Air pressure homemade
Written by Ben
Last updated on 2010-05-29
APH (pronounced "aff" or "A-P-H") water guns are the most popular homemade water guns. They use parts available from most home improvement or hardware stores and provide an enormous amount of power in a battle ready design. Building one is relatively easy and requires no special tools aside from saws and drills. The power to price ratio can not be beat. This water gun consistently beats the CPS 2000, the most powerful Super Soaker ever made, in not only range, output, and water capacity, but also the most important factor, price.
If you live in a country where PVC is harder to find or expensive (mainly European countries), consider making a copper pipe water gun instead.
Vital statistics/benchmark
- Range with 1/4 inch nozzle: 52 feet effective range, 56 feet to the last drop
- Range with 3/8 inch nozzle: 55 feet effective range, 60 feet to the last drop
- Riot blast output: 50X or more
Compared against the CPS 2000, this water gun has 5 to 10 feet more range and 30X or more more output.
I need your feedback to make this guide even better! Let me know at our forum thread.
I suggest reading my page about what the APH is and is not before building. This will answer some common questions and perhaps give you a reason to adapt what I have here for your use rather than build a generic APH.
Table of contents
- Homemade water gun FAQ
- Materials FAQ
- APH FAQ
- Common question answered: Are homemade water guns dangerous?
- APH design tool
- PVC basics <-- start here if you want to build an APH
- Parts list
- Construction
- Cementing
- Customizations
- Pictures of the completed water gun