Bait Launcher

I think that can be made very easily

I caught on 2 years ago about that size on bunker at the cape. Didnt have a cool launcher, had to swim mine out on my boogie board.

So it's basically a $800 potato launcher.

Are they selling dates with the women or a bait launcher? I'm not complaining, but that was the weirdest ad for a product

Quote from Keith_C

I will say I once saw Trey, "TedsBumper" launch a potato well over 100 yds using a homemade potato gun made out of plastic pipe and using hair spray for the propellant.

A while back, I put a huge dent in the quarter panel of our service truck with one. It went a little farther than I thought it would.

Hair spray seemed to gum up over time IIRC. Gum solve seemed to work well. (I guess that would taint the bait though.)
The PVC potato guns we had didn't cost much at all to make.

Quote from Keith_C

I find it hard to believe they can get 300 yds using just air, unless it's coming out of a scuba tank.

The pumpkin canons use nitrogen.

It says it uses a DC powered compressor. How much pressure can you possibly get out of that unless it's something special?
A 2000 psi nitrogen tank would have made more sense to me too.

I have a potato gun that I built in school. Its over all size is around 8 Feet. And if I charge it to around 110 PSI, and the potato does not fly appart I would be willing to bet it could get close to 200 yards easy. I would think something with more weight and better aerodynamics would probably do 300 Yards.

I've got one at the house we built for experiments in a statistics class while at UD (hey, our prof. was a statistician for APG )....might have to toss it into the Jeep for the next beach outing.

If I _really_ dig around I'm sure I can find my group's paper analyzing the performance of various propellants, projectiles, and barrel lubricant (keep your minds out of the gutter)

FWIW the best 'tested' combination was a racketball coated w/ dupont teflon spray lube propelled w/ ....

....

...

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White Rain hairspray.

If memory serves the measured total 'ground' distance was just under 1/4mile. Nothing compared to the punkin chunkin guys but not bad for a bunch of college kids with some PVC and beer.

Yup, tried the following propellants and it tested out best over a 10 shot sample:

Aquanet (hey, that was the old standby)
WD40
Starting fluid
White Rain
Grain alcohol (we were in college....had to try! FYI, it just burns)
Acetylene (would've likely performed better given a stronger chamber, cracked the PVC after second shot forcing replacement. Didn't complete testing for fear of injury)

Word of caution...different projectiles and increased velocity loose the 'plooomp' sound of a potato cannon and begin to take on a gunfire-esque crack which, based on experience, WILL attract the attention of local law enforcement.

--Ian

Quote from clendaniel

Word of caution...different projectiles and increased velocity loose the 'plooomp' sound of a potato cannon and begin to take on a gunfire-esque crack which, based on experience, WILL attract the attention of local law enforcement.

--Ian

Oh, been there/done that!

Quote from clendaniel

....

WD40
Starting fluid
White Rain
Grain alcohol (we were in college....had to try! FYI, it just burns)
Acetylene (would've likely performed better given a stronger chamber, cracked the PVC after second shot forcing replacement. Didn't complete testing for fear of injury)
--Ian

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Best potato cannon propellent is Lawnmower starting fluid. This is pretty much Either and burns off clean, no sticky residue like hairspray.

Thought it was funny how neither of those videos showed the thing actually working. But I did enjoy the 2nd one the best.