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Product: Weapon: Ice and Snow
Snowball Bazooka   (0)  [vote for, against]
A better way to launch snowballs at people...

The name's pretty much self-explanatory. A long cylinder weapon that could launch snowballs. It wouldn't fire them hard enough to seriously hurt anyone, however, it would be able to fire them far. Simply load a snowball into the machine, and when the trigger is fired, a platform would spring up, firing it.
-- friendless-person, Dec 16 2003

only in New York, eh. DrCurry? http://www.thehawke...ries/ln18_1213.html
[po, Oct 04 2004]

Air Cannons http://www.punkinchunkin.com/
.. when the technology gets out of control .. [bpilot, Oct 04 2004]

how does it work? would it need auxillary cooling? Could it go so far as to actually make the snowballs from condensed water in the air?

Croissant in the trust that at least the first of these questions will be attempted ;op
-- yamahito, Dec 16 2003


I voted this up because of the article [po] attached... how sad is that...
-- k_sra, Dec 16 2003


I wanna open up a shop right next to that guy and sell them for a buck less.
-- Letsbuildafort, Dec 16 2003


I like this - Bangs are good.
-- The Kat, Dec 16 2003


// wouldn't fire them hard enough to seriously hurt anyone, however, it would be able to fire them far //

If it can fire them a long way, then it will hurt at short range .... however, I'm not clear that there's any downside to that. I'll take a dozen. (+)
-- 8th of 7, Dec 17 2003


Sp: 7/8
-- thumbwax, Dec 17 2003


I actually built something like this. A 1.5 m piece of ABS piping, Eight 1m long pieces of surgical tubing, a gate latch, and some creative mounting was all it took. After I sliced my thumb open I kinda stopped using it. + anyway.
-- swimr, Aug 09 2004


A kid down the street had a homemade weapon that could easily be adapted for this use. It was two lengths of PVC, about 5 cm diameter, joined by an off-the shelf valve doohickey which you opened or closed with a lever. The back chamber had an air valve. The guy closed the doohickey then charged up the back with a bike pump. He then put stuff in the front - water balloon, water, tennis ball, whatever. Harmless stuff, while I was around anyway. On opening the valve the charge was released and the stuff came out fast. The balls went clear down the block. It would be perfect for snow because of the low friction and occlusive fit. It is also dangerous because there is no way to know how much pressure you are putting into the back. But it would be easy enough to mount a gauge as well.
-- bungston, Aug 09 2004


Yeah, a pretty standard potato cannon should do it. It would have to be pneumatic as mentioned in the anno above, a combustion gun would blow holes in people. May I add the suggestion of a blowoff valve instead of a gauge, to physically keep you from pumping it above the pressure that causes serious bruising at close range.
-- eulachon, Aug 09 2004


See link for an overgrown application of [bungston]'s young friend's toy. They can shoot over 4000 ft. (!)
-- bpilot, Aug 09 2004



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