Safety

    Safety, of course should be your foremost concern when spudding and in my experience, spudding is safe provided you follow some simple rules of common sense.

-Never point your spudgun at anyone. You've probably read this countless times but it still remains the most important item. It's worth noting that if you use your spudgun to damage someone else's property or hurt them then your gun is considered a firearm and you're up for all sorts of charges not to mention the usual stuff about assault and all. Of course don't point you're spudgun at house or anything either even if you think that it's unloaded and uncharged. Oftentimes, I've heard of stories of one friend loading a spudgun, then doing something else and another friend thinking it's not loaded and firing it in a generally bad direction. Or for some other reason, you think its not loaded and charged but it is.

-Don't look into the barrel or chamber while sparking it. Obviously looking into the barrel is more dangerous than looking into the chamber but you can still singe you're hair from fuel going off in the chamber. Believe me, singed hair stinks bad. Even if the fuel won't go off while the endcap is on, sometimes it will go off when the cap is open because it has oxygen available in the air outside. If you really over did it on the fuel, the flame can go on for a while with ether or a different liquid fuel and melt your threads if you don't smother the flame. Often when you're first starting you might need to look at the sparker to make sure it's working, so first empty the fuel and smell to make sure it's gone and then look at the sparker from an angle so nothing blows up in you're face.

-Don't stuff too much stuff down the barrel of a combustion gun. The ABS or PVC tube isn't nearly enough to actually contain the explosion, and it only holds because the gasses have an easier way to escape: through the barrel. If it is easier to explode the chamber, of course it will, sending painful shards of PVC into you, I don't know what would happen with ABS but it it's definitely not good. I had problems with this because I had to patch a hole in the side of the chamber from an earlier mistake and the patch wasn't as strong as the original tube. This shouldn't be too much of a problem but it's worth putting here. 

-Don't spark the sparker soon after glue up. Apparently the fumes from both PVC and ABS glue are flammable and could go off while you're testing the sparker. After the glue dries, air out you're gun.

-Wait at least 24 hours after gluing before firing you're gun whether it's pneumatic or combustion. If you don't wait, it could blow apart in you're hands.

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