Homemade Airguns

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Of all the wonderful aspects of the sport of airgunning, building your own airgun is the most rewarding. Homemade airguns can range from crude combinations of pipe and ball valves, to elaborate arms constructed in a home machine shop. Unfortunately, I cant afford machine tools, so all my homebuilt airguns are constructed from readily available parts from the hardware store.

In spite of having limited resources, I have constructed some rather remarkable homemade airguns, many achieving 50+ foot-pounds of muzzle energy. On this page, I will give you the ideas to fuel your own low cost homemade airgun projects.

Before your start your own project, you'll want to have some commonly available tools on hand. I have found the following tools to be indespensible:

Two pairs of vice grips
Pipe wrench or large pipe wrench
Propane torch and lighter
Hacksaw and miter box
Wire brushes
Drill press, a hand drill works too
An assortment of drill bits
A 1/8" tap

You should have many of those tools on hand already, the ones you dont are fairly cheap, with the exception of the drill press. You can purchase a small drill press with a vice for under $100 at most hardware stores, or make do with a hand drill.

In addition to tools, you'll want to have the following consumable supplies on hand:

Pipe thread tape
Machine Oil
Silver Solder
Propane cylinders
Epoxy
Mineral spirits or other solvent
Sand paper

Now that you have all of your tools and supplies, what parts do you need to build your airgun? Please keep in mind that the following list is only a list of suggestions. Experiment with different sizes of pipe, valves, etc - you'll be amazed at the performance of your homemade airgun!

Purpose	Material Used
Barrel	1/2" to 3/4" diameter rigid copper pipe
Transfer Port	1/2" to 3/4" diameter T-fitting
Barrel Plug	1/2" to 3/4" diameter copper pipe to same sized thread fitting
Gas Valve	1/2" to 3/4" diameter ball valve
Air Reservoir	3/4" or larger NPT steel pipe nipple in various lengths
Filling Port	Schrader Valve
Misc Parts	1/2" to 3/4" NPT couplers, plugs, and reducers
Pump	Portable mini air compressor

Now you have the tools, supplies, and parts needed to build your own airgun. The airgun we will construct here is designed to load through a simple breech, and is capable of functioning firing shot, .50 cal lead balls, and modified arrows. This makes it a very useful airgun for self defense and hunting alike. Click here to see one way to build your own airgun.

DISCLAIMER
I will not pay your medical bills, go to court, or even listen to your sad story if you use this information and hurt/kill yourself or someone else. I just might laugh at your story in the Darwin Awards. There's just something about people with an IQ lower than their shoe size attempting to make airguns and thereby removing themselves from the human gene pool that I find really funny. The information provided here is for acedemic purposes only. Reader assumes all responsibility for any and all damages that happen as a result of following the instructions found on this site. Airguns can be extremely dangerous, and are even more dangerous when built and used by braindead morons. You have been warned.