Super Soaker Central

I am looking to make a nerf gun out of a water gun. The person i saw do it did it with a flash flood. But i have an orca laying around my house and i was wondering if they both give out the same amount of power when pumped up with just air. When i was pumping up my orca it did not seem to pump well at all. Is there a major difference between the flash flood and orca that will allow it to shoot more air than the other. I guess it could be some valve limiting me from pumping the gun up all the way with air. Any help is appreciated.

First off, I can't suggest making a Nerf gun out of a water gun. Water guns make very inefficient Nerf guns. You get good power but you have to pump a ton. Any decent homemade Nerf will outperform a Super Soaker modified to shoot Nerf darts.

Smaller Super Soakers would be better to modify than larger ones. From what I know the Max-D 2000 or 3000 perform very good as Nerf guns with less pumps than a Flash Flood.

Water is a larger molecule than air, so it's not surprising to see something not seal with air that sealed with water. The pump seal is likely the problem spot. You might have luck replacing the seal with a homemade one, but aside from that there's nothing you could do that would help substantially.

I don't see a need for the Orca either. Just take a Max-D 2000, XP 215, Water Warriors Cricket, etc., drill the nozzle, and glue on a good barrel. You won't have a very good rate of fire, but it'll be better and you'll still have very good range.

swirlycurly wrote:When i was pumping up my orca it did not seem to pump well at all.

What do you mean by that? I imagine the last part of the pump will be bouncy because of "dead space." Basically, if there's extra space between the end of the pump and the check valve, compressed air sits there instead of passing through the valve. It's doesn't happen with water, which is incompressible, so it's not a big concern when designing water guns. But you should still be able to pump.

it felt alot harder to pump on the in-stroke when it was filled with water than with just air in the tank.

The first few pumps are probably similar. Air compresses, so it takes more air to fill up the space and get to the peak pressure.