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Custom Bic Pen BB Launcher


staticzero

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Another thread reminded me of this, and I thought someone might be interested in it. I used to make all sorts of these back in high school. This is an old one I still have, and it's holding up okay. Basically what we have here is a couple of Bic pens hacked into a single shot BB launcher, with a five round detachable magazine. This one is a bit fancier than you need to get the job done, but isn't as involved as some of the ones I made (wish I still had them). I originally built these to fire standard metal BBs, but this one has been retrofitted to fire 6mm (at the expense of ammo capacity).

 

The top tube is the barrel. The bottom tube keeps the rubber bands in check (makes it more concealable). The pen's cap becomes the magazine (gravity fed). Basically you pull back the handle, a BB falls into place, you let go and it fires. Simple!

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The muzzle. Note the use of another hacked pen cap to serve as the retainer for the rubber bands. This one was built to be sleek and easy to pocket, some of them had a paper clip bent into a finger ring/foregrip thing which also served as the rubber band retainer.

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View from the back. The handle is made of straightened paper clips wrapped in tape.

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The mag well. The pen cap is cut off at the line, the top becomes the mag, and the bottom has a slice put in it and become the well. The mag holds five rounds when chambered for 6mm. A bit of tape would be used to keep additional mags sealed until use.

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Here we can see the plunger shaft (mad of paper clips here, the ink tube also works but can be messy) in the top tube, anf the rubber bands in the bottom. This design is more concealable as there is less to get snagged on its way in or out of your pocket. This is not my most sophisiticated desing in this regard though (that would be my triple tube design). Alas, the rubber bands on this one are clearly wearing out.

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The most simple one only requires one pen with cap, two paper clips, some tape, and a knife (and BBs!).

 

The stealthiest one had a simple loop to pull the plunger back, the bands were protected in a tube as above, and the ammo was kept in a third tube. This also gave it higher capacity, but at the expense of a detachable mag. You had to press more BBs in through a hole in the top of the front end of the tube that was just big enough to let them in without letting them out. Also, the tubes were arranged in a triangle, not one on top of the other. This made chambering a round a trick, as you had to make sure you had it oriented correctly. It needed to be tilted back slightly, and the magazine tube had to be at least slightly above the barrel tube.

 

The most involved one I ever made was a rotating six(IIRC) barrel shotgun-type design. Basically, the barrels were filled with BBs with some wadding holding them in. A barrel would be rotated into position with the plunger back. When released, all the BBs in the barrel would come out at once. Then you'd just pull back the plunger and rotate the next into position. I was working on a way to quick change the barrel part for easy reloading, but never worked it out.

 

Launching a BB across a classroom was quite possible with the simple ones, the shotgun type didn't wok that great though. There are a few tricks that I employed to get the best performance out of them, which I'll keep secret for now...

 

I can see about doing a how-to on building one if there's any interest. :)

 

Ammo: 6mm BB

Mag Capacity: 5 Rounds

FPS: Several

Range: Over There, Somewhere

Accuracy: LOL

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Will you take the blame if I get in trouble with this? :D

Request denied! :P You're on your own...

 

Yes please!

Well then I guess I have to now. Consider it 'forthcoming'.

 

No matter how mundane the product, you still manage to come up with great diagrams and pictures. Hats off to you Staticzero. Hats off.

Thanks! :)

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I have several of these too. I made them from one of those cheepo bic lead pencils that you always find on the ground, but instead mine fired the 4.5mm brass bbs. I'll try to get a few pics later. if anyone wants that is...

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The most involved one I ever made was a rotating six(IIRC) barrel shotgun-type design.

:blink:

Do you have any of these lying around? I don't know about a shotgun, but I think it would be teh shizzle to have a six-shot repeater.

 

Actually, speaking of shotguns...would it be at all possible to make some sort of magazine tube and mini-pump to feed bbs, as opposed to having a gravity-fed magazine? Or am I just losing my mind? :wacko:

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