i'm not a total pacifist or anything like that, but with all this war money thats being thrown around, wouldn't it have done more good and cost fewer lives to just invest it in a starving country where everyone lives in slums. Bush had his reasons to go to iraq but if the war money went to one of those countries where everybody is starving to death it would have gotten more bang for the buck. i doubt bush really wanted to help anybody though and going to war is much cooler so he chose that. people have already said this but 12b could solve a hell of a lot of problems in the world. i don't think sending a couple of guys to mars is worth the price tag. we should probably spend our money fixing up the problems on earth before we think about screwing up other planets, and by 'we' i mean 'you' because i'm canadian and it isn't my money thats being thrown away by a dumbass

i'm glad i have 1/2" copper tubing then

11 feet might be too long but with how i shoot high velocity shots, the barel could be 5 feet too long and affect the velocity very little. for starters, lead slides against brass very easily. the lead balls that i shoot are around 0.4" but it might be less, i've never measured. all i know is that they are fairly big in the barrel but if the were shot right at the very centre of the bore they wouldn't touch the sides. to shoot them i put a wadded up piece of ceran wrap or kleenex behind the lead ball in the barrel. when it's shot the sabot isn't connected to the lead ball in any way so when it begins to deccelerate the lead ball just keeps going with almost no friction on on it. thats why i use 10 foot barrels, so for shots where i use a sabot i get the most acceleration possible. also, i know with a ball valve the projectile gets going before the valve is entirely open but with a solenoid valve wouldn't the same thing happen. on a much smaller potato gun i had problems with the valve not opening fast enough because the barrel was 12". i'm guessing the projectile was out the barrel before the valve fully opened. where the brass tubing met the thread fitting on the inside of the barrel there was a lip. i would make an aluminum sabot that would catch this lip and take about 20 pounds of pressure to knock loose. that way when it was shot the pressure was at its highest and i guess the sudden dislodging helped with acceleration. with the 12" barrel i was able to shoot lead weights about 300 feet with about a 20* angle.
Gun Idea:
i bet i could make a mini gun like that, with about an 8" x 0.5"barrel and a tank that was about 8" x 1" (125psi). with the same sort of sabot method it would have decent range and power, and it would be very compact. i bet with the small volume of air a silencer would work well on it.

I have an even minier gun with a Co2 cartrige as a tank and a 10"x0.3" brass barrel. i called it 'the assassin' because if you're wearing a long sleeved shirt of any kind you can stick it up your sleeve with out it being seen. if you make a fist you can make it so the barrel comes up under your fore arm and just between two knuckles so that only the very tip of the barrel is showing. it shoots playdough balls about 100-150fps and because of the low volume of air it's extemely quiet. i took it to a school foot ball game with a hand pump that goes to 50psi. I shot about 20 people and no one ever found out it was me. my most prized shot was when i shot some people who were in the row infront of us as they were turned around talking to me and my friends. they couldn't figure out what the hell happened and we were laughing our asses off. it is basiacally invisible when its shot so even if it was loud at all no one would figure out where it came from. for the risk of getting caught, pumping it up is more risky than actually shooting because thats the only time it can be seen. i know i was sort of all over the place there but i just wanted to add some new ideas in this gun category.

ok, no problem then, i actually appreciate your work because i after finding out that my gun can't shoot batteries at that speed i wanted to know what it would take to do so.

boltsniper, if you could put that much effort into a post you have put in the effort to read all the posts. this has already been resolved, i left out the other projectiles that i shoot because i didn't think there would much difference between them and AA batteries. the other projectiles would have taken a little more explaining so i just said AA batteries. everyone has proved to me that there is a drastic difference between AA batteries and 0.4" lead balls, not as much in weight but in drag, which i didn't consider. I'll edit my original post so there is no more confusion.

i know, i feel a little silly, but it wasn't that I altered my story, everything is still the same except for the type of projectile i shot which isn't drastically smaller.

