Potato Gun Competitions

Gentlemen, Start your Spud Gun

There are lots of formal and informal spud gun and ball launching competitions. Most are clearly of the informal variety – the first spud gun or ball launcher competition probably started when the second spud gun was built. Spud gun competitions will typically revolve around the same variables – in fact, for most competitions, there are really only three events:

Spud Gun Accuracy

Ever since the first PVC spud gun emerged from the plumbing section of the local hardware store, spud gunners have increased the distance between them and their targets to see if they could walk further and further back and still hit whatever they were shooting at.

Spud competitions like the Doug Keib Spud gun competition, an annual event, have an accuracy portion of their competition. Rules are simple – the closest shot to the target wins the competition. In the case of the Doug Keib event, we’re talking about a 3’ x 3’ square target – place 50 yards away. This is no short distance, and while most spud guns can easily shoot that far, not many can do so accurately.

Spud Gun Hang Time

Another classic event is Hang Time, in which the spud gun is stood upright, or almost upright, like a mortar. The object here is to fire the cannon into the air, and time how long it takes the projectile to hit the earth. Again, this isn’t as easy as it sounds, since lots of thrust is required to get the spud airborne for any significant amount of time. In the case of the Doug Keib event, the cannon is set up at an 85 degree angle. To give you an idea of the competition – the winner of last years event had a pretty impressive 8.5 second hang time….meaning the spud was airborne for 8.5 seconds. Not too bad!

Spud Gun Distances

The Classic competition. Mine shoots further than yours. Most every spud gunnery competition has this event. Some competitions will make people shoot from horizontal, others will let them angle the gun to get the longest throw.

Other Events and Variations

While some events will let you “run what you brung” they will usually regulate some aspect of the competition either by barrel length or type of fuel used. Some competitions are hairspray only, which keeps anyone from getting too crazy with something really explosive. Some competitions, like the one at Vanderbilt University, only allow spud guns built to their plans, and they supply the spuds and hairspray so no one has an advantage. These events are similar to “formula” race car events where all cars must be fundamentally the same, showing off the skill of the driver. Vanderbilt’s competition is strictly an accuracy event.

Spud gunning is really huge in some areas. Each Canada Day (July 1st) there’s a massive competition in British Columbia on the Georgia strait, on brickyard beach, specifically, that draws hundreds of spectators and tens of guns. Contests like this have quietly been going on for years, but are getting bigger and better organized, mainly due to the proliferation of data and technology on how to build guns. Heck, you could buy our plan and manuals and place in most of those potato gun competitions, because we’ve taken the guesswork out of spud gunning for you!

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