"SteveB" wrote in message
news:5pl3f.15506$fE5.14884@fed1read06...

"Bruce L. Bergman" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 08:41:33 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:04:23 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Andy
Asberry quickly quoth:
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:47:12 GMT, "Pete C."
wrote:

Exactly what part of the planet is your area? A pumpkin cannon sounds
like a fun project. I'm a bit north of the DFW area.

Pete, I'm south of DFW. I've got a 500 gallon propane tank and a gas
air compressor. What caliber is a pumpkin?

As a Texican, you'll recognize "big ol' honkin'" caliber, right?

The caliber is whatever the ID of the big chunk of steel pipe you
can find for a barrel is. Which can vary a great deal according to
the "Stuff Acquisition" skills and/or the financial condition of the
buyer's bank account.

I suppose there is a natural upper limit somewhere on practical
barrel sizes, but until you find it "Bigger Is Better" holds true.

First you build the gun, then you design the sabots (so you don't
spend all day making pumpkin paste out of your ammunition), then you
find ammunition pumpkins that fit the results of the first two steps.

Of course, I'd love to see someone build a self-contained mobile
armored chunker, something on the lines of a re-barreled Sherman.
I'd pay a quarter to see that... ;-0

-- Bruce --

--
The program I saw on TV had the cannon types and the centrifugal types and
the catapult types.

The cannon types seemed to me to have tapered barrels that looked like
successively smaller diameters of pipes. It was amazing to me that the
punkins came out the other end in one piece.

The catapults were okay, and got good distance.

But the centrifugals were the most awesome. They had wheels perhaps 20'
in diameter that spun at incredible speed. I didn't get to see a close up
of the release mechanism, or the sling that held the punkin, but it was
something like the sling on the catapults. These have to be balanced
pretty good, and they have had them to berserk out of balance during
competitions and stomp all over whatever was parked next to it. They came
on huge trailers pulled by huge semis. A lot of money just to throw a
punkin.

But the results were incredible. They had a cleared field for about 750
feet, then woods. They had to send search teams into the woods to find
the final impact point, and sometimes it took them quite a while. They
had spotters that would stand behind the device and try to plot the line
of trajectory.

If anyone sees that program coming up, I, and I know others here, would
appreciate a heads up.

Sure beat the heck out of American Chopper, although there were human
interactions that made American Chopper look like girlie mens.

Steve

750 feet!!! Mere beginners. Go to the World Punkin Chunkin Site and look at
last years results. The winner in the cannon went 4200+ feet.....

--

Clif