Really BIG bore airguns
For those of you who like big bore, long range air guns, try “Pumpkin Chunckin'” on the Science Channel tonight at 9:00. Sometimes you just have to smash something.
Abe
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one of the main problems with the pumkin chunkin is the use of the pumkins, they explode if they use to much power, and really are not that dence. i have been keeping track of the chunk for a 5 years and planed to go this year but my sons birth kinda stoped that. That is fine though. i learned about the chunk when researching for the air cannons i build, my current one used a propane tank for the air tank and an 1.25 barrel, and the valve is a piston valve. i use 120 psi and can get 3 oz egg sinker to go 900 fps sometimes i can get 2 oz to break the sound barrer. i have know idea how far it will shoot because i am scared to point it into the air. but we have a 800 yard strait away down the river and it easly goes that far taking out branches in the trees. and to get it to go that far it only takes 10 degrees of elevation. my next cannon i am planning will have a 2.5 inch barrel (emt conduit) because it is the perfict size for a 20oz pop bottle and a 40 gallon propane tank.
my buddy broke his thumb because he tried shooting a shovel agross the yard, it went 100 yard, but the recoil of the cannon bent his thumb back a lot!
does anyone here build cannon or am i alone
Read again, it *fires* and explosive charge. It uses HPA to avoid the shcock of explosive charges (the whole idea….).
The compressors were steam driven, a single facility supporting the two gun battery in the case of the SF guns. The compressors and magazines were on the far side of the coastal mountians with a tunnel to connect them.
Definitely an airgun, definitely makes the pumking guns (fun as they are) seem like toys.
Doug Owen
Not impressed since it uses an explosive charge.
Lets see the same load launched with a trebuchet. 😉
A pumpkin 3/4 of a mile? Child’s play. Look up ‘Dynamite guns’ sometime, we had a battery of them here in San Francisco a hundred years ago. A real man’s airgun, not some hobby toy. Shot a 500 pound (a modest 3.5 million grains) explosive charge (total projectile heavier) over a mile…..accurately. Lghter ‘pellets’ gave useful ranges to four miles. Here’s a fun article from the test firings of one in NY a hundred or more years ago:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9B05E3DE153EEF33A25751C2A9669D94629ED7CF
At the end you can see the specs, ‘braod side of a barn’ (even if stood on end) at 5000 yards 35% of the time, pretty impressive stuff. BTW there was a shipboard version for the Navy, it was actually used in Cuba IIRC for a stelth attack on a coastal town in the dead of night. Bet that was scary.
Anyway, fun reading, fire up your search engines…..
Doug Owen
I was watchin’ some o’ that last night. They can sling those things like 3/4 mile!
Abe
Got my DVR set to record
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Yeah, there is more involved in shooting pumpkins than just seeing how far you can toss one. It has to stay intact when it comes out of the barrel. The guys who build those rigs could get crazy distances if all that was involved was a stable projectile shooting for distance. Im guessing that they could do a couple miles easily.