Over Thanksgiving Break I went down to Arizona and got to see some of the new and interesting things that Jeremiah Cohn of Kalashnicohn LLC is coming out with these days (this is the maker of some interesting pistol caliber AKs we blogged about earlier). There will be a full interview with him up here soon, but for the time being I got some hands on with his latest product, a Mosin Nagant Golf Ball Launcher. At first I didn’t really get the allure to it, never having fired a golf ball launcher of any kind previously. But once we got out to the range, it was just pure fun and enjoyment, watching one or multiple balls sailing through the air. They tended to head in what ever trajectory they felt like going in, accuracy being measured in cardinal directions. But depending on what angle you tilted the muzzle, those balls were going a pretty far distance, certainly in excess of 400-500 meters. Jeremiah said he has seen them go much further than that, but the hill in front of us didn’t go beyond about 600 or so. I found that when aimed at something about 200 meters away, you can really see the ball zip this way and that, as opposed to just up in the air, where you lose track of the thing after about halfway through the flight. It can shoot up to three balls at a time, which is quite fun because you just watch this scatter blast of golf balls going everywhere downrange! In addition, this current version doesn’t have a locking mechanism on it, but the productions ones will have a simple latch down that secures it to the muzzle. The best part about it, is that it doesn’t alter the rifle in any way.

This is from Jeremiah-

A company we are working with, proposed this idea of a Mosin Nagant golf ball launcher. Literally about two or three days after that, we had already designed, prototyped, and tested a launcher for it. The company calls me back after that and mentions some ideas about designing, to which I tell them that we already have a working product. We blew them away with having the thing done within a week. It is only a month old idea or so. We’re hoping to make several hundred of them.

We designed it after the World War Two rifle grenade launcher that was actually used on the rifle. We wanted to go after three main groups of people, the history guys that really appreciate authentic looking gear and don’t want to mess with the rifle as it is, then the guys that just want to have fun with it, and then the guys that are a mix up both. Appreciate the history but also want to just have fun. It takes 7.62x54R blanks, should retail for around forty dollars, and will come with around ten blanks. The final version will have ports in it where you can close the ports and adjust the distance that you want the golf balls to travel. We also designed it so even if you shot through it with a live round, it will not overpressure the golf ball and have it blow up the launcher. I put a live round through it for testing and all it does is blow the golf ball to bits and out the end, but it didn’t harm the launcher at all, and more importantly cause an explosion that could become an injury to the shooter.