Matchstick Gun

[titsonritz]

Over and out

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[jbett98]

Does it use metric match sticks?

 

[Mikej]

It probably runs on "Strike Anywhere" matches? Hard to find now, got to get a ways from the city.

We used to make match guns out of the old spring loaded clothes pins that would light a sulfur tipped match when you shot it.

 

[Joe13]

It probably runs on "Strike Anywhere" matches? Hard to find now, got to get a ways from the city.

We used to make match guns out of the old spring loaded clothes pins that would light a sulfur tipped match when you shot it.

I want to say Fred Myers carries the strike anywhere matches still. I know alive seen them recently at one of the grocery stores.

 

[etrain16]

Cool I want one too!

Takes me back to my childhood when we would make little matchstick "rockets" using paper matches, tin foil and a paper clip as a launch ramp. Made tons of those growing up. Those eventually led to 2-liter gasoline rockets that were even more fun

 

[Stomper]

PONS... near miss right there!

 

[bivy53]

Black Cat firecrackers stuffed into a 30.06 brass, and propped up on a forked stick... It's a wonder I can still count to 10 without unzipping

 

[Sstrand]

bivy
You must have had a "miss-fire?!?!?!?!?)

Sheldon

 

[oknow]

It probably runs on "Strike Anywhere" matches? Hard to find now, got to get a ways from the city.

We used to make match guns out of the old spring loaded clothes pins that would light a sulfur tipped match when you shot it.

wilco has them

 

[etrain16]

Black Cat firecrackers stuffed into a 30.06 brass, and propped up on a forked stick... It's a wonder I can still count to 10 without unzipping

We did something along those lines. We would pack an empty .30-06 full of paper match heads, stuffing them in as tight as we could. Then we'd strap the cartridge down on top of a toy 'pirate' pistol cap gun in place of the barrel. Next, point it away and hold a lighter up to the end of the cartridge and BOOM! Huge report. We did that numerous times (I was never stupid enough to be the one holding the pistol ) up until my friend forgot to tighten the strap on one shot. The cartridge launched straight back into his face and just glanced off his left eye socket. All he got was a nasty cut out of the deal. Considering he was really willing to try anything, it's amazing he's still alive today. I was more of the stand back and watch him hurt himself kind of buddy

 

[308]

Waiting for the "I don't like striker fired" weapons guys to show up...lol

 

[oknow]

We did something along those lines. We would pack an empty .30-06 full of paper match heads, stuffing them in as tight as we could. Then we'd strap the cartridge down on top of a toy 'pirate' pistol cap gun in place of the barrel. Next, point it away and hold a lighter up to the end of the cartridge and BOOM! Huge report. We did that numerous times (I was never stupid enough to be the one holding the pistol ) up until my friend forgot to tighten the strap on one shot. The cartridge launched straight back into his face and just glanced off his left eye socket. All he got was a nasty cut out of the deal. Considering he was really willing to try anything, it's amazing he's still alive today. I was more of the stand back and watch him hurt himself kind of buddy

Remind me not to hang with you when weird bubblegum is about to be tried.

 

[edslhead]

Devastating on paper targets

 

[Stomper]

Cool I want one too!

Takes me back to my childhood when we would make little matchstick "rockets" using paper matches, tin foil and a paper clip as a launch ramp. Made tons of those growing up. Those eventually led to 2-liter gasoline rockets that were even more fun

The PONS did a few "flybys" when you were a kid, yeah?


(PONS= Process Of Natural Selection)

 

[etrain16]

The PONS did a few "flybys" when you were a kid, yeah?


(PONS= Process Of Natural Selection)

No doubt. Especially when we started building pipe bombs in high school and blowing them up out in the boonies. Amazing what you can build with commonly available materials and a little ballsy ingenuity at the time - and that was all pre-internet - we just figured that stuff out for ourselves. We had a lot of fun with FFFF black powder.

 

[Mikej]

Two words.....Salt peter/sugar.

