High pressure golf ball barrel

[D_Hall]

I've always wanted to design a supersonic golf ball gun. But what to make the barrel out of? Honestly, I wouldn't trust PVC for the kinds of pressures that would be needed, so periodically I've looked for hydraulic tubing or whatever. I think I found it. Not hydrualic tubing but...

Schedule 160 steel pipe. 2" diameter (nominal).

ID = 1.689"

Golf balls are 1.68"

Thoughts?

[rp181]

perfect =) (message too short)

[noob of noobs]

Sounds amazing! I assume there aren't any welds?

[D_Hall]

Sounds amazing! I assume there aren't any welds?

Sch 160? No, you're not gonna find welds.

[Lentamentalisk]

either you will need an insanely high pressure hybrid, or a shit load of helium, but either way, that would be absolutely incredible. I for one, am going to have way more helium than I will ever need, so I may just want to try that. Where did you find this? Or is it just your standard SCH 120 2" pipe?

[D_Hall]

Sch 160, not 120.

It's at McMaster.

Bad news is that 36" is the longest stick they sell. But knowing the size, I could probably get longer from another vendor.

Right now I'm toying with the idea of....

5" x 12" chamber. (I've got some 5" ID pipe rated to 10,000 psi.)
sch 160 barrel. 6' would be magnificent.


edit: Of course, I've already got my hands full... But hey, it's fun to dream, right?

[STHORNE]

sounds awesome....but man that sucker is gonna be HEAVY! Pneumatic I presume?

[D_Hall]

Uhh... Going supersonic with pneumatics is tough. We're talking hybrid.

[STHORNE]

ok, thought so but wasn't sure....

[Lentamentalisk]

Its not that tough at smaller sizes at least, with helium, though as I said above, you would need a ton of helium to get it to work. A high-X hybrid definitely sounds like the way to go, probably best would be a Hydro-Oxy mix, as its only product is H2O, which has a much faster speed of sound than CO2.
Mayhaps you could try for DDT, to get faster combustion ^_^

[RDX,]

I have made high pressure Gb cannon and I used Hydraulic Cylinder Pipe / Honed Steel Tube .. but I use sabots (I mold the sabots from polyurethane). I think it would be perfect for supersonic hybrid

[Lentamentalisk]

Would you mind posting it or if you already have, linking it to us?

[dongfang]

Hi,

I can get some lovely 50 mm OD aluminium tubes. They are, like 43.6 ID. I found them at a truck body workshop, but they are available from any metals wholesaler also.

They can take any pressure that will ever come out of a spud gun.

I don't know if you have them over there in non-Metric land.

They are a little larger than the GB, but guess what: I have just wrapped a little sticky tape around my tube, and wedged it into a slip coupler on the front of the valve. When I fire blank (air) shots, it stays on. When I fire frozen eggs, it stays on. When I fire GBs, it blows off. As if it gets pulled off by the GB.

Golf balls deform under acceleration. The barrel should accommodate for that. I don't know exactly how much, though.

Regards
Soren

[DYI]

I shot a few supersonic golf balls today, but it wasn't out of the kind of thing that you can stand within 100 yards of without risking life and limb. Its barrel was 1.5" SCH 40 ABS inside 3" SCH 40 ABS, with a fiberglass filling between the two layers, giving it very high tensile strength and shock resistance. I got it up to 20x oxy/propane on the last shot.

But as for a proper barrel, the pipe you suggested is certainly the way to go if you have the money. What kind of pressure would you be thinking of generating here?

[Velocity]

I shot a few supersonic golf balls today, but it wasn't out of the kind of thing that you can stand within 100 yards of without risking life and limb. Its barrel was 1.5" SCH 40 ABS inside 3" SCH 40 ABS, with a fiberglass filling between the two layers, giving it very high tensile strength and shock resistance. I got it up to 20x oxy/propane on the last shot.

But as for a proper barrel, the pipe you suggested is certainly the way to go if you have the money. What kind of pressure would you be thinking of generating here?

Details please