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.
-- Ketchupybread, Feb 07 2009

Prototype, I guess http://www.youtube....watch?v=xQa_pnrbRwY
[Bootbuckles, Aug 21 2010]

I'll take two. [+]
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 07 2009


The card gun would be low velocity (compared to a real gun) and so could be fired off the force of a cooiled spring. This would make it battery free, as it could be cocked with a lever.

I propose that this gun would fire Pokemon cards and such. This would liven up Pokemon contests, as the winner would be the one to fire his card farthest, or produce the most paper cuts on his opponent.
-- bungston, Feb 07 2009


It could also shoot around corners.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 07 2009


It's a cybernetic cardganism called a Tarotminator, and it Will Not Stop!!!
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 08 2009



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