm going to have to resource that for the big video (which also got seriously delayed, I'm afraid). I might dig out the exploding potato vid as an eleventh hour entry for the comp, but I wouldn't expect it to stand much chance.

However, I do have an offcut of 20mm steel round around. If I can get a good "nose" on it somehow, I'll try firing it when I've got 435 psi or so handy.
Should clock in around 750J (~550 ft-lbs) with the recoil of a .375 H&H Ultra Mag.
Not a lot by your standards, but an awful lot by mine. It's almost tempting to go to 500 psi and get an extra 100 ft-lbs, but that's more than I think the poor launcher should take, I already make it work really hard.

I'll need a target for that though - that's a pretty serious projectile, and a bad target won't do it any justice. A computer monitor would be nice, but that's all too common, and I don't have any spare.
Suggestions are welcomed.
It'd be interesting to see what Rag would build if he lived on a farm in Idaho rather than a house in suburban London.
What would I build if I had lots of resources and space? That's an interesting question. (Note: I don't live in London itself, but about 25 miles out from the centre - but the place is so large, some parts are only about 12 miles from me... Hey, if I built a big enough cannon...)
Well, I like HEAL a lot, it's about as large as a launcher can get and still be held like a rifle or shotgun - and that's a lot of what I like about it. So I'd still have the beauty no matter where I lived - even if I had to build her again.

But you could expect to see some much larger stuff. I'd probably build my over the top quad piston valved design - perhaps to fire golf balls at around 1000 fps or so, which would be a laugh.
judgment_arms wrote:DYI, in the picture you use as an avatar the bald kid’s holding a spoon or something, and in the spoon appears to be the reflection of a wolf that bears a resemblance to Ragnarok’s avatar.
Was this intentional, or a completely random occurrence?
It's intentional, but quite random at the same time. Go ask JSR where the spoons are.
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Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:41 pm

There is no spoon!

dammit for all my supposed searching prowess i can't find the original thread :?
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Ragnarok
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Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:58 pm

It's the SCTBDC thread, starting here:

http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/viewtop ... tml#139775

You may need to remember that at the time, my sig proclaimed a mystical "changing avatar".
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Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:15 pm

A 20mm steel round should be potent medicine when used on a concrete building block! :shock:
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Ragnarok
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Mon Feb 04, 2008 6:51 pm

Somehow I missed Gippeto's reply in this thread until now, don't know how.

A concrete block is an interesting idea. I do have such a block that I use as part of a backstop, but I think I would rather that one remain intact for now, I'll have to seek out another if I want to do that.

On other news, after having heard "Last of the Wilds" who knows how many times during making the first video, I've finally got over that overdose, so I can, nearly 3 months on, finally put the track back on my regular music playlist.
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Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:02 pm

Listening to a song on a loop for hours totally kills it for you however good it was to start with. Numbs the mind...
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