Spud Guns: Fans Get A Bang From Jet-Propelled Potatoes

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Potatoes. You can bake 'em, boil 'em, fry 'em.

Or, you can do something that most likely never occurred to James Beard: You can put one in a plastic tube, inject some hair spray, ignite it, and watch as the supercharged spud is propelled the length of a football field.

This may not sound like a lot of fun to you. But there are places in America where these homemade launchers - known as spud guns - are turning side dishes into sidearms.

"It's fascinating to see this hair spray shoot a potato for maybe 100, 150 yards, depending on the gun you've built," said Jerry Dunstan, who owned a hardware store in Baden, Pa.

"When I first heard of it, I thought there was no way hair spray can propel that potato this far. But it can," he said.

Dunstan supplied parts for as many as 20 spud guns when the fad swept his town near Pittsburgh last fall. His store recently burned down; evidently, wayward tubers played no part in the blaze.

That's not to say these things aren't dangerous:

-- In March, police arrested two West Virginia University students for firing onions and newspaper balls at three police cars, shattering the rear windows of two and denting the side of a third.

-- On June 11, the flammable gases in a spud gun exploded in a lawyer's face in York, Pa., taking out his left eye and fracturing his skull and eye socket. J. Christian Ness, 48, required more than 15 hours of surgery to rebuild the left side of his face.

-- Also in June, Mike Cabell Jr., 15, of Barboursville, W. Va., suffered minor burns on his face when flames shot out of a spud gun he built with a friend.

"Any type of weapon that has any type of combustion that has to be ignited, that's something kids shouldn't be messing with," his father said.

"We're just thankful. He could have lost his eye. Or it could have been more permanent damage. . . . But a little more hair spray in that combustion chamber, or if he'd been closer, it could have been a lot worse," he said.

But Mike Marchiano, a police officer in Martinez, Calif., near Oakland, warned against overreacting.

"It's like kids getting ahold of fireworks," he said. "Are fireworks a danger? When improperly used, yes. But when properly used, they're a lot of fun."

Authorities don't know who built the first spud guns; there have been reports of potato weaponry since the 1970s.

Spud guns generally are made with plastic tubing, hair spray and a barbecue lighter, all costing about $50. One end of the tube is capped, hair spray is sprayed inside, and the potato is wedged into the muzzle. The lighter touches off the flammable hair spray.

Two years ago, an unnamed company asked the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) for permission to manufacture guns it called the "50-Idaho Express" and the "38 Spudcial"; however, no permission was necessary, because ATF does not consider spud guns to be firearms.

There's a lot of spud-gun experimentation going on. In a 1994 column, humorist Dave Barry reported he and a friend climbed atop the Miami Herald building and fired potatoes, Pop-Tarts and a Barbie doll into Biscayne Bay.

He foresaw a spud-gun menace.

"People should form organizations and write angry letters," he wrote. "Congress should hold hearings. The Clinton administration should announce a definite policy and then change it. Maybe the Warren Commission should get back together."

Perhaps inspired by Barry, the governor of his state, Lawton Chiles, celebrated the end of his inaugural parade in January by pulling a device out on stage and shooting three potatoes, aiming away from the crowd.

Still, spud guns haven't shown up everywhere. Dewey Stokes, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said from his headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, that he had never heard of such a weapon.

And Stephen D'Andrilli, a 15-year veteran of the New York City Police Department who now is a government consultant and runs a security agency, said he'd be surprised to see spud guns in New York.

"That's probably something that you'd hear about in Nebraska, not here. Bob Dole would probably know more about it than me," D'Andrilli said.

"I grew up in Brooklyn. We used the real thing here. If you pointed a toy gun at somebody here, they'd shoot back with a real one," he said.