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This a picture of the standard gun without any of my wonderful additives. As you can see in this picture it is missing the barrel. I have experimented with several barrel lengths.1 1/2"in. PVC is best for standard potatoes. But if you want to turn it into a very literal "squirt gun" use a 3"-4" barrel . As can be seen, the petard uses a quarter turn ball valve for the release. This was then modified by me. The one con about the petard is the amount of drag that is used to open the valve. I decided after about a week that this wee cannon wasn't quite getting the range that I had intended. So, as most spud gunners do, I resolved to build a bigger cannon. See sniper rifle page. Check out Mr. Gurstelle's site for further info. on his book and what it contains
*Gurstelle, William. (ed.). 1999, Backyard Ballistics. Chicago Review Press, Incorporated Chicago, Illinois. P. 147-154 |
I
give credit to Backyard Ballistics* ( a wonderful book. See
literature sited at the bottom of the page.) This book gave me a base from which
to work from. I modeled it and enhanced it to suite my purposes. One area
in which the book (to my disappointment) neglected to inform the readers
that all air cannon air chambers should be duct taped several times
to reduce the unlikely event of it shattering into PVC shrapnel.