ok, so that are no more missconceptions i'll explain re-explain how it works. I shoot AA batteries occasionally, not over long distances though because they're fairly unstable in the air and its harder to control where they go. AA batteries are not what i've recorded the velocities with but i figured they wouldn't shoot much slower than anything else. after reading your calculations, i've realized that AA batteries probably shoot much slower than what i normally use for high velcoities. I usally shoot o.4" lead balls and bolts for velocity measurments. I didn't think of the difference between them. anyways my guess compared to the other projectiles a battery would go about 500-600 fps which is much more realistic. the high velocity shots were with heavy metal objects that were just a little to small for the barrel. I would put a ball of ceran rap behind the shot so that once the pressure got low in the barrel and the ceran rap slowed down, the projectile could keep going with nothing slowing it down. that way the projectile got the very most out of the blast of air with as little friction as possible. come to think of it the lead balls i was shooting were a lot smaller than a battery. a 0.4" lead ball is what i shot through the three 1/2" thick partical boards. its also what i used when i shot at the gravel pile about about 400 feet away and it had almost no time delay between the shot and the puff of dust flying up. i honestly have no problem with using a ball valve and don't have any reason to use anything else. if you put oil on it and work it in a bit, it becomes very easy to open close. when i open it, it isn't gradual, it snaps open and the air bursts out rather than a rush of air that gradualy gets faster. a ball valve has never restricted the air flow of my gun. i also never said it shoots 1000fps i said it APPOACHES 1000fps. this is anywhere from 700-950fps depending on the barrel and projectile. and lastly i understand you all know exactly what you're talking about, i was just refering to one person when i said that and should have used a quote.

you must have no idea what i'm talking about. you're right though, 125psi is the pressure used in paintball guns but how does that prove anything? my gun has different dimensions than a paintball gun. the barrel in a paintball gun is about 1 foot give or take when the barrel on my gun is 9 feet. if after a foot of travel through a barrel, a paintball can reach 300fps than how is it so impossible for a projectile to get up around 1000 fps after 9 feet of travel. you must not realize that the longer a barrel is the longer the projectile has to go before it leaves the barrel. if a projectile is in the barrel with froce being exherted on it for longer it will be accelerating for longer. if its accelerating for longer then it gets up to i higher velocity.i aslo never said that i go hunting with it, i just listed that as something practical you could do with. just cause i said it shoots batteries doesn't mean that thats only what i shoot, i shoot screws, fishing sinkers and other pieces of metal that fit. i just said AA batteries so that you'd know the size of projectile that i'm shooting.

think about it, the pressure in the tank is 125 psi, the diameter of the barrel is 0.5" but since its round the theres about 0.4 square inches of area that the air is pressing on. at 125psi that makes the pressure on an area of 0.4 square inches so about 50 pounds pushing forward on the battery. air on its own with nothing in front of it when its under that pressure can easily reach just under the speed of sound. its impossible for it to brake it though because the air flow chokes before it does. it gets to just under the speed of sound and stops accelerating. so it is very possible to get things up to those speeds with just air pressure. now think about how much a little battery is going to resist 50 pounds of pressure. the air at that pressure isn't slowed down much by the battery so it can still get up to those speeds, it just takes longer. thats why with the 9 foot and 11 foot barrels it can shoot at these speeds, it gives the battery enough acceleration time to get to get going that fast. it only works with the super long barrels though so its really impractical to shoot at those velocties. I was shooting it with a friend once, we aimed it at a stone pile about 400 feet away. as soon as i pulled the valve you could hear the burst of air and not even a second later we see a cloud of dust poof up exactly where the gun was pointing at. it was a lazer, the shot didn't drop at all and it was there almost instantly. imagine if i had arced that upwards how far it would go. when you shoot it over long distances the sound of the projectile is louder than the actual shot. it isn't making crack but more of a slicing noise. its loud enough that you can hear the projectile moving through the air even at 300 and 400 feet away.

the only practicle use of this gun might be hunting, but since i don't hunt i just shoot it for fun if i'm bored. the velocities probably aren't very accurate, turns out the chrono was only meant for 450fps max but that doesn't mean it isn't shooting at those speeds. if it measures dead on up to 450fps then say at 550fps it might instead measure 536fps or 576fps or some other number thats off by a relativley small amount. what i mean to say is that even if it wasn't 100% accurate it probably gave a velocity that was close enough. since velocity is a statistic that isn't 100% accurate we'll just assume its faster than 450fps and leave it at that. the range is right though. i shot it into the field behind my house when there was snow on the ground at about a 10* angle. when it shot it i followed the projectile with my eyes until it went out of sight which was at the very most a second. maybe a bit more than a second after that i saw a puff of snow fly up at about 600 feet away. at point blank it shot through 3 sheets of plywood, each one was 1/2 an inch thick and also at point bank it shot through 5 inches of magazines. i've tryed shooting potatoes out of it but the break apart as soon as they hit the air. i am very confident that it is approaching 1000fps and that at 45" it could shoot around 2000' with the right projectile.

