Pretty simple then.

Basiclly buy (or steal whatever works) a model rocket. Not the dodgy ones, but the ones with a push button launch, and a thing that fires to let out a chute.

Then get some high grade piping, not the cheap polly pipe stuff. You have to check the pressure rating. Higher the better. Make shut that the base of the rocket fits in the pipe.

Next you have to make a cowling (not spelt right). Which is something that make the rocket a tightish fit in the pipe.

This can be made easy by getting some polystyrine and cutting it so its a cilender that fits the pipe, cut it in half, then carve out the middle so the rocket fits in it lenght ways.

Get a end cap for you pipe (something similar to the end of the tubes posters come in). This will be something for your rocket to push off. BUT it should come of when the rocket fires other wise the pipe can explode.

Ok now for the going bang part...

The part of the rocket that fires out the chute. Take it apart and fill it with black powder (or similar stuff that will go bang under pressure). Drill a hole in the top of the cone of the rocket and make a plunger (something so when the rocket hits something it smashes into the powder).

Ya may need to mod the rocket to made it a little stronger. (like wise fling on the rocket can make light as well).

Then feel free to fill the guts of the rocket with whateva explosives ya want.

Finally rig up the ignition wires for the rocket out thro the end (with the end cap) and make a handle for the pipe to hold.

Put the rocket in the cowling (this keeps it flying straight out of the barrel) push it to the bottom. Aim and fire (some rockets take some time to ignite to watch for that)

When the rocket hits something solid it ignites the end cap and whatever else you filled the rocket with.

Done

Something to report to the FBI.
Hooray.
Threat to kill, with motive.

lol, w/e.. who says i want them dead? and who says i even have neighbors that play paul mccartney at full blast? I could be lying... do you get off to bein a dick? quit bein a pessimist and grow some balls

just make the potatoe gun and shut up lmao but stich small nails in the potatoe

Ok, well, I saw this thread and knew I had to register on here. A few days ago I started building a homemade rocket launcher. Most of the information 5hifty gave is accurate, but I have a few corrections and additions.

Get some PVC. I have a 4 foot long piece of 3" PVC. One big difference from what 5hifty said is here. You do not, by any means, need high pressure rated pipe. I have cellcore non-pressure PVC from Lowes. I know this is perfectly safe, one because I know that model rocket engines do not produce anywhere near this amount of pressure, and 2, because I test fired it with an end cap (plumbing type, not the tube cover or whatever mentioned before) barely hand tightened on the back and the pipe didn't explode and, more importantly the end cap didn't come off. If you want to feel safer drill some holes in the cap, but the fewer holes the less backblast there is (it isn't powerful like an RPG, but it is hot). I have 2 9/32 holes (purely coincidental, I didn't drill them for venting) in mine. Also, fitting the tube to the rocket is reversed. This will be nearly impossible. Just trim the fins (try to get a rocket that comes close to fitting because fin clipping will lower it's stability which equals less payload). I trimmed about 1/2-3/4" off the fins of my test shot.

Now you make the cowling, more accurately called a sabot, but for different reasons from mentioned before. Model rockets, when fired normally, are fired in open air which contains the pressure about as well as a sieve. That said, the building of pressure in the tube (if you can even manage to do it) will give you little to no benefit. It would most likely just rip apart the sabot. Also, you could make the sabot from styrofoam, but styrofoam burns, which, while not dangerous, doesn't make your sabots reusable. I made mine from the green oasis foam that florists use (think Wal-Mart craft section). I kinda stumbled upon this stuff. It was readily available in my house and when I fired the rocket I found it to be non-flammable. This stuff is definitely the ticket.

Ignition has to go in here somewhere. I know that drilling a hole in the pipe and running wires from the ignition control box you get with a rocket can be done, but I wanted something better. I made a fully self-contained system. There is a 4 AA battery pack (same as what the Estes launch controller I have uses) mounted to the tube. Then through a cluster of wire you end up with an arming switch and a firing button. The igniter goes in the circuit and away you go. If anybody wants a detailed description of this or a diagram PM me, but if you know anything about electronics this should be easy for you.

Now we get to going boom. This is where ingenuity comes in. I have had endless ideas here but have not had the chance to test them yet (my educator's pack of rocket kits is in the mail...). The big three are here:
1. Explosive (obviously)
2. Incendiary (slower, powerful burn)
3. Kinetic energy (hardest to figure out, but maybe the most promising)

You guys know way more about explosives than I do. Up to this point I have figured mostly on using black powder. I have had trouble figuring out how to make a point detonating fuse (impact). I know I can let the staging charge or recovery charge do the work but PD fusing is way cooler. I have thought about using a pin (like the plunger mentioned before) to strike a percussion cap. This was the first mention I have heard of using pure pressure. I want more opinions. Will it work? If not, what is the best way? Help in this area would be most appreciated. Also, until a little while ago I had not considered using higher (not meaning high explosives in the technical way, just higher velocity than black powder) explosives. I would love ideas here (I know nothing about this but an trying to learn).

Incendiary is fun. I considered thermite but I'm pretty sure that it would be too hard to ignite reliably (a pile of thermite beside the smoldering hulk of a rocket is bad). I thought phosphorus, metal powders (that would be more of a bang than a burn though, right?), and gasoline/napalm (easiest). PD fusing is a concern here too.

