Topband: Spud Gun

[Gary Smith]

A couple folks have asked about the projectile. It was also described 
in the QST article. Since I ended up with a larger size, I had to 
figure out dimensions on the fly.

What you need to do it this, decide on the size of barrel you want to 
use (The whole thing is made of PVC cept for the valve itself). Look 
for PVC endcaps that will slide inside the barrel and be almost snug. 
Not all sizes of pipe have endcaps that fit almost snug, you have to 
find endcaps that mate with the bore and and then the combination 
that attaches a male threaded adapter to mount that barrel on your 
valve.

You then use the PVC that fits inside the end cap that you selected. 
on one end cap drill two holes say 1/2" or so apart, this will be big 
enough to run some copper wire through it, I used 12 ga solid house 
wire & then inside the cap, twist the ends tight using pliers. You 
want to leave a loop of this wire outside the cap so you can hook a 
larger fishing swivel to it. Then use the liquid prep and pvc glue to 
put the two end caps on a piece of PVC. 

I tried different sizes and found the smaller ones were on less 
benefit than the larger ones. I first tried filling them with sand to 
add more weight but found it difficult to keep the sand in it. I 
could have used liquid JB weld or some such to plug the gap around 
the wires but then I figured a better idea would be to just make a 
longer projectile and it would be easier to find in the brush if I 
were doing this in the later evening. So my projectiles are around 
10" long and are made of 1.25" PVC & the end caps make it almost 1.5" 
wide & that is almost the internal diameter of the PVC I used, the 
projectile slides down nicely. They weigh about a pound. When they 
are coming down, they do so with no question they will reach the 
ground and not get the monofilament caught.

I suspect the tennis ball idea was as much or more for safety as 
anything, a tennis ball hitting someone on the way down would just be 
funny but this PVC thing hitting someone would definitely be an 
issue. As long as you know you're not shooting where someone is going 
to be hit, I think these heavier PVC projectiles are far more 
effective.

YMMV...

I should add that the drag from the 30 pound monofilament tends to 
keep the projectile from twisting a lot in flight, kind of acts like 
the feathers on an 
arrow do.

Gary
KA1J