Homemade schnapper
I don’t know if anyone will be interested in this at all, but nevertheless it has something to do with crossbows.
For a long time I had the idea of trying to make a block schnapper in my spare time. I wanted to build something using mechanical propulsion, to see for the sake of experiment what could be squeezed out of a block snipper and whether it would even work, since it was supposed to accelerate the ball along the barrel. I used the most accessible materials, some metal-cutting equipment was required, but nothing supernatural, the most primitive. I found an old homemade cast block, a couple of homemade almost toy blocks lying around weighing 18 grams, sawed off a Russian spring, put it in a thermal bath to increase the hardness to 42 units, and assembled the block, shoulders and blocks. The first experiment was not successful, after the thermal treatment one shoulder burst as a result of an old microcrack, I had to resharpen it and after the thermal treatment equalize the force. The shoulders were planned to be up to 43 kg, but due to these adjustment manipulations it turned out to be 36, a little too small, we had to add a couple of fiberglass reinforcements, which made it possible to slightly increase the tension to 41 kg. Actually, I was not chasing horsepower, understanding the fact that when using a 15 mm ball as a projectile, its weight in steel version is 14 grams (so that there would be no waste). In order to save material, he decided to make the guide and the barrel from one duralumin blank from d16t with a diameter of 42, for this it was necessary to drill it with an offset of 460 mm in length, dimension it, drill it for the coupling bolts because the guide is detachable and cut it with a thin disk cutter with subsequent reduction in places where the bowstring moves. It was also decided to place the entire trigger mechanism in the guide as an integral part. The schnapper must be fed through a clip of balls in the handle, so it was necessary to provide some kind of mechanical dispenser in the design when refilling the balls.
Since 15 mm balls are quite rare, I had to make a bullet and pour lead, although a lead ball of the same diameter already weighs 19.8 grams and perhaps the shoulder force is a little lacking. But in general, what happened is what happened, I’m bringing this experience to the public, tension 41kg, string travel 35, clip holds up to 7 balls, weight 3100, mechanics work like clockwork, the big slingshot was a success
