SpudFiles

I am new to this site but my potato launching experience is vast, I am currently working on building a different hybrid gun. One that would allow you to add and remove chambers with ease. What I am wondering is what is the biggest most powerful gun built so far. What kind of pressures are you reaching? How fast can your gun shoot fps?

Well, there's sort of four answers to that question.

Of everything on this site, there are three possible answers:
- VERA is the largest in scale, with a 19" calibre and firing projectiles up to 200 lbs. The muzzle energies exceed a million ft-lbf.
- HyGaC20, while much smaller, has pre-ignition pressures of 3000 psi, peak pressures probably somewhere between 15000 and 20000 psi, and achieves muzzle velocities of more than 3000 fps. It is, therefore, much more powerful for its size.

However, none of those have anything to do with potatoes, so:
- FEAR, I think, still holds the velocity record for a potato - a reported (although possibly suspect) 2700 fps.

But if you're not worried about potatoes and aren't limiting yourself to things that are on this site, the rather generic concept of using high pressure flammable gas mixtures to accelerate things means that you can look at things like Utron's CLGGs - some of those are achieving muzzle velocities of over 13,000 fps and muzzle energies into the multiple millions of ft-lbs.

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Go big or go home!

Well my goal was to beat the biggest cannon next summer but it looks as though that not gunna happen. I mean I'm all for building things that are just ungodly ridiculous but I never thought of going this far.

Scrambles622467 wrote:I mean I'm all for building things that are just ungodly ridiculous but I never thought of going this far.

Haha it is quite amazing what some of the members here have created.

I think you will be more than happy with something a bit smaller though. A gallon sized chamber with a 2" burst disk valve and 10' long barrel running at a 10x mix is a cannon to be reckoned with. I guarantee you will not be disappointed

MrCrowley wrote:I think you will be more than happy with something a bit smaller though. A gallon sized chamber with a 2" burst disk valve and 10' long barrel running at a 10x mix is a cannon to be reckoned with. I guarantee you will not be disappointed

Yup, even with say a 1.5 inch bore, 3 foot barrel and 3 litre chamber at 10x you will rival the energy of any firearm that can be legally owned.

Yeah I'm gunna have to start from scratch on my chamber cuz I was using an old propane tank but I fear that it can't take the preasures generated that and I'm having troubles getting a solid air tight sel

Oh come on!
Don't give up so easy...




Anything else you would like to top??

Just kidding..
With examples like those I can't help feeling proud of our community!

Scrambles622467 wrote:Yeah I'm gunna have to start from scratch on my chamber cuz I was using an old propane tank but I fear that it can't take the preasures generated that and I'm having troubles getting a solid air tight sel

A CO2 cylinder or fire extinguisher is a better idea, this will let you use 15x mixes safely.

Ragnarok wrote:- VERA is the largest in scale, with a 19" calibre and firing projectiles up to 200 lbs. The muzzle energies exceed a million ft-lbf.

1) I haven't forgotten about ya'll over here. Just been extremely busy.

2) VERA has been so well behaved that we're re-visiting the design. Long story short, we feel she'll be fine with a 50% muzzle energy increase. Sometime this year we should be pushing 100 pounds to 1500 fps.

D_Hall wrote:Sometime this year we should be pushing 100 pounds to 1500 fps.

3 and a half million foot pounds of muzzle energy? That's going to be hard to top by us mere mortals

Looking forward to it!

You know how people always want to see a full CO2 12 gram capsule being shot at a hard surface?

It just occured to me that you could launch one of these...

D_Hall wrote:Long story short, we feel she'll be fine with a 50% muzzle energy increase..

It's scary to think the concept I read about all those years ago has gone from (if my memory serves me correctly) a basic combustion that probably wouldn't get built to an increasingly powerful hybrid reality.

jackssmirkingrevenge wrote:You know how people always want to see a full CO2 12 gram capsule being shot at a hard surface?

I found it considerably more boring than the concept sounded, even with high speed footage. Possibly because the thing is visibly flying sideways (despite having been given a tail) in the video and hits the backstop instead of the target, but it's hardly atomic either way.

Now, on a "softer" target though, it might be pretty impressive. Water jugs would probably make for a pretty nice target, but I have no idea how fast it'd have to be going to get that to work (although a hard backstop behind them might be a solution).

jackssmirkingrevenge wrote: You know how people always want to see a full CO2 12 gram capsule being shot at a hard surface?

I too have done this! I actually made a replica of one of my copper air guns, scaled it up to have .75" copper @ 6ft long for the barrel. Attached drag stabilizing tail section... yadda yadda. It hits the target - if hard - all you get is a mildly pleasing "pop"! If you're shooting at a softer target like an appliance it usually penetrates pretty well, but you can make much higher density projectiles for penetration much easier!

I want to see slow motion of the barrel flex of that big yellow one.

I don't imagine Vera's barrel flex would be all that interesting - you're talking about a massively heavy and rigid barrel that's only being used at comparatively low pressures.