Super Soaker Central

Okay, we just recently recruted a member who has the mark 1 CPS 2000 and had an interesting story to tell me. I asked him if he had any guns. Not knowing anything of the fabled story about the kid who shot his eye out with the CPS 2000, he told me about his something or other 2000 super soaker. He said he was out playing with it a while back. He shot it at a girls face from, what he said, was 20 feet away in the face. She went blind and had to go to the hospital. She eventually got her eye site back shortly after.

Even if the CPS 2000 super soaker could not shoot someone eye out, it could do some serious damage to the eyes. Let that be a lesson to everyone.

Well, shooting at the face is never appropriate - don't do it people!

I'm glad to hear there was no long term damage.

I still need a full-face shield to avoid that kind of trouble.

I would be more inclined to believe a highly concentrated stream would cause eye damage than anything else. So yes, a Liquidator or something could cause eye pain, but I doubt much more would be caused on that level of power. There's a reason water jet cutting uses highly concentrated streams of water.

The story sounds like a lie to me. Even when hit by a homemade water gun stream from 20 feet, not too much will happen. The key here is 20 feet - the stream has plenty of time to decelerate and break up. Any potential for damage has been eliminated. He obviously was either exaggerating of fabricating the entire story.

Ben, you pointed out that the stream would greatly lose velocity in 20 feet--but what if one squeezed the trigger until the PC was completely empty? Only the first part of the stream would be vastly affected by fluid air resistance--the rest would not lose much velocity, whether the distance would be 2 feet or 25 feet. A continuing torrent of water can cause serious damage.

Water is a fluid too. The slower front-end of the water stream will slow down the stream's velocity as well. That's what I believe is happening because I know for a fact that more powerful water gun's streams are weakened severly by fluid resistance, especially over a distance.

Ben, I understand the logic behind your argument, but there's still something that I don't understand. If the front end of the stream is slowing down, but the velocity at the nozzle is still large, then where will that extra velocity go? It seems as if there would just be a surge of force behind the first "wave" of water in the stream.

Note: I'm not in AP Physics yet, so there's probably a flaw in my argument somewhere. I'm not against constructive criticism ...

Ben wrote:Water is a fluid too. The slower front-end of the water stream will slow down the stream's velocity as well. That's what I believe is happening because I know for a fact that more powerful water gun's streams are weakened severly by fluid resistance, especially over a distance.

So basically, what you are implying Ben, is that water guns worsen with age and/or extreme use

CROC wrote:So basically, what you are implying Ben, is that water guns worsen with age and/or extreme use

I think he's actually referring to the resistance caused during over one shot of a blaster, not to decreased performance over months of usage.

That could be a reason why they don't make them any more.

Happy she didn't get blinded.

i was never old enough to hear about this cps 2000 stuff, my first water gun was a XP 510, i think. I would never had thought a cps could do that much damage, me and my bros just get body shots on each other.

Somewhat old thread, but oh well.

Yeah, I never even knew the CPS line existed! (though I had seen Monsters in this booklet thing) However, no gun is harmful when used with common sense--it's the user who is at fault if he point-blanks somebody in the eye.

And that's an XP 310, I believe...the "510" doesn't exist.

I've actually been thinking about testing and debunking this myth recently...

This is a myth. I'll buy a pigs head from the local butcher and try all sorts of things to damage the eyes if someone would like - a CPS 2000 type blast won't damage much. The CPS 2000 is not a pressure washer or water jet cutter. It won't feel good, but it won't pop your eye out. The CPS 2000 simply does not have enough power go get a lot of pressure at the nozzle, which is required for an eye-cutting or eye-damaging blast. That's a half inch hole if you didn't realize. Only water cannon type water guns will get that sort of power.

We could even put it all together in a MythBusters-style video. Or even better, we could get the MythBusters to do it.

Yup, we need a few suggestions on what we could have MythBusters test...I suggested drywall to Ben, but it doesn't seem nearly so I ampressive as a pig's head or something else. I found their myth suggestion forum, so we can submit something at some point.

I think we should try it first by ourselves and then submit later. Pig's heads should be relatively easy for me to obtain given there's a butcher less than half a mile from my house.

A pig's heads would be my primary choice because it's what MythBusters actually use when testing something on a head. Dryway would be way too strong too. I've tried marshmellows in the past, but I concluded that they were too dissimilar to eyes (even still, no damage appeared from my most powerful water gun at the time, my CPS 27000).