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I have just ordered a Turner Richards dummy launcher for ongoing training of the Lab and to save my shoulder from further stress from slinging a dummy around. I ordered light and medium blanks with it however I have only ever used light blanks to launch rubber dummies and this will be used with canvas dummies which has set me thinking...

Given that the medium blanks should launch the dummy around 100m with the correct trajectory how much energy is there in the projectile at say 3m, of course I could always chrono it and then weigh it and calculate the energy however my chrono does not work on subsonic projectiles. Alternatively I could simply point it at something soft and animate however the Viking may well take a dim view of things if a dummy was to be launched vaguely in her general direction so I thought (To save undue stress to all involved) I would ask on here.

So how much energy is there in a dummy fired from a launcher?

Aim it vertically and then time how long it takes from launch to when it hits the ground again. Use the standard formulae for uniformly accelerated motion with half the time and final velocity as zero. That will give you the starting velocity and from that the energy at launch.

Yes, there is friction and the possibility that it will achieve terminal velocity on the way down however the answer should be in the right ballpark.

Then, using the initial velocity and resolving that into horizontal and vertical components for angles of say 30, 45 and 60 degrees you should be able to calculate how far it will go horizontally for each of those. Try that and see how accurate the calculations are.

Be prepared for a sore wrist! They go off with a hell of a lot of recoil.
I suggest making a shoulder stock for it.
Not hard with your skills, but if you need a quick fix 42mm waste pipe and a t joint make a quick stock. Bit of string to fire the mechanism.

Oh and the dummy launcher ball will go through 1/2" plywood at 10 yards!

It'll be more than a joule, ooman, which in the eyes of the law - or at least those drafting the new version of it - will rate it as a 'lethal weapon' and thus make you liable to be flung into a dungeon...

Wonder how far it will launch saddler....

200 yards with the purple blanks! Yellow about 100 and red about 150

To be honest oomans, we always considered saddler to be more the lunching than the launching type...

MiLisCer wrote:Be prepared for a sore wrist! They go off with a hell of a lot of recoil.
I suggest making a shoulder stock for it.
Not hard with your skills, but if you need a quick fix 42mm waste pipe and a t joint make a quick stock. Bit of string to fire the mechanism.

I have only ever used the light blanks and even they can kick the wrist if you are not careful. I did not order a shoulder stock as I probably have the materials here to form one if needed.

MiLisCer wrote:Oh and the dummy launcher ball will go through 1/2" plywood at 10 yards!

Ouch, something else I would not like to get on the wrong end of.

meles meles wrote:It'll be more than a joule, ooman, which in the eyes of the law - or at least those drafting the new version of it - will rate it as a 'lethal weapon' and thus make you liable to be flung into a dungeon...

Ah but it lacks a barrel so my understanding is it will not be covered by such legislation should it get through.

Ah, Diogenes won't be interested in it then...