Rocket Launcher

One of my coworkers kids had this too cool foam rocket launcher that got me thinking. It would be great for us to invent an airsoft rocket launcher that is semi cheap, easy to use/fix and safe. The one that I saw sends a 1 1/2 foot rocket over 100ft with some accuracy, it works just like those plunger water guns, you pull back the outer tube and then push it forward really fast to make it push air out the end.

Materials that will work great-
PVC piping
Co2 cartridges
Co2 tanks from a paintball gun
nerf arrows or footballs
tennis balls

I know ASC has some ideas to but it would be great to be able to shoot tennis balls or foam rockets at cars and bunkers when we are playing. I would love to see some ideas start to form and be built. Hoping to get these going by the summer. Mr_buddley already has some ideas and projects going...

A rocket Launcher is an interesting idea. Another might be to make a huge shot gun.

Take a tube, hook it up to compressed air, have a peice of wadding to hold back the air pressure, and have say several thousand BBs for a massive single blast that could take out several guys (or girls) at once.

Several thousand BB's per shot would make that a damn expensive launcher to use. I'm thinking I'd just get an airsoft M203 gren. launcher for my C-15 and a few bb grenades for it, in the long run it would be much cheaper.

The guys in Kamloops have a couple different types of mines. A toe-popper type powered by a CO2 cartridge which can spray water or flour when it gets stepped on and another spring loaded claymore which fires bb's and can be triggered via remote or set off via a tripwire. I think the toe-popper type mines were only $70 or something but the claymore was more expensive. If we picked up a few of those toe popper types we could set up airsoft minefields. Handy for defending positions in larger games, or for setting up ambushes.

anyway, any ideas for rocket lauchers?a

The problem with a homemade bbs howitzer it you can't tell how fast the bbs are coming out so they tend to be unsafe. Some bbs may come out at 250 fps while others come out at 560fps. I don't want to shut the idea down, it would still be neat to try.

I would love to buy some of those grenades and make various types of grenades and mines.

Would a smoke grenade be out of the question? Launching one of those to create instant cover for an ally or yourself?

They would be ok now but if they emit heat they are only usable when it's wet outside. Fire hazards.

Edit, should have read toe popper mines, not grenades.
Here's a link to the Kelowna airsoft site where they have a video clip showing operation of the mine.

http://www.airsoftkelowna.com/miscellaneous.htm

I have an old potato cannon, we can see if we can somehow modify it.....let me know Dave and we can start thinking of ideas

for the shot gun idea to solve the problem of the BBs traveling at Different speeds just use the wadding from real shotgun shels. They look like a tube sealed on one end and fore slits running down the tube part. The BB's are held in the wadding, the wadding is shoot with the BB's but because of it's dessign it separates after leaving the gun.

I'd hate to get hit at close range with that thing before the wad drops off the BB's. We'd have to do some serious testing prior to using any home designed heavy weapons.

I talked to a plumbing place intown and they said that they carry pipe that would fit a tennis ball really well. All I need now is a safe/flameless way to lauch the tennis ball out of the front... I really would like to use a Co2 tank from a paintball gun but compressed air or something similiar would be great. Any ideas?

other than launching some type of nerf rocket I have no thoughts about the rocket launcher.
The shotgun wading I was talking about works better than you would think. When shooting the real thing you can see the wading goes about 4 or 5 ft. We also wouldn't be shooting it at nearly the same speed.

I'm not so sure about this but If you played with the powder load you could shoot the 6mm. BB's at 200 - 300 fps. out of a real gun. I don't realy like this idea to many things that could go wrong.

Compressed air is quite safe and inexpensive to build. I have two spud guns built around solenoid valves for underground sprinklers. In a nutshell, they consist of a pressure chamber (fill through a regular tire stem valve), the solenoid valve with trigger box and batteries, and the barrel. The one I built is a breech loader, the one my friend built and gave to me is a muzzle loader.
Hortons, If you are interested, you can have the one my friend made and you may dissect it and re-build to suit a ~2" bbl. it currently has a 3/4" or a 1" bbl, which I think is lame. Mine has a 1 1/2" bbl already.
One of the plusses about compressed air is you can set a standard pressure and projectile, and thus get consistant safe shots. With some mods I think a CO2 tank could be attached for quick filling, or an old SCBA tank. A bicycle pump can even be used, but that takes a few minutes.
The down side of these is that with excess pressure (~100psi) a person will be holed if hit with solid shot. Unless your skin is thicker than 1" of plywood. I've pressured mine up to 125psi. I would refuse to let anyone do that in a game environment.

you think we could launch a tennis ball fairly easily?

not with the current bbl. Perhaps a raquetball. I like the idea of the foam rockets.

If you found a piece of pipe that fits a tennis ball, I can turn it into a bbl. ABS or PVC would do.

bbl? Is that just the size of the pipe?

Sorry, i get lazy. 'bbl' is short for barrel (i.e. bbl of oil is ~$62). As for spud guns, I am not sure if they are better described by having a calibre or diameter. When I refered to a 1" or a 2" bbl, i actually meant diameter/calibre. A tennis ball will require a barrel with about a 2"+ diameter.
The bbl length is considerably longer (3'+). Sorry for any confusion.