Golf Ball Cannon - Design Specs

March 29, 2006 | Vanity

[JmyBryan]

A buddy of mine is building a golf ball cannon. He sent me these specs asking for help. If anyone is a ballistics hacker, any thoughts would be appreciated.

Here's his email:

I am going to build a golf ball cannon and I have some questions that would help my final design. Maybe you could figure this out or have a friends who could.

My plan is to use a 15-pound propane tank, attach a 2-inch full-flow ball valve to it, and then attach the 1-3/4 inch bore muzzle

Questions are:
What would be the optimum muzzle length?
What would the velocity be using 120-150 psi of air pressure?
How much ball distance can I expect?

[Army Air Corps]

Homemade arty ping!

[EveningStar]

misc ping

[Bells of St Clements]

You'll shoot your eye out.

[Publius6961]

The trouble with a golf ball cannon is...
That whatever works for it is transferable to all kinds of mischievious devices.

No help here.

[martin_fierro]

What would be the optimum muzzle length?

I'm thinkin':

[JmyBryan]

Thanks anyway. I'm just trying to find him some kind of direction that isn't strictly calculus.

[digger48]

[1rudeboy]

No idea, but this might help with a trebuchet. Have fun, everybody.

[MindBender26]

Your problem will be the valve. Like the problem with an atomic bomb is getting it to hold together long enough to let the complete fision process take place completely before it blows itself to sub-atomic bits, your problem will be getting enough air into the "chamber" before the first little "puffs" of air drive the ball out of the barrel.

[gondramB]

"My plan is to use a 15-pound propane tank, attach a 2-inch full-flow ball valve to it, and then attach the 1-3/4 inch bore muzzle

Questions are:
What would be the optimum muzzle length?
What would the velocity be using 120-150 psi of air pressure?
How much ball distance can I expect?"

With a barrel length of about 5 meters you should be able to max out height at 270-290 meters. That's neglecting air resistance and not taking into effect the golf ball dimples and assuming 0.0459 kg or 1.62 ounces for the golf ball (the max allowed).

A 2 meter barrel would be more practical but it would drop your max height to around 200 meters.

[onyx]

You are TOO MUCH!

[hole_n_one]

A buddy of mine is building a golf ball cannon.

I trust you'll be there when your buddy says to you just before it's first firing...........

"Hold muh beer"

[gondramB]

BTW, I assumed 130 psi

[JmyBryan]

Thank you. I'll forward this along.

[JmyBryan]

Great stuff. Thank you. I'm sure this will help him out a bunch.

[Tax Government]

I'd switch to marshmallows.

[gondramB]

You are most welcome.

[builder]

A buddy of mine is building a golfball cannon.

Usually the last words uttered by some poor sap.But fun while it lasted.

[gondramB]

BTW, if you want it cool looking rather than practical you could go up to 9 meters and still max height at 240-250 meters or so... btw... this is all approximate since I made a numner of additional assumptions like tank diameter, tank height and valve quality.