About 8 years ago, I was introduced to the extreme sport of potato shooting. I had seen and heard of a potato gun before, but had never got to shoot one myself. It's some of the most fun, and relatively inexpensive, redneck fun I've had. It's a simple, yet somewhat dangerous, toy that provides a lot of good old-fashioned masculine entertainment. They can be made in many different shapes and sizes and can shoot anything from russets to tennis balls. I have a lot of friends that have built potato guns and displayed their skill at engineering the perfect recipe for combustion, but none have put as much time and effort into it as my friend Chip.
About 5 years ago, Tricia and I met Chip and his wife, April, at church and we quickly hit it off. We both enjoyed the outdoors and had a lot of similar interests. The first invitation that Tricia and I got to Chip and April's house was a typical cookout and game night type event with another couple from church, Adam and Leslie. While Adam and I were hovering around the back porch tending to the grill, Chip came around the corner with a pretty wild combination of PVC reducers and couplings assembled with what appeared to be a barrel attached at one end. I quickly recognized that it was a potato gun, but not one like I'd ever seen.
Chip had experimented years before with different designs to get the most bang and therefore the most distance. What he came up with was a combustion chamber with 2 sets of opposing 4" x 2" reducer couplings to act as a 2-stage venturi (for the non-physics types, google it) to speed up the combustion pressure. It looked pretty wild and I anxiously awaited Chip loading a potato and seeing what this thing could do. He reached into a backpack that had his fuel (hairspray at the time) and didn't grab a potato....... but instead a golf ball. Now it didn't take long for me to realize that this was not only going to be awesome, but potentially hazardous. Chip loaded the golf ball, I sprayed in the fuel, he put the lid on, twisted the igniter (lantern lighter) and BOOM! That golf ball was out of sight in a split second. It was WAY more impressive than anything I'd seen before and took this extreme sport to a new level for me.
Over the years, Chip and I would get the potato gun out from time to time and launch a few golf balls over the lake behind Chip's house. Each time it was just as impressive as the first. Recently, we decided to get an 'accurate' distance measurement on just how far we could shoot a golf ball. Chip came up with an idea to measure the 'exact' distance. He knew that there were 1700 feet from one side of his property to the other and he'd shoot the golf balls across the property, which is an open field, and measure the distance. The only problem was finding the ball after the shot. It got out of sight so quick that it was nearly impossible to locate. So back to the drawing board.
A week later we came up with a high precision golf ball location system. Chip armed with the gun and a cell phone, I traveled down the field on his four-wheeler with my cell and got into position about 1700 feet from Chip. Knowing in the back of my mind that this could end badly, I gave the go-ahead for Chip to shoot and then would hide behind the four-wheeler waiting for the golf ball to land. It took about 10 shots before I finally saw a ball land in the field, and we estimated the shot at 1500 feet into a pretty stiff wind. We were all impressed, but no where near satisfied.
Two weeks ago, I found a few websites with loads of design tips and distance data for shooting potatos, golf balls, and tennis balls. I got side tracked on the quest for improving the golf ball distance and decided to build a tennis ball cannon. I use the word cannon, because it dwarfs the potato gun and is loud enough to leave your ears ringing after a single shot. While in the process of building the cannon, I shared my web findings with Chip and he took it from there with his potato gun.
Last Friday night, Chip and April came over to our house and Chip and I showed off our projects. I fired a few rounds from the tennis ball cannon and Chip was impressed. Based on the data we'd found on the web, we estimtate the tennis ball leaving the barrel at over 300 MPH. Roger Federer has nothing on me now!
Now it's Chip's turn. The data we found indicated a chamber to barrel volume ratio of 0.7:1 to get the maximum distance (which is the goal on the golf ball gun). For Chip's gun, that meant a 15' x 1.5" barrel. Chip went to his car and got out the gun and assembled the new barrel for a test fire into a bucket of water (since my yard is only 180' wide). He decided to dry fire (no ammo) the gun from the deck first to display how quiet it is with the longer barrel. I was busy filling the bucket with water when I looked over to watch Chip and BANG...... a huge fireball came from the back of the chamber (this was a typical "Hey ya'll, watch this" moment). Chip bent over holding his hand in obvious pain and I realized this could be serious. I ran over to make sure he still had all his fingers and luckily he did. After a little investigating we noticed that the cap on the back of the gun wasn't secured and flew off when Chip iginited the fuel. Chip was about 2 feet from my workshop when it happened and the explosion slammed his hand into the wall. It only took a few seconds for the swelling to start and I thought he might have had a fracture or two, but fortunately there were no serious injuries.
A few minutes after regaining our composure after that near crisis, we went ahead and shot a golf ball right through a bucket of water. It was very quiet (unlike before with the shorter barrel), but WAY more powerful. We knew a new distance estimate was needed.
Sunday afternoon, Tricia and I headed back out to Chip's house to shoot the improved potato gun and were blown away by the result of the new barrel. The ball literally went out of sight as soon as Chip ignited the fuel. Using the SWAG method (because I wasn't going to be the target again), we estimated the new distance at nearly 1/2 mile. It's impossible to believe until you see it.
No comments:
Post a Comment