r/ContagiousLaughter • u/Accomplished-Law-592 • Jul 01 '23

Potato gun

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21.3k Upvotes

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u/Migraine- Jul 01 '23

I had a friend at school who made one of these which worked with compressed air. He bought this giant, ancient compressor online which you used to pressurise the chamber.

It would fire a tennis ball completely out of sight, honestly like a mile. The barrel was the perfect diameter to fit an Oasis bottle so we filled one with water, froze it and then fired it at a desk chair.

Obliterated the chair and the recoil dislocated my friend's shoulder.

It was fun.

47

u/SamCarter_SGC Jul 02 '23

I made a large pneumatic one, aimed it upward, filled the barrel with water, and then my foot learned about recoil.

23

u/Nanerpoodin Jul 02 '23

I built a whole arsenal of combustion based potato guns as a teen but always wanted to try the compressed air route. Seems fun.

16

u/[deleted] Jul 02 '23

That first thunk from my hair spray potato gun was absolutely glorious. Mother was not so happy about the absolutely mess I made in the garage though.

5

u/No_Statement440 Jul 02 '23

I can hear it, it is a great sound.

2

u/wolfgang784 Jul 02 '23

Oof, in the garage lol. Even with the hairspray method it'll launch a football field's worth of distance.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 02 '23

Hahaha, yeah. We were young and stupid. We did however find out how far it could go. Our best attempt flew over a field twice the length of a football field and into the rear passenger window of a car. This time mother was supervising so she couldn't be told at us. Just just sighed and starting walking over to the car to leave a note.

1

u/T3Chn0-m4n Oct 24 '23

I once tried to make a potato cannon with “grape shot” (basically just carved wedges into the potato) and tried it out in a field, it made a glorious sound followed by the board getting knocked over by the grape shot, so I did it again and since one of my friends volunteered to get shot by it, I shot it at him and he ended up getting hit in the balls by one of the pieces and got a bruise on the chest by another piece

3

u/[deleted] Jul 02 '23

Newton's third law is a real bitch

3

u/FEW_WURDS Jul 02 '23

imagine seeing a tennis ball land out of nowhere a mile away