share your cannon accidents!

[A-98]

well, i created this thread in a hopes to: share your stories, and possibly educate people on what not to do!

anything related to cannons going wrong is welcome, wether it be explosions, misfire, un-expected results, anything goes.

to start off i would like to share 2 time where i have almost lost my face.

first time was with my bigger cannon. it had CO2 setup on it, and was charged to about 80 psi. i had loaded the barrel separately with about 200 airsoft bb's and was screwing on the barrel (inside my room) when i tapped the blowgun. A massive bang follows (it was 2" from my head) and i feel a rush of air, and then bb's ricochet around the room! i now have a 6" patch on my ceiling that looks like a golfball.

the second time was just a few days ago. i had loaded my bigger cannon with a 1" clay ball (plasticine clay) and had it at about 100 psi. i was walking outside with it when i accidentally tapped the blowgun(you would think i would learn ) another loud bang, except instead of being inside, i was standing under this little overhang that is outside my office. it is made up of 2x4's with some sort of thin opaque plastic on it. i look up and there is a 2" hole that has been blown thru it, with the projectile having passed within inches of my face.

so far my dad hasn't noticed anything.

another story was again with the big cannon, with the CO2 setup on it. the way the co2 was rigged had a high pressure 1/8 ball valve facing toward the ground. i was screwing on the barrel and the gun turned and opened the ball valve. before i could react the chamber was at about 180psi, and by the time i shut it off it was at 200. the sprinkler valve was only rated to 115, so i was expecting it to rip at any second. the positive side was that it made a loud bang when i fired it.

[yuandrew]

^Accidential Discharges

My accidents involved me trying out my ignitor by dry-fireing (fuel but no projectile) On one shot; I had put too much butane in the chamber so it flooded and resulted in no ignition. I later decided to see if the spark plug was working by removing the end cap and looking.

Well, opening the gun let air into the chamber so when I tried the ignitor this time; the gas ignited and the resulting "puff" of flame went into my face and burnt my eyebrows.

A few weeks later; I was doing another test shot and it wasn't fireing again so I looked down the barrel to see if it was sparking and as fate would have had ; it ignited. This time, I had the barrel at an angle so the flames missed my eyebrows but it skimmed the top of my head and burnt some hair.

I've had the jar on my "econo-gun" come off after the duct tape got weak from having it stored outside and I decided to launch a water bottle after seeing it laying on my patio.

Not really an accident but the first version of my "econo-gun" used a can to seal off the back and was fired using a fuse. After setting it up in my driveway and loading it; I inserted and lit the fuse then backed away. It went off just as some people who were remodeling the house directly across the street came out the front door. I got some "fun" comments from them including "You're going to blow yourself or something up one day."

[LGM]

The first time I got any sort of reaction from my first gun, I got my bangs trimmed.
I have never really gotten hurt from one of my guns aside from when a BB almost broke one of my toes, but once when my parents were sleeping I decided to try out a mini I had and the top blew off and sounded like a firecracker. Suprisingly, they didn't hear it.

[spudthug]

me and my freind chad were at my house and we were going to shoot his ball valve pneumaticl it was his first gun and he was excited and diddnt really know how to work it yet... so the compressor was running and slowly reaching 100 psi.. i took jthe shrader adapter off and told him to get the guage..he mistakingly thoguh i said open the valve....guess what happens next... a freaking dart that i made out of a sharpenned close hanger fires out and hits my little borthers coat.. luckily it isnt hit him.. he would have...well been seriously injured..wehn i turned off the air compressor i went to look and he didnt even know what happend and io looked at his coat and it had a big hole through it....

[Hotwired]

Accidental discharges are very bad for your nerves...

Fully charged cannon indoors, I'd FORGOTTTEN it was fully charged and pulled the trigger without the barrel attached.

That meant I got a 240psi blast of air dumped in close proximity to my ear in a small room.

