SpudFiles

This is just an idea, which is now reality, I had to launch a small Co2 canister. Basically what would happen would be, I would drop the canister down the tube, the mouth of the canister then would hit a nail smaller than the mouth, henceforth releasing the air in the canister sending it flying out the barrel. I made a picture but it will not let me add the extension format for some reason.

First of all, you would need some force to be able to puncture the CO2 canister and i don't think you will accomplish it by just dropping it down the barrel.
You should consider setting up a hammer mechanism (relate to a pistol)

and try saving the picture in a different format (.jpg, .png, .gif, etc.)

cool idea but ive done it before
its kinda cool

what i would do is rig up a small spring system attached to the nail to get it going to a good speed which *could* puncture it but i wont garrentee anything.
something that would definatly work would be to fire the nail pnuematicly ito the co2 cartrige setting it off but they both would require a lot of precision and would not be easy to set up.

bigbob12345 wrote:something that would definatly work would be to fire the nail pnuematicly ito the co2 cartrige

*cough* nail gun *cough

I wasnt thinking of a nail gun but i guess that would work too.

i know you weren't, but i figured it's a lot easier than making a pneumatic just for that purpose (and more fun)

A nail gun would also be good in the fact that with a little work to this you could acheive semi auto which would be cool.
Semi auto CO2 rockets man I have got to try that.

lol but it might be hard fitting it to a barrel

Epoxy is the solution to all mans problems

Thanks for all the posts, I think I'll use the idea of spring system and the nail that hits the canister, nice idea.

That would propably be the cheapest and arguably easiest, good choice.

Bigbob, not to make you go out of your way, but could you (or anyone), make a diagram of how you personally would set up the spring system.

Sure if you really want but it isnt that complicated just get a reasonably strong spring attach a nail to it and get a way to pull it back and realese it.
Just a note make sure the spring fits well in the tube or whatever you are building it in as you will need presision for it to hit the CO2 cartrige right on the head.
Another note you might want to make a guide for the nail to increase presicion even more(an example would be a peice of sheet metal with a hole in it for the nail to slide through)
you will need so much presicion beause if you contact it anywere else other than the head there will be a chance of it exploding which would mos likley be very violent because there is a lot of pressure in them and would most likley shatter a pvc barrel.
remote fireing would be a good idea on the first few trials for that reason.

Well, I was planning to make it with galvanized steel.