the shots were chronographed with a paintball chrono so the velocties i mentioned are true. i do understand that this is the most unoriginal potato gun design there is and i am fully aware that it could easly kill someone so i'm carefull with it and never plan on shooting anybody for that reason. the thing that i find makes it different is how high the velocity is. also, it can shoot much much further than 400' feet. shooting it horozontally the projectile hits the ground at about 400-500' so shooting it on an angle it can go extremely far. it doesn't quite reach 1000fps its more like 950 and 980fps. but when something is going that fast it can cover a long distance before it begins to slow down so i'm sure it can easily make 2000' or even more.

if been making little homemade guns for awhile now and so far the best gun i've ever created is a simple ball valve single shot gun that has a 0.5" diameter barrel that can be ajusted to be from 11" to 11' long. the tank is about 2' long and is 1.5" diameter abs piping. i fill it with a compresser normally to 125psi. i usually shoot AA batteries EDIT:0.4" LEAD WEIGHTS, BOLTS AND BITS OF STEEL THAT FIT. with the 11" barrel it has a low velocity of around 250 fps and a max range of about 200'. with the 3' barrel it has a muzzel velocity of about 500fps and a range of about 400 some odd feet. with the 6 foot barrel the velocity is about 700fps and finally with the 9' barrel it has speedy velocity approaching 1000fps. pretty good considering sound waves travel at 1150fps. with the 11' foot barrel there isn't much difference. with the 9' barrel i can shoot horizontally and the projectel will go about 700-800 feet before it hits the ground. i haven't had enough space to test its full range but i'm guessing it can shoot more than 2000 feet. it destroys just about anything you put in front of it and when you shoot over long distances you can hear the projectile traveling through the air, making a slight wooshing sound, its sweet.
EDIT: I DO NOT ONLY SHOOT BATTERIES, IF YOU READ ALL THE POSTS YOU WILL FIND THAT THIS HAS BEEN RESOLVED. I ALSO SHOOT 0.4" LEAD WEIGHTS, BOLTS AND BITS OF STEEL THAT FIT.

i'm honestly more of a paintball fan than nerf fan but i find you can make just as many mods on piantball guns, if not more. you just need the right materials. i've found a way to make a high flow bolt for my paintball gun just out of some copper tubing. if you can find tubing that's the right diameter you can make a homemade barrel. i know how to make a homemade bottomline out of a high pressere oil hose, a reducer and a ball valve. theres more but i doubt you understand much of what i'm talking about anyways. if you've ever taken a blow back semi fully appart you'd realize that it's not much more complicated than a nerf gun, the only difference is that a paintball gun is steel and is made by someone who has the right tools. i have modded nerf guns though and made my own so i've experienced both worlds. i've made a water gun shoot paintalls at 400fps.i have a homemade gun now that shoots AA batteries and giant lead fishing weights at 1000fps (me and my friend chronographed it) and when shooting horizontally it has a range of about 800 feet, only god knows how far it would go if it were shot at a 45* angle. it obviously isn't for shooting at people though. my final conclusion is that paintball is better for mods because you can make just as many if not more mods just from parts at the hardware store and if you get bored of that you can buy specifically made parts that are guartanteed to work. paintball is a little more exciting becuase it moves faster, faster rates of fire, and its more like a combat situation also adding to the excitement. some of you are probably a little pissed at me right now but you should really try paintball if you haven't already. i'm not saying you should abandon nerf for paintball, you can like both.

hey,

i know this is a really old post but i 've got some experience with waterguns, and i just found this site yesterday so i would like to say what i would have said a few months ago if i know about it. i made a kind of a loser rifle out of a super soaker 275 i think it was. the only thing i did was cut off part of the hose thing so that it was just a big gapping hole that would let all the air out really quickly. i just stuck a plastic barrel on that could shoot paintballs and that was my rifle. with 30 pumps it could shoot a paintball at 400fps and about 300'. with about 10-15 pumps though it would probably work better for foam balls and darts. unfortunatly i overfilled it once and it broke but for the time i had it, it shot pretty well.