Now That’s A Knife!

Fun & Games Science Workshop
Now That’s A Knife!

Thanks to our commenters for pointing out that, contrary to my implication in Monday’s bolt-action spud gun post, Jeremy Cook—cool though his project certainly is—is not the first person to build a breech-loading potato cannon. Not by a long shot. (Heh, sorry.)

Take, for instance, the SP9004, here, which is attributed to one Ed Goldmann, and is now, I believe, owned by Spudgun Technology Center proprietor Jeremy Hanson, of Minnesota, who writes:

Pure oxygen and propane fueled, laser sighted, bolt action, electrically controlled….This is one awesome piece of launching ordinance! It shoots spuds quite fast and is VERY cool looking. It is so cool looking Ed sent a picture to the feds (ATF) along with a letter querying the SP9004’s legality with the understanding it is for recreational launching of potato slugs only.

[Thanks, SeedyP and Tim Harris!]

10 thoughts on “Now That’s A Knife!

  1. clide says:

    Yep, Ed Goldmann founded the Spudgun Technology Center and made some really advanced guns, valves, and the rifling machine used to rifle PVC barrels. The business changed hands to Joel Suprise who ran it for 7 years and then sold it to Jeremy Hanson a few years ago.

    Just a warning to others out there. Do NOT use pure oxygen in a PVC gun. Propane is fine for well built guns and it’s power is limited by the 20% oxygen in normal air, but once you start adding pure oxygen then more fuel can be burned at a faster rate and it can get very dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.

    Anyway since you guys seem to be into spud guns lately I built a full automatic pneumatic golf-ball launcher a few years back that got around 6 rounds per second. http://gbcannon.com/projects/launchers/gbsemi.html the link at the bottom of the page leads to a forum page with some videos. Some of my other guns included a horseshoe launcher (kicked like a mule), a compact toilet paper launcher, a launcher with a clear piston valve that allows you to see just how fast they are, and some small portable tic-tac launchers where the air pump is integral to the launcher. Sorry I never got around to filling out all the details on my site, but pictures are there and links to more information about each of them.

    1. Sean Michael Ragan says:

      Great comment, thank you.

  2. Jeremy Cook says:

    Ha, wow, just found this searching for something else – yeah, this gun definitely puts mine to shame…  Thanks for the write-up on my gun! – Jeremy (jcopro.net)

  3. Jeremy Cook says:

    Ha, wow, just found this searching for something else – yeah, this gun definitely puts mine to shame…  Thanks for the write-up on my gun! – Jeremy (jcopro.net)

  4. Jeremy Cook says:

    Ha, wow, just found this searching for something else – yeah, this gun definitely puts mine to shame…  Thanks for the write-up on my gun! – Jeremy (jcopro.net)

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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