Biulding the Perfect Sabots
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:29 am
So here’s the perfect sabot round for any spud gun. Well any large bore spud gun. Its reusable and you don’t have to walk a hundred yards to retrieve it.
So here what you do. You buy a sheet of blue board. You know the foam insulation that they wrap around your foundation. Its perfect for sabots since it lightweight easy to manipulate and for what it is its pretty rugged stuff. So I have a three-inch barrel that I love to lob soda cans out of. This is how I made a sabot for that barrel. However the same technique can easily be adapted to suit a wide verity of ammunition and replace any tape or wading around the object. One sabot would take about ten minutes to make and easily could be mass-produced.
The sabot is made of layers blue board. You go out and buy a hole saw for your drill the same diameter as your barrel and cut several plug out of the sheet of blue board. For a can I use two inch thick blue board and cut out three plugs. Then you glue them together in a stack. You can use a variety of glues for this but they make a glue especially for blue board. The stuff I use comes in a caulking tube and is (pl200) basically a solvent weld similar to PVC. I’m sure epoxy would also do well This gives you a stack roughly six inches high. Then I have a second hole saw around two and a half-inches in diameter. I like to make it look neat so I use a drill press and cut the hole down through the slug leaving an half inch ring around the out side and a full two inches on the bottom. The can doesn’t quite fit so I sand the in side out with a dremel until the can slips in neatly.
The last two steps are great fun. (blue dust all over ) The first one is to sand the out side with fine grit sandpaper so it gives a very smooth finish to slip down the barrel very nicely. Because of the very light weight of the foam and smooth texture your basically reducing friction inside the barrel which would lead to increase muzzle velocities of the projectile. The last step is to cut the sabot in half so when you launch it falls away from the can or what ever object you fit it to. It wouldn’t be much of a sabot if it stuck with the can the two, three hundreds or however far he can goes can flies. Not to mention who wants to walk that far. That and it would seriously affect the velocity of the object (‘nough said?)
Vola! You’ve got you first spud gun sabot that is reusable. I would suggest two things. One: If you use it in a hybrid or combustion you place tin tape or at least duck tape on the bottom of the sabot or your going to melt the foam away to nothing. It will, in a heavy launch, make a mess of your barrel. Two: It might be easier for some to cut the holes in the plugs before assembling them in to the sabot. That way you are sure you don’t cut through the bottom on accident. If you’ve got a small barrel you can get a small hole saw and a sheet of one inch thick insulation and it make great wading.
The sabots are nearly indestructible. I say nearly because I am sure some one could find away. And when they do wear out its usually because they get too loose in the bore. If they break and yes some times it happens thought I’m not sure why probably because of rough handling on my part you can easily repair them with the glue and a bit of extra foam. So that’s it sorry its such a long post but its worth it.
I know this should probably be in the how to post but its also ammunition I was divided on which I should stick it into. If it needs to be moved please feel free
So here what you do. You buy a sheet of blue board. You know the foam insulation that they wrap around your foundation. Its perfect for sabots since it lightweight easy to manipulate and for what it is its pretty rugged stuff. So I have a three-inch barrel that I love to lob soda cans out of. This is how I made a sabot for that barrel. However the same technique can easily be adapted to suit a wide verity of ammunition and replace any tape or wading around the object. One sabot would take about ten minutes to make and easily could be mass-produced.
The sabot is made of layers blue board. You go out and buy a hole saw for your drill the same diameter as your barrel and cut several plug out of the sheet of blue board. For a can I use two inch thick blue board and cut out three plugs. Then you glue them together in a stack. You can use a variety of glues for this but they make a glue especially for blue board. The stuff I use comes in a caulking tube and is (pl200) basically a solvent weld similar to PVC. I’m sure epoxy would also do well This gives you a stack roughly six inches high. Then I have a second hole saw around two and a half-inches in diameter. I like to make it look neat so I use a drill press and cut the hole down through the slug leaving an half inch ring around the out side and a full two inches on the bottom. The can doesn’t quite fit so I sand the in side out with a dremel until the can slips in neatly.
The last two steps are great fun. (blue dust all over ) The first one is to sand the out side with fine grit sandpaper so it gives a very smooth finish to slip down the barrel very nicely. Because of the very light weight of the foam and smooth texture your basically reducing friction inside the barrel which would lead to increase muzzle velocities of the projectile. The last step is to cut the sabot in half so when you launch it falls away from the can or what ever object you fit it to. It wouldn’t be much of a sabot if it stuck with the can the two, three hundreds or however far he can goes can flies. Not to mention who wants to walk that far. That and it would seriously affect the velocity of the object (‘nough said?)
Vola! You’ve got you first spud gun sabot that is reusable. I would suggest two things. One: If you use it in a hybrid or combustion you place tin tape or at least duck tape on the bottom of the sabot or your going to melt the foam away to nothing. It will, in a heavy launch, make a mess of your barrel. Two: It might be easier for some to cut the holes in the plugs before assembling them in to the sabot. That way you are sure you don’t cut through the bottom on accident. If you’ve got a small barrel you can get a small hole saw and a sheet of one inch thick insulation and it make great wading.
The sabots are nearly indestructible. I say nearly because I am sure some one could find away. And when they do wear out its usually because they get too loose in the bore. If they break and yes some times it happens thought I’m not sure why probably because of rough handling on my part you can easily repair them with the glue and a bit of extra foam. So that’s it sorry its such a long post but its worth it.
I know this should probably be in the how to post but its also ammunition I was divided on which I should stick it into. If it needs to be moved please feel free