The SpudGun Technology Center

The SpudGun Technology Center specializes in pneumatic and combustion-based spudguns, launchers that includea variety of types, styles, sizes, and feature levels for potato vectoring.

(A SPUDGUN is a simple device made usually from plastic water pipe, designed to launch/shoot/lob a potato or similar object a long way, farther than you could probably throw it, to distances exceeding 300 yards. This maximum range is highly debatable, but in this context (and the entire site, unless otherwise noted) the projectile will be a run-o-the-mill POTATO, non frozen, no chemical modification, and no densification via foreign objects. To shoot such potato any greater distance would require a 'super potato' given that a potato is inherently a LOUSY projectile, as its density is rather low. High muzzle velocities are easily obtained but they sure slow down in a hurry!

Legend has it the idea was struck that if all these cans were securely taped together to make a long tube, the tennis ball could be stuck down it muzzle loader style and fired by putting a small amount of gasoline in the bottom can (with the hole lid as the breech) and one brave soul (the one that had consumed the most beers) holding a lit match or lighter near the peel-top hole. Miraculously the tennis ball was expelled with great velocity. Much whooping and hollering ensued, and the device was promptly reloaded to verify the first one was not a 'fluke.' Hence the backyard cannon was born.

The modern-day version of these devices are typically called spud guns, although a great many names have been assigned to these devices as they come in many shapes, sizes and flavors. A lot has changed over 40 years, but the goal (should) remains the same: having fun with stuff you would not normally associate with a launcher of some kind firing all sorts of funny things for no particular reason--just for some kicks.)

FYI: You can shoot more than potatoes and tennis balls. A man at Ashley Lake stuffed a dead pack rat into a tube and froze it, then extracted the cadaver and fired it off over the lake in his spudgun. The possibilities are endless.

SpudGuns is the tech hub for tater-gunners and those that would like to be one. The folks there furnish information, materials, components and complete systems, from basic how-to information to advanced techniques to esoteric items like fully rifled PVC pipe to use in barrels, and special barrels for tennis balls..

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Rifled PVC pipe:

• Available in 1 1/2" and 2" SCH 40 and 2" SCH 80 sizes only, Six rifling lands equally spaced around the interior, Design is unidirectional,Pressure tested to 300 psi., Continuous lengths up to 60 inches (five feet) long, Optional precision lathe cut potato knife w/ inside 'squeeze' chamfer on one end, Available in 3, 4, or 5* foot lengths, Nearly seamless unlimited lengths now possible with new indexed coupling system.

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