The things kids do........

B

Bob Wright

New member
I've been wondering, as kids, how many of you built guns in your dad's shop or garage? I don't mean toy guns, but guns that actually shot something?

I've used the ends of produce crates to make a pistol stock, with copper tubing or galvanized pipe for barrels. Plug or cap one end, drill a small hole near the plug. Add a hammer, spring, and cap-gun trigger, and you've got a fair "pirate pistol" as we called it. Add a little black powder and a ball bearing patched with newspaper. Tape a paper cap over the drilled hole (we didn't have stick-on caps then) and the ball could be shot through a 1x4 plank.

Anybody else?

Bob Wright
 
Ah yes, Ghosts of the past.

Bob,
You are really taking me back and my list is longer than your arm. It's a wonder that I'm still alive let alone, have all my fingers. Not going into any details but I remember watching a movie about Carbine Williams and I believe it stated Burt Lancaster. By the end of the week, I had three proto-types. One of the end results is punching holes through mom's kitchen door and on another "Great Adventure" took out the neighbor's phone lines. .... :rolleyes:

Can we say Zipp guns, boys and Girls ?? ..... :eek:

Why did they come looking for me when things went south, in the neighborhood? ... :confused:


Be Safe !!!
 
Potato guns, tennis ball cannons, using PVC pipes, propane and oxygen tanks with screws in the side for igniters.

No real guns/projectiles though.
 
any details but I remember watching a movie about Carbine Williams and I believe it stated Burt Lancaster.
Click to expand...

Jimmy Stewart played the lead role. Remember James Arness' role? One of his early roles.

Bob Wright
 
My Dad had a small machine shop. I'd been shooting .22s since the age of 7. Put the two together and you get an aluminum and steel, single shot, rotating cannon breach, sliding bar firing pin release type .22 pistol.
5 shots later (yes, it lived for 5 shots)... BOOM! All my dad could say, after he checked for the full count of fingers and eyeballs, was... "don't tell your mother". :o

Ah... Guns Я Us.

C
 
I never did myself. But the man two cells down on D Block mentioned something about making guns.

So you're the guy in cell 21 that's
been keeping me up all nite
with your damn snoring.
Can't you have your old
lady buy you some "Breathe
Right" strips?:p:)
 
We use to to make "spoke guns" from the spokes of old bicycle wheels. How you ask? Invert the threaded nipple and pack with shavings from old style kitchen matches and insert a carpet tack. Light a match and hold under the nipple and the heat causes expansion. Sounds like a .22 when it goes off!.
 
Straightshooter, is a spoke gun an Ohio thing?

I grew up in the sixties, and in Ohio. I didn't know anybody else that made them but me and my friends.
 
Ibuilt my first muzzleloader when I was 11. I saved my mowing money and sent for a percussion lock from Dixie Gun Works, scrounged up an old original octagon barrel, brass butt plate and trigger guard. i came up with a piece of hard maple for the stock. My Dad provided advice but I did all the work - he wasn't thrilled with muzzle loaders but didn't want to discourage me. It was not a "thing of beauty" but it did shoot. I learned a lot and in later years, built a number of custom muzzleloading rifles - and I've shot black powder for 50 years. After my Dad saw my enthusiasm for the rifle, he helped me out by making up the difference in the money I'd saved and the price of a 1863 Remington "Zouave" rifle that a gunsmith had in his rack. It cost a whopping $65.00. I still have that rifle and have put thousands of rounds through her. It sure brings back fond memories of my Dad and his encouragement that he gave me to develop skills that I later utilized in building rifles as well as running a custom millwork/cabinet/woodworking shop.
 
I never did myself. But the man two cells down on D Block mentioned something about making guns.
Click to expand...

Are you under the impression that making your own gun is illegal? That is incorrect if you are.

Anyway, Of course we did stupid things as kids. From bottle rocket pipe guns, to pulling bullets from 22s and filling cases brim full of powder and sealing with wax and then having shoot-outs (no face shots on purpose!). These would penetrate 1/2" or so into drywall. It's a wonder we lived through childhood.

Made a potato gun and ND'd it first thing in the morning after it dried but still had pvc glue fumes in it. Woke up the whole house.
 
I still have it, though the hammer would need to be rebuilt as I was in the middle or reshaping it for a second generation weapon when I quit. Spring from a washing machine pulled forward a hammer fashioned from sheet steel. Trigger was also sheet steel, it and the hammer screwed to the side of a 2X6-fashioned stock. The barrel was held to the stock by a large hose clamp. I even drilled the stock to accept a steel ramrod.

The thick-walled pipe with an inside diameter of .5" was headed with a torch until red hot then squeezed in a vice to weld it shut. The hammer fell over a touchhole. After loading, a short piece of electric fence wire was pushed down through the powder charge, and a red cap from the plastic revolver caps placed over it (I could never successfully fashion a nipple).

We shot bullets cast from a mold I also made.
 
Some friends and I read about black gunpowder. We actually developed what we thought was a pretty good mixture. The miniature cannon was next. However, the parents discovered out black powder stash and that was the end of that.
 
I remember working at a speed shop where we filled nitrous bottles for some of our customers.

One day the owner and I discovered that if you used starting fluid (ether) and managed to pump it up a little with the nitrous that we had plenty of on hand, it was pretty...impressive. Turns out there's a point where things just go boom and pvc goes EVERYWHERE :eek: Never did that again.
 
What?!? Like.......

Slingshot, firecrackers, need I say more?

The incident with the D cell battery launcher?

The Coors Cannon? The piece of hydraulic cylinder tube was the right size for empty Coors cans. Fill with water, then freeze solid, they work real nice.

Air rifle and, um.... field expedient projectiles.

Air rifle with fire cracker launcher adapter. Kentucky windage and fire for effect!

Anything involving fireworks.
 
Oh geez....

12 gauge zip gun. Fired once while standing on the other side of a huge boulder. Never had the guts to shoot it again for while the gun survived, the brass did not.

A .177 air rifle shooting my mom's sewing needles (darts!).

A .40 cal blow gun hooked to an air compressor (more darts).

A length of 3/4" pipe shooting wood dowels with black powder.


But I also took potato guns quite seriously, and now in my 40s, I still do (Yes, I've posted that before but I still take pride in it.).
 
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