A rubber band gun is a toy

gun A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, p ...

used to fire one or more

rubber band A rubber band (also known as an elastic band, gum band or lacky band) is a loop of rubber, usually ring or oval shaped, and commonly used to hold multiple objects together. The rubber band was patented in England on March 17, 1845 by Stephen P ...

s (or "elastic bands"). Rubber band guns are often used in live-action games such as

Assassins An assassin is a person who commits targeted murder. Assassin may also refer to: Origin of term * Someone belonging to the medieval Persian Ismaili order of Assassins Animals and insects * Assassin bugs, a genus in the family ''Reduviida ...

, in which they are common and popular toy weapons. They are also common in offices and classrooms. Rubber band guns have been popular toys that date back to the invention of rubber bands, which were patented in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

on March 17, 1845 by Stephen Perry.How rubber bands are made
This reference states that the rubber is vulcanized before it is extruded. The rubber is then "cured" on mandrels. The "Made How" reference appears to directly copy text from other sources, some of which appears to be incorrect. The exact same text regarding Thomas Hancock appears in a 1995 book entitled "CD's, super glue and salsa: how everyday products are made" by Kathleen Witman, Kyung-Sun Lim, Neil Schlager. Contradicting other sources, both credit Thomas Perry rather than Stephen Perry for the invention of the rubber band.

Rubber band gun types

Clothespin

Clothespin rubber band guns are the simplest form of RBGs, being very easy to produce. Its firing mechanism consists solely of a

clothespin A clothespin (US English), or clothes peg (UK English) is a fastener used to hang up clothes for drying, usually on a clothes line. Clothespins come in many different designs. Design During the 1700s laundry was hung on bushes, limbs or lin ...

with a rubber band placed between its jaws. The gun may have more than one clothespin, thereby allowing multiple shots.

Repeating

Most rubber band guns are of repeating nature, giving the user more firepower than single shot designs. They range from step-up-action guns and single rotor semi autos, to removable magazine automatic weapons. To simulate real life repeaters, there have been designs that require users to operate a bolt, pump a pump, pull back a hammer, or rack a slide. These may be impractical against other automatic rubber band guns, but give the user the psychological response of real firearms. Most repeaters fall into one of two categories:

Escapement

Escapement An escapement is a mechanical linkage in mechanical watches and clocks that gives impulses to the timekeeping element and periodically releases the gear train to move forward, advancing the clock's hands. The impulse action transfers energy to ...

rubber band guns are capable of firing at least three rubber bands when fully loaded. Escapement rubber band guns are available in semi-realistic shapes, including pistols,

rifle A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...

s, and shotguns. They form the basis of almost all automatic rubber band gun systems. They are usually made of

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

(although many

Lego Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...

-based designs have been produced), and most have a strong machined

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

firing mechanism, consisting of a rotor where bands are hooked, and an

escapement An escapement is a mechanical linkage in mechanical watches and clocks that gives impulses to the timekeeping element and periodically releases the gear train to move forward, advancing the clock's hands. The impulse action transfers energy to ...

mechanism that lets the rotor rotate one position, releasing a rubber band. In Lego designs, a gear is commonly used in place of a conventional rotor, and due to how fine the teeth on the gear are, the escapement allows a rotation of more than one tooth, requiring rubber bands to be loaded a set number of teeth apart.

Automatic

Fully automatic rubber band guns are similar to automatic firearms, in that the gun's mechanism is powered by the projectile (in the case of automatic rubber band guns, the

potential energy In physics, potential energy is the energy held by an object because of its position relative to other objects, stresses within itself, its electric charge, or other factors. Common types of potential energy include the gravitational potentia ...

stored in the stretched rubber band). Many mechanisms have been devised by various online designers such as: * A modified releaser that simply lets to rotor spin freely when depressed, and a weighted delay piece to keep the rate of fire practical. This system suffers from weight, low capacity, reduced power, and a high rate of fire, but is very simple. * A separate rotor and releaser that are activated by either a bolt or a hammer moving by the power of launched rubber bands. This may be used to simulate moving parts on real firearms, such as slides and bolts. They can also give the user a sense of

recoil Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force requ ...

Rotary

A rubber band

rotary gun A rotary cannon, rotary autocannon, rotary gun or Gatling cannon, is any large- caliber multiple-barreled automatic firearm that uses a Gatling-type rotating barrel assembly to deliver a sustained saturational direct fire at much greater ra ...

consists of between 3 and 12 repeater RBGs arranged on a cylindrical "rotor" as barrels. The rotor rotates with either a crank or a motor, and each individual barrel is fired as it reaches the top of its

locus Locus (plural loci) is Latin for "place". It may refer to: Entertainment * Locus (comics), a Marvel Comics mutant villainess, a member of the Mutant Liberation Front * ''Locus'' (magazine), science fiction and fantasy magazine ** ''Locus Award' ...

