I just discovered the perfect ammo for a 2.5" sch 40 barrel: Redd's Wicked Apple cans. The fit is tight enough to not need wadding but not so tight they would get stuck without grease. My plan was to make something similar to those Nerf footballs with fins. The can will be filled with concrete or plaster or something heavy like that. I'm making a tail with some old CPVC pipe and cardboard fins that I'll stick into the wet concrete/plaster/etc. I'm not sure what to do about a nose cone if I even need one at all.
A few years ago I tried something similar with 90 calorie soda cans just filled with concrete (without fins), but I never got to use them since I went off to college before I finished the cannon. Now that I'm allowed to use the machine shop at school I should be able to make a good piston valve from a solid PVC slug.
2.5" heavy round
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stuffbuilder
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- Its a 10 oz can. From some rough calculations the finished product should weight about a pound and a half.
Looks like any standard aluminum beverage can to me? If you want to make it aerodynamically stable, you can just fill it with concrete or plaster halfway and leave some air space on the back end to make it front heavy, like a Brenneke or Foster slug. Fins I find that unless you make them dead straight, tend to make accuracy worst.
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stuffbuilder
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Its a bit skinnier than a typical soda or beer can, although I guess beer comes in a wider variety of can sizes so its hard to say exactly. Either way, it fits perfectly in a 2.5" pipe.