Blowgun Techniques. Amante P. Marinas, Sr.

are to shoot with consistent accuracy, it has to be kept in good condition.

      Commercial blowguns are provided with plastic muzzle caps that prevent the aluminum pipe from getting dented. A homemade blowgun can be protected in the same way.

      A number of materials can be used to protect the muzzle of your blowgun. You can use any short length tube of rubber, plastic, or wood. The muzzle protector should extend about ½-inch past the lip of the muzzle, must be rigid, and must not interfere with the smooth exit of the dart.

      A short length of bamboo (tube) can be used as a muzzle protector. The bamboo tube has to be constructed such that it cannot slide too far in and expose the tip of the muzzle to possible damage. To imitate the construction of the commercial muzzle protector, use a conical grinding stone to enlarge the bore of the bamboo tube at one end.

      COUPLING

      A long blowgun can be made from several short lengths of pipe. This will allow you to have a long-barreled blowgun that can be assembled and disassembled in the field, thus making transport less difficult.

      Ease of transport is not the only reason for a takedown version. A takedown version is also required should you use PVC pipes to make a blowgun. Long pipes made of PVC will bend due to weight. To make a blowgun of the desired length from PVC, you will need two or three short pieces which you can join using a coupling.

      A coupling can be metal or wood with an inside diameter that matches the outside diameters of short tube sections. It is used to connect two short tubes to make one long tube. Where the two tubes meet the joint must be seamless or nearly so to ensure the smooth travel of the dart.

      Commercial two-piece blowguns come with plastic couplings. You can make a three-piece blowgun from two two-piece blowguns. In this way you can make a 7-foot blowgun that you can assemble and disassemble in the field. However, such a 7-foot blowgun will have an unavoidable curve. Despite the curve, with some practice, you can still have a good shooting average.

      A coupling need not be made of metal. For example: Indonesian, Malaysian, and Philippine two- and three-piece bamboo blowguns (Figure 1-1) use bamboo with a bigger diameter as coupling. The two-piece bamboo blowgun has one piece measuring 25½ inches and the other 27½ inches but with the overlap its overall length comes to 49½ inches. The three-piece blowgun consists of three 22½” sections that give the blowgun an overall length of 62 inches.

      Blowgun master Dr. Hironori Higuchi uses couplings made from rolled plastic films (Figure 3-13) on three-section aluminum blowguns. The coupling can easily be slipped over the aluminum tube. A “quick and dirty” coupling using the same idea can be made from thicker-than usual paper.

      chapter 4

      MAKING YOUR OWN DARTS

      Commercial .40 and .50 caliber darts come unassembled. The .625 Magnum darts come assembled. Their tails will not last indefinitely. Their collapsible flanges will eventually rupture. Hence, you will end up with shafts with no tails. You can save the shafts to make your own darts.