How to make a dart gun

First you need to make the cylinder for a piston. I found an empty aerosol can of insect repellent in garbage. Using emery I grind end of can until I see the seam between the metal of the bottom plug and body of can.

After that, with the help of pliers or just tapping you can pull the bottom part

It is time to make the piston for homemade dart gun. I have a small lathe for wood, but you can use a drill as lathe. And inclined chamfer tuned experimentally, rubber skirt will be attached to this chamfer to form a piston and make it germetically

To avoid an air leaks it is necessary to make a skirt of rubber. Cut out rubber (bicycle inner tube) into strip with an arc shape

Glue it to the piston and the top I glued a disc of metal (such as duralumin)

Disc fastened with screws, piston skirt is strengthened with insulation tape

The huge nail will be a piston rod

To fix the spring I made another disc and mount it on the piston
This is assembled piston with spring

At the bottom of aerosol can I made a few extra holes so that air easily passed out cylinder. How it works: spring abuts to bottom plug of a can and to the piston's metal disk. Pulling on the rod, the piston will move from the forward to the bottom of can, gaining air. If you release the rod, air will go out of the can with high speed. My homemade dart gun will work as spring piston airsoft does.

I made a body for homemade dart gun out of thick wooden board

The trigger mechanism will be as crossbow one, drill a hole for it in the body

I drilled a hole in the piston shaft and made a loop of nail in it. Also make another hole below for reloading system (I will explain further)

Fix the cylinder in the body, I made additional props of nails for the bottom of the container (because it is not fixed, nails will hold the spring)

The loop will be holded by a trigger system like crossbow system. Here's a part of trigger system made of three layers of metal, they are glued together. Cross - the point of rotation.

Carefully watch the video about how will work the trigger system

Another part of the trigger. Two of them are arranged on both sides of the body. All axes of rotation are nails. Details is connected with tape


Here are a couple of photos of the trigger system to understand the principle of its operation. The trigger is not pressed

Trigger is pressed

As long as the trigger is not pressed, the lug of the three-layer part is rests on the nail. When you pull the trigger, nail will go apart, lug will go down and all 3-layer part will spin around it's axis and will free shaft's hinge, piston will move to the cap of can gaining and pressing air to the only way out - through the hole in the cap

Now you need to connect the hole in the cap to the barrel. For this I used a tube from the old antenna

I cut tube in 3 pieces

Connect them using cold welding. Seal!

One end of the tube is fixed in the cylinder's cap hole

At the other end of the tube is necessary to make a tight and seal mount of the barrel. I made it of tube with diameter little more than barrel with piece of rubber inside it.

In the body whole construction is looking like

The barrel is made of tubes of the old bed, caliber is about 9 mm. Tube strongly rusty inside, also it has a seam. I cleaned it as i could and wrapped with tape for sealing (to close the seam)

A hook fastened to the barrel for reloading system

The barrel has one degree of freedom - can move only along the bed. Barrel placed inside the tube with diameter little more bigger than barrel itself, this tube fastened to the front end of body

Frame of reloading mechanism of the two strips and nails

Assemble a reloading system
How reloading system works: shaft and barrel are tied to frame. Pull the frame up with your hand. Barrel and shaft will move forward. Shaft's loop will pull on lug of 3-layer part, it will turn and it's another lug will put into shaft's loop. Use a finger to push the trigger forward, it will fix 3-layer part. Pull the frame down. Insert a bullet or dart and push barrel back into it's tube with rubber to seal it (by pushing). Whole process takes 6-7 seconds. Ready to shoot!





Darts are made of sharpened nails and tape winded with thread.