The ringing sounds went away about an hour later

[super spuder]

well a couple of days ago, my big pneumatic cannon had a leak in the end,i don't know why but it did, and anyways i took the two elbows, the T and the ball valve off and re glued them to the chamber, i left it for 24 hours to dry just like the can says, went out the next evening and did a test at 10 psi too see if it was still leaking, it wasn't, so i put it out sid hooked the air compressor up to the cannon, slowly cranked it up to 80....90....100....110. and i thought that should be good, so i was just about to go fire it off when i hear some cracking noises so i am looking at the cannon (just out side my garage door and the one elbow starts twisting up and the other one starts twisting down and so i started trying to turn the pressure down, but it was too late. the whole end of my cannon came flying into the garage and hit me in the side of my leg and rig cage. then bounced off and landed about 2 feet away , so i picked myself up off the floor and i am like wtf just happened so i look out and the two chambers were blown about 10 feet like rockets then it hit me (lol funny pun) i forgot to put the screws to hold the elbows to the chamber anyways i have a nice bruise on my right side now but by cannon it back togather with screws in it now, i am kind of glad it hit me not cement or something and reck the end of my cannon but that is my cannon incident. ps i am fine except for some bruises. sorry if there is any spelling mistakes

[Fnord]

A long time ago I put a hole in my ceiling with a ghetto pnuematic rifle filled with bbs.

The most recent accident I had was a week or two ago, when I had a propane meter leak and freeze part of my thumb. I still have a slight brown mark.

About 3-4 weeks ago I zapped myself with my camera flash+ignition coil ignitor, which will draw an arc 2 inches long. I cant say it really hurt, it just felt like the impact of getting hit in the chest with a wrecking ball. The two fingers that completed the circuit felt like they had been burned, though.

The funny thing was, it discharged through me and into my camera flash, but the camera flash still worked after I reveresed the battery's polarity twice.

Another one, not exactly that dangerous, but still entertaining:
When I first made the Big Ghetto Pneumatic 6months ago, I didnt have the right pipe fittings, So I just epoxied some one inch pipe in a 1.25inch hole.
It worked fine until I got distracted and left the compressor running too long. The epoxy failed at about 125psi, which resulted in my ball valve, 2feet of pipe and an air chuck being blown 50 feet in the air before landing on a volkswagon rabbit.

[Hotwired]

On the subject of rabbits.

There was a tiny brown bunny about the size of a small grapefruit hopping about my garden today. Tried to pick it up because it was so cute but it scrabbled out of my hands and hopped away under a shed

[pyromaniac]

I let my friend shoot my gun he shot a cement wall because he missed the target luckily the ricoschet didn't hit us.

I once forgot to cement the barrel onto my gun. I' was my first shot and my cousin was there the barrel shot off and i yelled SHIT! he just pointed at me and laughed.

because im bored im going to sig that.

[A-98]

awwww i love fluffy things.

[cerberus]

I've only had two minor incidents, one when shooting a metal bucket about 8m away with my marble cannon where I missed the bucket and hit a 2x4 behind it, the ricochet missed my head by about an inch, gave me one hell of a fright.

The second I had just modified my marble cannon with a new, better piston, the power was so much greater I accidentally shot an marble through the neighbors fence, thinking it was just a fluke shot didn't give it much thought until the second marble went though the fence. AA batteries have always fired much more slowly from my cannon due to their smaller diameter so I thought I would be safe with them, guess what, I was wrong, and lucky me the battery hit the fence on it's side so as to make the largest possible hole. The neighbor has yet to notice...

[pyromaniac]

when i read this i jsut started laughing. Partly at your stupidity and patly at your neighbors.

[Specialist]

when i was building my mini law an oops happened. i had just glued verything together and just put the ignitiong set up in and wanted to see if the spark worked. so as stupid as i am i looked down the barrel and pressed the igniter and the glue caused it to shoot fire right into my eye. im fine now but my eye was irritated for about two days.


P.S. let pvc cement and primer dry it is extremely flammable!!!(most of you know that though(i hope))

[pyromaniac]

would pvc cement work as fuel?

[Specialist]

ya if you can get it in the chamber. or better yet if you had breech loading you could do it for sure. it only happened because i didnt give it anytime to dry and sparks + pvc cement = flames!!!