This Homemade Squirt Gun Shoots Molten Metal!

Jessica Miley

So we saw the world’s largest super soaker. Remember it just blasting that watermelon? Well, the Backyard Scientist didn’t want to be left behind and so he has created something super ridiculous. A squirt gun that shoots molten metal. This is definitely not a ‘try at home’ kind of experiment.

The gun is made really well from high-quality fittings, thank goodness as he really fills it with molten metal. Molten pewter to be precise. Pewter has a low melting point of about 170–230 °C which means it can be melted relatively safely at home. Kevin Kohler aka the Backyard scientist gets his by buying pewter plates and candlestick holders from his local junk shop, melting it down and pouring it into molds before remelting it in the squirt gun canister.

Like lots of these squirt gun videos, a whole bunch of stuff gets destroyed in the process of testing the gun, in this case, a pane of glass, a metal pitcher and of course the base line test for every backyard experiment, the watermelon! Surprisingly the watermelon comes off relatively unscathed.

The backyard scientist YouTube market is getting pretty crowded. People are coming up with wackier and more dangerous experiments all the time. Kohler finishes his video by turning the gun into a flame thrower. Luckily he doesn’t go into the details of just how he did that or else there might be some suburban firefighters working overtime.