My dad saw a potato gun several years ago and thought he could build a better one. He ended up making two, one of which I still have. The chamber is a 16" piece of 8" well casing, the barrel is a 3' piece of schedule 80 cast iron pipe. It is mounted on a stand that allows you to raise the barrel to the height you want and lock it down. When I first saw it, he had it in his shop at work and rammed in a potato and aimed it on a flat trajectory across the parking lot, over the road at the old power house aobut 200 yards away. He filled the chamber with oxy/acetelene and then lit it off. As soon as we hear the pow, the potato exploded against the power house wall. We never saw it leave the barrel. The gun recoiled about 6" or so. I like to fill the chamber with a good hairspray and put an M80 inside with the fuse out of the lighter hole and let that do the trick. Nobody really knows where the potatoes go, but it is exciting none the less!! It really does a number on golf balls, too!

I've never messed with the plastic ones, and never would. I've seen the power one of these things can posses and it ain't nothing to play with!