Gun Super

Gun Super

How Water Guns Work

The basic water gun has a very simple mechanism of operation: water is placed in a reservoir inside the plastic casing. When the trigger is pulled backward, a spring and piston system sucks water up through a tube and pumps it through a very narrow tube in the barrel of the gun. The narrowness of the exit tube and nozzle creates a high-pressure, focused stream of water.

But how does water only come out the front of the gun? Why doesn't the water get sucked back down into the chamber of the toy? The answer is an invention called the one-way valve. This simple device is a rubber ball inside of a circular seal. It moves out of the way to allow water to move up through the piston system, but doesn't allow any to go back down, acting as a drain stopper when water pressure forces it back into its seal.

The problem with such a simple design is that the pressure from standard water guns is usually enough to fire a stream of water (remember that water is heavy) little more than a few feet. The key to more powerful water guns came in the early 1980s, when a nuclear scientist and inventor named Lonnie Johnson came up with the basic idea behind the ultra-powerful water guns known as super soakers. These high-powered water guns use compressed air to fire a stream of water up to 50 feet.

The basic workings of super soakers are a simple improvement on the basic water gun design: a second container filled with a mixture of air and water. These water guns work via a pump action – as you pump the toy, additional water is pumped into the smaller, second container. The water forces the air into a smaller and smaller space. A series of one-way valves keeps water from squirting out. When you pull the trigger, water explodes out the nozzle, due to the compressed air in the secondary container. If too much pressure is in the secondary container, a valve allows minor leakage through the trigger.

Want to learn more? Check out this article on how toy guns work. You can also buy water guns from the toy gun store.

About the Author

Can a Exorcist Priest guy use a Super Soaker gun instead of that wand thing to spray holy water?

I've heard of situations where priests will use waterballoons as "holy hand-grenades"

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