The original tripod-mounted rubber band rotary gun, patented by Surefire Products, was featured on the

Gadget Show ''The Gadget Show'' (currently known as ''The Gadget Show: Better Tech, Better Life'') is a British television series which focuses on consumer technology. The show, which is broadcast on Channel 5, is currently presented by Ortis Deley, Georg ...

on UK television in March 2007 and January 2010. A twelve-barrel rotary gun using twelve-shot repeater mechanisms can fire 144 rubber bands automatically. It is fired by manually rotating a crank handle and pulling a firing trigger. Motorized RBGs with rotary barrels are among the latest developments in the world of rubber band guns. In November 2007, Anthony Smith completed the Disintegrator, a 288-shot motorized rubber band gun with 2 12-barrel counter-rotating rotors. This gun can be mounted on a tripod or fired from the hip, and can fire more than 40 rounds per second. There are two common versions of the rubber band rotary gun mechanism:

String-operated

A rotor with a pre-prepared string spooled around it pulls off rubber bands one-by-one as it is unwound from the rotor and off the barrel. The string is wound around one barrel, then a rubber band placed on that barrel, then the next barrel, and so on until the string can be pulled and the bands fired.

Escapement

Each barrel has an escapement mechanism on it with a releaser that is pressed once the barrel reaches a certain point.

Materials

Rubber band guns can be created with many different media balancing ease of construction, reliability, and capacity:

Wood

The majority of lasting, reliable rubber band guns are made of machined

. Among the most popular wooden RBG designers ar
parabellum1262
who has developed magazine-fed automatic and select-fire designs, an
oggcraft
known for his unique firing mechanisms.

Popsicle sticks

Rubber band guns can be made from Popsicle sticks. The individual sticks are held together by either rubber bands, tape or glue. They can also be cut or carved to the required shape. It is generally limited to pistols and sniper rifles, as only one or two shots can be loaded on most guns, but semi-automatic ice-cream stick guns have been made by determined amateurs. They can also be adapted to fire arrows or other small objects with the rubber bands. In some guns, the handle doubles as a trigger, but having a separate trigger and handle provides much better accuracy. Rubber band guns can be made using only Popsicle sticks, staples, and rubber bands of various styles and sizes. This specialized technique developed and honed by then-high school student Stuart A. Burton is very malleable and can be utilized to develop very advanced and complicated rubber band guns. For instance, using levers and sliding mechanisms, one can make a pump-action shotgun. Using simple geometry and specialized positioning, you can easily make semi-automatic and 2-shot burst-fire weapons, as well as more complicated fully automatic weapons using paperclips as an axis for a rotating firing piece. Occasionally, other materials (like bamboo skewers, for instance) may be used in the making of the gun. Sights, foregrips and

magazines A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination ...

to hold extra rubber bands may also be made according to the owner's preferences. Through creativity and imagination, one can make detachable sights, grips, stocks, silencers, and under-barrel shotguns or grenade launchers.

K'Nex

Rubber band guns can be built from

K'Nex K'Nex is a construction toy system founded by Joel Glickman. It was first introduced in America in 1992. K'Nex is designed and produced by K'Nex Industries Inc. of Hatfield, Pennsylvania. K'Nex was purchased by Florida-based company Basic Fun! ...

. Such constructions can include handheld pistols, automatics and sniper rifles. Some K'Nex guns work using the escapement mechanism seen in semi-automatic rubber band guns, while some more advanced types have hinge triggers that are more reliable, allow for more bands on a barrel, and have a more realistic trigger pull.

Lego

Most rubber band creators start out with lego, as it allows users to easily express ideas. In early 2007, Sebastian Dick built a motorized rubber band rotary gun entirely from

, capable of firing 11 rounds per second. Many other builders on YouTube followed suit, building string-operated miniguns, while some shoot actual bricks. Many RBGs are built out of Lego, from simple hinge guns to complex fire-rate-dampening automatic rifles. Lego rubber band gun mechanisms can also be used to launch light projectiles of various types, from small bricks and paper planes to wooden skewers. Lego rubber band guns can be quite reliable, without all the complexity of K'Nex. It is difficult to devise a suitable, practical magazine-fed rubber band gun system out of Lego, due to the elasticity of rubber bands (which requires a mechanism to lock the retention wheel when not connected to the firing mechanism).

References

{{Reflist Toy weapons Rubber toys