Card Gun

The record for longest card throw is about 66 meters, establishing the viability of playing cards as projectiles. The card gun should fire more accurately and quickly than a human thrower. Ammunition for a card thrower is cheap and small, allowing for magazine sizes that permit sustained automatic fire. Automating a system to grab and quickly launch a card is possible with the battery and motor technology used in lightweight power tools.

On releasing the safety catch, the firing motor spins up, causing two grabbers to trace a vertical circle in the plane of the weapon barrel. The grabbers are small rubber blocks with a slit to catch a card. The cartridge, a deck of cards, is outside but close to the vertical circle; cards that stick out above the cartridge get caught by the spinning grabbers and tossed. The acceleration is set so that the rubber can no longer hold on to the card after half a rotation or so.

A trigger pull activates the loading motor and wheels, an assembly resembling that of a printer's paper loader. The loading assembly raises a card above the deck into the path of the firing assembly. Because the firing grabbers rotate quickly, that card is fired almost immediately so that the loading assembly can prepare another without a pause. A plastic casing surrounds all of the moving parts except the front and top of the gun where cards are tossed.

Because the cartridge lies outside the firing assembly, the card gun can be reloaded during operation, without engaging the safety.

Note: Linear firing is simpler, but I think spin is a necessary stabilizing mechanism to get decent card projectile range.