When you decide to make your own blowgun, there are several things that need to be considered...

1.  What is the purpose of the blowgun?  Will it be used for target shooting, paintballing, or hunting small game?  

2.  Who will be using the blowgun?  A child cannot power a larger caliber blowgun satisfactorily.

3.  What is your budget?  Materials can vary drastically in price.

4.  Do I have the required tools.  We'll discuss what's needed later.

A blowgun's purpose is a very important consideration.  Simple target shooting can provide hours of safe, enjoyable recreation from a small caliber blowgun.  Paintballing generally require .40 cal or above.  Some paintball fields require that you buy and use their painballs only, so you need to know the diameter of those paintballs in order to design an efficient blowgun.  Small game hunting with a blowgun takes incredible skill and requires an appropriate blowgun design.  Generally, a .50 cal blowgun is thought of as the smallest you should use for hunting.  It provides additional power and supports the use of larger diameter broadhead darts.

You must also consider who will be using the blowgun.  To propel a dart, you must pressurize the blowgun tube.  Small lungs require a smaller tube in order to achieve sufficient pressure.  Pressure inside the tube is a direct function of the amount of air supplied and the volume of tube being pressurized.  There are other factors like dart seal, and how rapidly the air is supplied, that will affect pressurization, but are not affected by the tube design.  There is also an upper limit to the volume that even a larger adult can supply.  I have conducted tests with an .81 cal. blowgun that was 7 feet long. That's nearly 45 cubic inched of volume to fill.  The results with this blowgun were very poor.  The same length blowgun at .625 cal. gives less than 26 cubic inches of volume.  This size is easily pressurized by the average adult and is very popular among hunters.  We'll look at this more later.

While budget is always a restriction, basic blowgun materials are very inexpensive.  At my local hardware store, I can purchase all the materials for a 7 foot long .625 cal. blowgun for under $2.00.  Advanced materials can be much more, but for most purposes, are not necessary.  Darts can be made for very little as well.  With as little as $4.50, you can make between 8 - 10 hunting darts, or about 2-3 dozen target darts.  If you want to reinforce your darts with epoxy, add another 3 bucks.

There are some basic tools that you'll need to make a blowgun.  You will need a tubing cutter or hacksaw to trim the tube to the required length.  You may also want a file to smooth the ends of the barrel and a drill for porting the discharge end of your blowgun.  A bench mounted vise can also make things easier.  For making darts, a serrated knife or hacksaw to trim the dowels is about all that is required.  If you are making hunting darts, you'll want needle nose pliers or a roto tool to make the broadheads.

Now let's look more closely at designing our blowgun...

Or, jump to the dart making page...