Loading Our Homemade Airgun

Ammunition
You'll want to stop by a muzzleloading shop and buy some .50 cal 180 gr lead ball ammo. The diameter should be .490 for best results. Also, get some patches or make your own. While you are there, see if they have some #6 shot. We'll want that to see how well our gun works in shotgun mode. If you cant find the lead shot, pick up some BB's at your local discount store.

Loading the Ball Ammo
Take the end cap off the breech end of the gun. Close the valve and charge the gun up to 125 psi for our first shot. Pointing the gun in a safe direction, put a ball in the middle of a patch and push it in the breech end past the transfer port using a dowel rod. Securely reattach the end cap, and now your gun is loaded.

Safety While Loading
Be especially careful to avoid opening the lever of our valve while loading the gun. Make sure that the breech and the barrel are both pointing in a safe direction. Also hold the dowel rod on the sides, not the end. Should the airgun accidentally discharge, you'll get spinters instead of a dowel through the hand.

Firing Our Homemade Airgun
Aim the gun toward a safe backstop. Keep in mind that this gun produces more energy than your average pellet rifle. Also, the bullet has far more momentum, making it much harder to stop. In other words, please dont be dumb enough to use your pellet trap or shoot the gun indoors. I would recommend that you use a dirt pile or similar backstop. A coffee can makes a great target for our first test.

Holding the gun securely, rapidly open the ball valve. The bullet will fly out the barrel at around 200 fps, and really make a mess out of the coffee can. Talk about cool stuff! And to think you built this monster for less than $50.

Troubleshooting
What happens if the gun doesnt fire? Above all, think safety first. Keeping the muzzle pointed down range, close the ball valve. While avoiding the muzzle, depress the schrader valve to release the gun's air pressure. After the air has been released, use a dowel rod to push the ammunition out of the barrel.

What caused the failure? If there was no hiss of air when you bled the gun, your gun has major leaking problems. Go back to the building page and test your gun for leaks. If there was air pressure, did you have to force the ammo in when loading? Try using a thinner patch to correct this problem.

Shotgun Mode
You can also use your homemade airgun as a shotgun. Take a patch and put in some #6 shot or BBs. Leave plenty of patch material free, so you can twist the patch tightly around the shot. Load it into the gun like you did with the lead ball, making sure that the twist faces the muzzle. This will make the shot spread out after it leaves the barrel. You can make a glaser wannabe round by loading it the other way!

Replace your coffee can target with some aluminum soda cans. Fire the gun from about 15 feet away and watch the heck get torn out of the cans! In this mode, you have a weapon of mass bird destruction at close range! It also does a remarkable job of getting rid of strays!

Where do we go from here? Why dont we make our gun better!