A place for general potato gun questions and discussions.
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Stifler69
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:42 am
Well the name really says it all,
Does anyone know of any good Distance calculators that you could use on a computer or manually to measure the distance of shots fired ???
It would be really good to see how far each shot goes...
Cheers for any help

Major Pain
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TurboSuper
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:22 am
Umm...the only program I know of is GGDT.
Your other option is to fire the projectile straight up, and then pray you can see it at it's apogee, that way you could use trig to calculate the height.
Otherwise you'd need to know the launch angle and muzzle velocity. Do you have a chrony?
"If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving is not for you" - Darwin Awards
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Stifler69
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:41 am
Mmmm thank ill have to look that up.
Hahaha yeah and hope u dont get hit on te way down..
Umm nah i dont, (im kinda new to this) so i dont actully know what a chrony is lol ??
thanks so much buddy
Major Pain
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SpudFarm
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:42 am
talk to ragnarok or jimmy.
"Made in France"
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Ragnarok
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:47 am
As SpudFarm says, I do have a spreadsheet/program, but at the moment, I have the only working copy.
For the right information, I could persuaded to run a few numbers through one of the alpha builds.
Does that thing kinda look like a big cat to you?
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POLAND_SPUD
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:47 am
there is a programme/spreadsheet (.XML file) (not the one made by Ragnarok) but unfortunately I removed it and I don't know where I found it...
try searching for 'range calculator' or something it has to be somewhere...
Children are the future
unless we stop them now
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POLAND_SPUD
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:59 am
POLAND_SPUD wrote:there is a programme/spreadsheet (.XML file) (not the one made by Ragnarok) but unfortunately I removed it and I don't know where I found it...
try searching for 'range calculator' or something it has to be somewhere...
EDIT
I've found it -->
http://bb.1asphost.com/sigmarhaven/SSpi ... orV2-2.xls
EDIT no 2
oh great I don't know how to use edit function

Children are the future
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Ragnarok
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:31 am
To the best of my knowledge, that link is long since dead.
Does that thing kinda look like a big cat to you?
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rcman50166
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:53 am
You should look in the spudfiles wiki. There are various types of calculators but all are devoted to spudgun related matters. My program is in there too. It is specifically built for graphing calculators. You know just in case.

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POLAND_SPUD
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Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:57 am
it works fine...
if you have any problems PM me, I've just found it on my computer
Children are the future
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ralphd
- Specialist

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Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:45 am
Low tech rules. Just grab a bag of spuds, a lawn chair and a measuring tape.
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DYI
- First Sergeant 5


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Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:42 am
Low tech rules. Just grab a bag of spuds, a lawn chair and a measuring tape.
Assuming that it's a half decent cannon, you're going to have a hell of time finding where something as small (and prone to splattering) as a potato landed, even if it is going slow enough to be seen leaving the barrel as is the case in most handheld launchers.
Spudfiles' resident expert on all things that sail through the air at improbable speeds, trailing an incandescent wake of ionized air, dissociated polymers and metal oxides.
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POLAND_SPUD
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Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:41 am
you can spot where something landed when you fire on a freshly plowed field (of course the soil has to be dry)
you can even put small poles every 50 m or so becasue it's easier to find your ammo if you have some refference point
Children are the future
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jimmy101
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Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:23 pm
Like poland_spud said, just put markers out every (insert suitable distance here) feet. Then put a spotter person out to the side, perhaps 100 feet down range but off the line of flight by the same distance they are downrange (so they don't get hit). With markers every 50' you should be able to get the impact point acurate to perhaps +/- 10 feet. The spotter only needs to be able to see the projectile right before it hits the ground. They don't need to be able to see it when it leaves the muzzle. It'll help if the spotter know about where the projecctile is going to hit so it may take a couple shots to get a good measurement.
Another way to do it would be to fire over a lake. Put spotters out a hundred feet or so on either side of the gun, each with a homemade transit. (Like a straw glued to a protractor mounted horizontally on top of a suitable support like a camera tripod.) The splash gives the spotters time to sight the impact point. Record the two angles and calculate the range with a bit of trigonometry.
