golf ball cannon

description

This gun is a basic inline cannon with a modded sprinkler valve.

features

This launcher is about as basic as you can get. It is one of my favorites because of its relaibility, portability, and versatility. The sprikler valve has 1" female NPT threads on each size which allows for interchangable barrels and chambers. The primary barrel and chamber sizes are show in the feature list above, but I do have several different chambers and barrels that I occationally use for different needs.

The 12" chamber is big enough to give decent performance, but small enough to be quick and easy to pressurize with a bike pump or a 12 gram CO2 cartridge. The 3' golf ball barrel is a good managable size that works well with the 12" chamber. The pressure gauge and short schrader valve were ordered from McMaster-Carr. The schraders were actually too short to be used with my air compressor tire chuck, but luckily I had just gotten my lathe and was able to remove part of the hex and give the chuck enough room.

GGDT file

gallery

background

This cannon has been through a few versions to get to the point it is today. At first I wanted to make it very modular so I had a nipple comming off of the chamber side of the valve with the schrader and pressure gauge attached. This way new chambers wouldn't require a pressure gauge and fill valve. However this style made the fill valve hard to get to and I didn't like the look of the gun.

The redesign of the gun came when I was thinking about selling these, which is also when I got this domain name. Ultimately I decided that I didn't want to deal with the possible legal issues if a customer did something stupid with the launcher.

The gun has had a chamber and valve destroyed when I was shooting stuff with one of my neighbors. I had a piston valved gun and I was letting my neighbor use this one. I showed them that putting water in the barrel and shooting it out was an easy way to clean out the barrel and told him to always brace the gun against the ground while shooting water. I guess he wasn't paying attention or didn't understand why to put it on the ground, and he shot a barrel full of water while holding the vertical in his hands. The recoil slammed the pressure gauge against his knee which shattered the glass on the gauge and bent it cockeyed. It also broke the 1" threaded fitting on the chamber and ripped the blowgun out of the lid of the sprinkler valve. Luckily I already had other chambers and another valve. My neighbor said he was fine, but he did have some cuts on his knee from the glass.

status/outlook

This launcher is still in use. It is what I will pick up if I just want to do some plinking or a quick demonstration. I don't foresee any changes in the future.

history

?/03 - Original gun created
6/04 - Chambers/barrels updated
8/08 - Photos taken and this page created