When I was a kid we made and played with these things called peg guns. We used to have peg gun wars. They would leave serious welts on you.

To make a peg gun...

get a wood plank

put a nail in one end of it (like sticking out the thin end of the plank)

nail one clothes peg through its spring, onto the planks broad face at the other end .

Then remove the spring from as many clothes pegs as u can without ure mother noticing / crucifying u (you can also put them back together when your finished)

Also proquire as many big elastic bands as possible.

Put an elastic band through the two arms a cloths pegs spring to make one projectile.

To load, put the spring of your projectile in the teeth of the peg nailed to the board, then stretch the elastic band to the nail at the at end of the plank

Now you can aim the whole thing at your target and squeeze the clothes peg to release your projectile, allowing the elastic band to propel it.

Don't forget Bag of Glass, Invisible Pedestrian, and Johnny Kombat with real M14 rifle.

Also, how-to video showing the plank gun:

https://youtu.be/HwLKyBtdZJc

Yeah like that but a lot bigger. Also the springs in pegs were a lot bigger and heavier, and no way would some elastic bands be able to hold the peg on, it needed to be nailed on.

Like twice that long or more. I also made a giant one with 3 pegs / nails so I could fire 3 times before reloading.

When my dad was a kid they used to make muzzle loading pistols out of pipe scraps. You used firecrackers as a charge and shot marbles at each other.

Mr purple cat yesss! We used to make crossbows with scrap and old school clothes pegs all the time when I was a kid.

Hammering finish nails or sewing needles into the ends of these was another part of the process in Glasgow http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mn9Iu2XAelGzgq0MegBu0-w.jpg

Popped bike tires and sore legs aplenty.

You could just make a blow gun out of a biro pen. Shoots toothpicks and needles just fine.

In the 80s there was this little toy cannon that had a pencil sharpener on the bottom. A month after I bought it I discovered there was a spring mechanism to pull the breech out, with a little compartment to load a broken off piece of pencil lead. Let go of it and the lead would shoot out the cannon with a good range of 15 feet.

Good lord did I have a blast with that in 2nd grade. The spring was quiet and the pencil leads nearly invisible. As long as no one actually saw you let go of the cannon they would have no idea what just hit them. You could even deny it by showing them it's just a harmless pencil sharpener!

Was never able to find another toy like it, even searching around online.