Dad had on of those 2' long Carbide canons. I still have a tightly sealed bottle of calcium carbide rock, and the miners lamp that uses it. 'course the guys in the bike shop I worked in used a balloon and the stuff that comes from calcium carbonate..........Once.

 

[etrain16]

Two words.....Salt peter/sugar.

Dad had on of those 2' long Carbide canons. I still have a tightly sealed bottle of calcium carbonate rock, and the miners lamp that uses it. 'course the guys in the bike shop I worked in used a balloon and the stuff that comes from calcium carbonate..........Once.

Almost forgot about calcium carbonate We used to buy cans of it down at Andy and Bax - my dad used it to blow up mole/gopher holes/tunnels - worked really well. Of course, as we got older, we would buy it ourselves and have some fun with it.

Do they even sell that stuff anymore? I've got some moles that could use a few lessons

 

[Joe13]

No doubt. Especially when we started building pipe bombs in high school and blowing them up out in the boonies. Amazing what you can build with commonly available materials and a little ballsy ingenuity at the time - and that was all pre-internet - we just figured that stuff out for ourselves. We had a lot of fun with FFFF black powder.

Yea, good times when a kid could have some fun without being labeled a terrorist and sentenced as an adult.

We had a lot of fun with dry ice and 2-liters. The best one was filling a 10 round paintball container filled with what we pulled out of a bag of m80's. Gave it a good long 5' fuse, dropped it in a hole that a 4x4 post had recently vacated and thru a 1" 8x4 piece of plywood on top.

We were starting to consider it was a dud when all of a sudden 10,000 toothpicks went a good 100' in the air and then came down everywhere. Gotta love growing up in the boonies

 

[etrain16]

Yea, good times when a kid could have some fun without being labeled a terrorist and sentenced as an adult.

We had a lot of fun with dry ice and 2-liters. The best one was filling a 10 round paintball container filled with what we pulled out of a bag of m80's. Gave it a good long 5' fuse, dropped it in a hole that a 4x4 post had recently vacated and thru a 1" 8x4 piece of plywood on top.

We were starting to consider it was a dud when all of a sudden 10,000 toothpicks went a good 100' in the air and then came down everywhere. Gotta love growing up in the boonies

We had to improvise our explosives - no firecrackers, no bottle rockets, no roman candles, no M-80's, M-100's or anything like that - growing up in Oregon around 4th of July was BORING - thanks to whiny folks that worried we would burn the state down. As it was, we ended up having more fun and still didn't burn the state down

 

[2A2Dend]

When I was a kid, we experimented with match sticks. Only our way was similar to cap-n-ball.
We used the spokes from bicycles in the beginning. We took a spoke out of the wheel, and flipped the threaded portion, then threaded it on about two turns. We then took the white striker of the match heads and packed them in with another "cut" spoke shank. After several match heads were inside, we rolled tinfoil into balls and packed it in. Add fire to heat the outside, BANG. It was effective. Then we graduated to the heavier, Harley Davidson spokes and then used bird-shot. Again, very effective. A neighbor saw and watched us in our experiments. He was impressed of our experimenting, but said nothing. One day the neighbor called me over. He mentioned that he had some old wheels he was going to scrap. Told me, go have a look. If you see something you want, take it. I walked to the pile he pointed out and started digging things out. I found an old metal spoked wheel (BIG EVIL GRIN ) and thought, BIG SPOKE GUN!!

He knew when I found the wheels, a light would go off in my head. And it did. He said, "grab a wheel and bring it in the shop. Lets see if we can get the spokes out. He put heat to them and they come right apart. I was excited. The spoke shanks were bigger than a #2 pencil. And the end caps, near 2-1/2" long. But man o man, they took a LOT of match heads. We bought all the local store had. Many times. We lost count over 50 match heads. We used pieces of real thin brass shim-stock and pushed it inside to create a pocket. Like wrapping tin foil around a pencil (which we did also), then put BB's, then loosely packed foil filled to the end. The bend of the spoke was put in a hole that was drilled in a piece of plate steel, an a chunk of railroad iron on the spoke. To fire it, a portable propane torch. Light....get away. BIG BANG!!! HeHe