First pneumatic cannon- Well on it's way (update with video)
Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 9:48 pm
Well, my friend and I started planning this gun around the end of last December and have been steadily working on it whenever we could. I have to admit that we aren't very experienced as the only other potato cannons we built were simple spray & pray combustions. As fun as these simple ones were, we wanted something more.
In spite of our lack of experience, we decided to go for something cool: a piston-valved, bolt-action sniper rifle. Most of the "sniper rifle" designs I have seen use the somewhat less powerful sprinkler valves, so I wanted to see if I could make something rifle-like using a piston valve. I've looked around on this site and haven't seen anything designed quite like this, so hopefully it will at least be a little interesting and different. It was definitely a challenge to design, build, and finally get in working order, but it's finally paying off. So, after countless trips to multiple hardware/plumbing stores, many newbish posts (sorry guys), and many hours of labor, I finally feel this gun is worthy of being shown off a bit. It is still a work in progress, but now that it is functional and starting to look like what it will in what I envision as it's final form, I have decided to post it for some critique.
I feel the most unique feature is the way we mounted the stock. It's basically attached with a DVW endcap with the square head sawed off to make it flat with a hole in the center through which the pilot system was installed. This end cap was then epoxied to the pressure-rated hex-plug which makes up the back of the piston valve. The entire thing can basically be disasembled if something goes wrong. The bolt action breech loading design basically follows the how-to which is on these forums, but it is slightly adapted for a piston valve porting. By the time this gun is completely finished, I'm hoping to have a nice black paint job, a scope (mounted who knows how), and a rifled 1" barrel (I also have to figure this out).
I'm looking forward to your comments or suggestions!
In spite of our lack of experience, we decided to go for something cool: a piston-valved, bolt-action sniper rifle. Most of the "sniper rifle" designs I have seen use the somewhat less powerful sprinkler valves, so I wanted to see if I could make something rifle-like using a piston valve. I've looked around on this site and haven't seen anything designed quite like this, so hopefully it will at least be a little interesting and different. It was definitely a challenge to design, build, and finally get in working order, but it's finally paying off. So, after countless trips to multiple hardware/plumbing stores, many newbish posts (sorry guys), and many hours of labor, I finally feel this gun is worthy of being shown off a bit. It is still a work in progress, but now that it is functional and starting to look like what it will in what I envision as it's final form, I have decided to post it for some critique.
I feel the most unique feature is the way we mounted the stock. It's basically attached with a DVW endcap with the square head sawed off to make it flat with a hole in the center through which the pilot system was installed. This end cap was then epoxied to the pressure-rated hex-plug which makes up the back of the piston valve. The entire thing can basically be disasembled if something goes wrong. The bolt action breech loading design basically follows the how-to which is on these forums, but it is slightly adapted for a piston valve porting. By the time this gun is completely finished, I'm hoping to have a nice black paint job, a scope (mounted who knows how), and a rifled 1" barrel (I also have to figure this out).
I'm looking forward to your comments or suggestions!