I've been thinking about shooting arrow with my 20 guage air shotgun. It uses the 20 guage shot wad, so I probably could use the 30 in arrow and just load the arrow from the barrel, the 20 guage wad can hold the end of the arrow in place. I probanly would need to build some kind of arrow holder at the front of the barrel. Maybe one of the arrow rests from the store would work also, I just have to build it to the front of the barrel, but make it easily removable so I could switch it back to the shotgun. Imagine the power it generates from the 500 fpe gun. I love shooting arrows also, and have been toying with this idea awhile. Any opinions how to build it would be appreciated.

Might have better luck with crossbow bolts, or just make your own. Gary has some stuff posted somewhere on his site where he was shooting homemade steel-rod bolts out of one of his smoothbores, and even the solid steel ones bent on impact. Regular arrows made for bows are shockingly flexible, when you watch the high-speed video of them leaving a bow they'll easily bend a couple inches at release and flex repeatedly back and forth while in flight all the way to the target. Given that the "lock time" of even a compound bow is bog-slow compared to the firing cycle of a bigbore airgun, you'll probably end up with a LOT of flex in the barrel, or even broken arrows at launch. The FPS of even the fastest bows is maybe half of what Garys bigbore smoothies give, for example.

It's been done with Swivelmachine work, they build airgun shooting arrows, even rimfire shooting arrows, but they have a special barrel with a hollow tube in the center of the barrel and use a hollow arrow. My barrel is 30 in, so 22 in bolt is not going to work. My modified 20 guage wad and the arrow holder in front of the barrel probably will keep the arrow center in the barrel. Thanks for your infos.

If you make your own arrows, keep in mind that nothing says they have to be whipply little shafts identical to those used for bows. You've got .62 inches to work with (more or less) so you can go up a LOT on diameter to get better stiffness. Perhaps some 1/2" aluminum tubing would work, you could add sufficient fletchings to center the back end and make the arrowhead close to bore diameter. Some hardwood dowels might work as shafts, they're available in a variety of sizes and you can get them pretty straight. There's probably sources for composite tubing in a number of different diameters and materials, but I wouldn't know where right off hand.

I plan to use the factory 30 in arrow, the wad will give it a good air seal, the gun will shoot the wad with the arrow out. I just need to know how to build the arrow holder at the front of the barrel. Thanks.

I'm planning to shoot darts (or dart-like slugs) with my airgun soon. They are not arrows, in fact, those would be much shorter than arrows and we have planned to make them out of lead like usual slugs. But what would be little similar, is that we planned to make finned slugs (fins would be in the end of slug and the front side would be like of any usual pointed slug).

The idea came from big smoothbores of tanks and from one special shotguns slug (which has said to be very accurate) which uses arrow-like design.

You might try a sabot of cork or felt or styrofoam. I'd suggest a torus (ring) with the outside diameter that of the muzzle and the interior diameter that of the arrow. Cut the rings into halves or thirds radially, so that you can tuck them in between the muzzle and the arrow. If you razor-cut the radial cuts with a bit of gap, they ought to separate and blow out of the way at launch. If loading them is too difficult, you might try a wrap of thin packing tape around the outside that'll keep them together, with one slit so you you can get them over the arrowhead. The trick is balancing the need to keep them in place while the arrow is moving down the bore with the requirement for them to separate from the shaft in flight. Good luck.

Man, that's a brilliant idea!! Just one question, what is a torus ring? And Just to make sure, I need to cut the ring all the way thru right? Thanks a lot man! It's simple, but a great idea.

And if everything workouts, the 500 fpe arrow with the broadhead will blow all the way thru a moose lenth wise!

They have taking the 5000 lbs hippos with the 120 fpe bow, imagine what this gun can do..



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2009 03:01AM by peter-n.

ring = torus, same thing

If you can get a punch of the right diameter, you could make lots of circles to work with. In fact, if you pre-drill the arrow's hole through the middle, and then punch out the right diameter ring centered on that hole, your works mostly done.

Actually, since you've got a 20ga. you should be able to find pre-made wads of the correct diameter in the reloading catalogs that would fit the bill. Just punch or drill the arrow hole through the center, then cut the resulting "donut" into two or three equal parts with scissors or a razor and you're there.

Rottorhead,

Thanks again! Your a genius! This simple but great idea will work with minimum hassels, this way I don't have to build the arrow holder at the front of the barrel.

Good thing about shooting arrow with airpowered is that if it shot too fast for accuracy, I could always lower the psi for less speed. Even at 600 fps, with the 500 gr arrow, it would still get 400 fpe! I have seen a 80 fpe arrow penetrated tru a 1000 lbs brown bear, so imagine the power of the 4 to 500 fpe arrow..... I'm very excited, I will try it out.

This forum is very useful, thanks to knowledgeable of guys like you and Gary and Jerry.

I've hated to be a bust to all this, but I think you're just gonna get a "BLAAAAhhhhh......hhhhh" of debris out of the barrel when you pull the trigger. Arrows are not structurally cabable of standing up to being swatted in the butt by the blast of a shotgun. The sabot pcs. will just strip the feathers off and try to blast up the shaft and lodge behing the arrow head. If you get the arrow to fly, it will destroy itself upon impact. So - unless you are up for $10 per shot ...

The only thing that would work would be the standard solution of sliding the arrow over an inner blast tube (which requires a purpose built gun) and driving the arrow from the front with a blast up the arrow shaft. The problem there is, it blasts arrow head insert off the shaft unless it's specially attached or threaded. Regular inserts are glued in, which won't stand up to an air blast. To drive from the rear - you'd need a machined or injection molded heavy cup - bore sized, which centered the arrow in a socket. You'd need a very large shaft to take the compression of the shot. You'd need specially made points for that large shaft (which would not exist). Then, you'd need to work with the balance and weight of this prototype arrow and figure out fletching that would work. If all that is wrong, it simply won't fly straight ... but will trail off on a major arc (going Heaven knows where, with a broadhead on the front)

Sorry for being a drag. However; nothing is simple. There's a reason that bows shoot arrows, and guns shoot slugs.

Gary

Gary, I think you're right. No wonder you've been quiet all along about this project. In the back of my mind, I kinda knew the arrow won't be able to take the full energy blast of this gun, and even if it could, it probably won't fly straight. I probably could modified the gun to make it work like they did with Swivelmachine Work, which is to build the inner hollow tube in the center of the barel, but I don't want to alter the gun.

Now I know why they limited their arrow shooting gun to a maximum of 180 fpe, they could have built a much more power gun, for accuracy and the ability of the arrow to fly I guess. I won't give up yet, and will try to shoot the arrow at lower speed, maybe 4 to 500 fps by dialing the gun down to 2000 psi or less, and I also will put a round flat piece of metal into the bottom of the shot wad to help propel the arrow without imbedding the wad into the arrow, I hope that works.

Thanks for your great advice Gary, I'm glad you said something, that way I can learn.

I still think that you could fabricate your own crossbow-style bolts, thicker and shorter than regular arrows. Some half inch diameter hardwood dowels might be a good start, or some aluminum tubing of a similar diameter. Whatever you gin up, it had to be much stiffer than a regular arrow, and able to withstand high levels of compressive force without bending too much. It would be much heavier than a regular arrow, but it might last at least one shot!