I Got a Launcher, Now What?

Getting a launcher, especially in 40mm, is an ordeal in and of itself. Now that you have one and a place to shoot, what’s next? There can be analysis paralysis and endless rabbit holes when it comes figuring out what ammunition you want for your launcher. The most common round is the m781 chalk round. This round approximates the trajectory of many other rounds and is a good place to get started. It’s as simple as getting a projectile, 40mm m212 style case, and a “full” power blank. The projectile should be secured with a RTV or super glue to the case and the blank pressed in. But that’s not the reason for this article, Let’s explore rounds beyond the m781.

The types of rounds available can be broken up into several categories including wildlife control, signaling, illumination, practice, sub-caliber, less lethal, crowd disbursement and other miscellaneous rounds. The most common type of round outside of the m781 are types are what I would call wildlife control rounds. These include point detonating rounds and air burst rounds. There are many free designs as well as commercial offerings. point detonating rounds can be as simple as a firing pin embedded in the nose cone with a primer below it covering a payload. Other designs have a spring or centrifugally ejected safety pin which unlocks a sliding mechanism intended to be triggered by impact of the projectile. Air burst type rounds rely on a delay train which can be as simple as firework fuse lit by the “lift” charge aka propellant of the round itself or set by the acceleration of the round being launched (inertia set fuse). Signaling rounds can be as simple as a flare but include things like colored smoke and star clusters (firewall like rounds). The most popular flares are standard 12-gauge and 26.5mm flares used with sub caliber adapters in your launcher. Illumination rounds can also include specific types of star cluster or comets and parachute style flares which can produce visible or IR light. Practice rounds are typically the chalk rounds but can include different types of round that can be used at night or under night vision. The list goes on but I’ll spare you and leave you to look into the rest further.

The first wildlife control round I would recommend is the so called “nipple” round. This is a 3d printed round that accepts a 14.5mm artillery simulator projectile (m183a1) available at https://www.mutinymachine.com. I consider these as safe, cheap and practical. They generally need a direct impact into something solid like a dry berm or a steel target. Another good choice is the LauncherPope PD rounds available at https://odysee.com/@LauncherPope:f/40mm-Pack:8. These require a little more hands on and can be sightly more risky as the payload is DIY. I recommend black powder as the payload. My rule is to never load anything I wouldn’t want to go off in the barrel. You can easily banana peel your launcher with a few grams of flash powder. Let’s keep our fingers/hands and launchers in good shape by never doing this! There is a reason 95+% of the cost of rounds with dangerous payloads are in the fuses and safety mechanisms. Safe fuse trains and safeties are out side the scope of DIY. Another caveat to be aware of is the size of printed rounds. You should take care to insure your rounds are within tolerance.

Air burst rounds would be next on my list. Unfortunately at this time I don’t have one that I recommend yet. I have heard good things about the Bonetti 40mm rounds. They are available but pricey and not listed on the website https://www.bonettiordnance.com/projected-grenade. I’m currently following some projects from the 3dp community for alternatives.

The last round I’ll go over in this article is a very simple smoke round. This is in interesting idea someone shared with me where you use a commercial WP40 pull wire grenade with a printed 40mm base. The smoke grenade itself is the projectile and there is no shell; just a base to hold a primer and some black powder. I modeled this and have it available at https://odysee.com/@BenglesBullets:0/40mm-EG-Smoke-01:9. If there is interest I can make an anodized aluminum version available for sale.