Finally is kinetic energy. I would need more powerful rockets than what I have now (yay, more cash per shot) to accommodate larger engines. If I used a short burn/high energy motor I think I would get what I want. G size motors can propel un-payloaded rockets to well over 800 mi/hr. I figure the impact of a 1-2 pound semi-pointed projectile at anywhere near, say, 500 mi/hr would be able to wreak some serious havoc. I'm thinking going though a cinder block wall with a few. While sounding the simplest this idea will probably be the hardest to actually implement.

A few closing thoughts. For one, this ended up being a lot longer than I thought. Also, if you do this, make sure to PAYLOAD TEST YOUR ROCKET WITH AN INERT SUBSTANCE before throwing back powder/flash powder/napalm in there. Chances are that your payload, on your first try, will make your rocket unstable, which will most likely land it a few feet away. You will need to tune the location and size of your payload (filling the tube will almost definitely not work, depending upon the rocket).

Also, in terms of igniting things, the booster stage motors (designated with a 0 for their final number, i.e. C6-0) will be the best. They spray flame and burning chunks of black powder into the body of the rocket. This is a feasible way to ignite things, but once again, I want PD fusing.

The cost, all told, for the launcher, comes to about $30. Cheap, eh? Not quite. The real cost is the cost per shot. We aren't shooting potatoes here. I figure that with my 12 pack of rocket kits, plus the cost of motors, I will run $4-4.50 per INERT shot. Any payload like black powder, flash powder, gasoline, or phosphorus is extra. It looks expensive, and it is, but when you consider that the US military's new AT (the AT-4, I believe) rocket consists of a disposable plastic tube, with a shape charge glued to a quick burn rocket and some fins, it eases the pain. If you got your hands on some C4, or other high explosive, and some copper sheet, you could, in a very literal (and scary) way, have an RPG.

Now the results from the test shot and plans for the future. The test shot was an Estes Alpha III rocket with a C6-5 (I think it was 5, but the last number is negligible). I shot it at what I guess to be a 30 degree angle. It flew quite literally out of sight and my friend and I were never able to find it. My best guess says approx. 1/4-1/3 of a mile. This would easily be accurate out to 250 yards if you figure out how to aim it (it flies straight on the x-axis, but getting elevation right would be the trick). The future holds 12 rocket kits on the way and no less than one container of gunpowder. I am also going to try match heads and napalm without a doubt. The kinetic energy idea will have to wait for more money, time, and knowledge. I have pictures below and when I get my rockets and fire them I will put a video on YouTube and link it from here.

The whole thing


Arming switch and on light


Firing button


Alligator clips for attaching to the ignitor

just an idea is there anyway that you could use maybe spring loaded fins that are held in by the sabot or some other way to make it launch out and then the fins come out
also couldn't you launch it out with an explosive about 5 feet and then have the rocket engine ignite while the fins are coming out
i think there's actualy something on future weapons that does this(don't rememeber what it is called) though it is military technology it seems like it might go farther like that

Yea, I know the Javelin AT rocket does this, and maybe the AT-4. It allows the on board charge to be saved for distance because it takes a large amount of force to get a rocket moving compared to keeping it going. You could try experimenting with something like this, but I can't help you with it. I have, however, considered making a staged rocket and using the first stage primarily for accelerating the rocket. One thing that helps is that model rocket engines are designed for a stationary start so they make a huge amount of thrust for a few tenths of a second before going into a cruise phase.

As far as spring loaded fins, I thought about it and thought better of it. The design I have right now works spectacularly well (at least for what it is) and I didn't want to complicate it more. That said, if I were to try something, it would probably look like this:



A number of small fins would be mounted to the body tube with small hinges at the front of the fins. A piece of fin would extend into the tube. A spring would be in the tube, against a solid wall toward the front and against the tabs on the fins at the back. The tube itself would hold in the fins so when it exited the tube the fins would deploy. I think this would work but it would require a massive amount more work than what I think I can get away with. My plan is to use large fins that extend past the back of the rocket (the larger and farther back from the center of mass the better).

if you could though i'm thinking about how a bullet works if i could cause an initial ignition like a potato gun to launch it out then have something like an ultra fine stream of gunpowder to go around inside the rocket leading to the second stage
something like that that would give you about a second before the rocket ignites it's own motor
your i dea about the fins though is different from what i was thinking
if you've ever seen the movie october sky you may understand where my idea is coming from. in the movie they say that it was a flare
if you've never seen it before you likely won't understand what i'm talking about

Yea I've seen it and read the book. Good stuff, but I don't remember the fin designs.

As far as the booster charge, I would use a big diameter tube with one or more D/E short burn engines stuck on the back of the rocket. The engines would have to stage soon after the rocket exited the tube, but it might work. If the stage timing worked right it would take care of ignition of the second stage.

I will reiterate, I think this idea is too much work unless you want to launch some really hefty payloads. The design I have will already fly much, much farther than its accurate range. Hell, it flies longer than line of sight in most cases.

well you said you have neighbours and that they play it at full blast, and you said you wanted to shoot something at them wich is threat to kill with motive, and this site is for information purposes not for you to go threatning to kill people... have a flame at me if you will it will only suppress your dumbness not get rid of it.