Marshmallow guns - How to Make Them - part 1

Many years ago, (eleven I think) I saw a marshmallow gun out of pvc pipe (sprinkler or plumbing pipe) for sale and thought how much fun it would be to make some. I thought it would be cheaper to make many than to buy them. It was cheaper only because I did make a ton but it was some work and if I did it again, I would do it differently.

The cute "Tommy" type guns I made took many elbows, stopper ends and different sizes of cut pipe. What I learned from several marshmallow battles, is that half the fun is making the guns. I had about 20 guns made and glued them in place. Over the years during our travels, they got broken in several places on a few different guns or the glue came off and I ended up with lots of pieces unattached. So, this time, I just took the entire bag with all the pieces of guns; it turned out to be a hit.

My sister-in-law emailed everyone before out annual Easter camping trip saying her children wanted to take their marshmallow guns. (I bought several for prizes at our last bunko reunion, see here for that post.) I used to take the guns every year camping but her children were the youngest in the family so they never got to participate in those marshmallow battles.

I packed up the bag with all the pieces and off we went Easter camping. When we got ready to have the marshmallow war, the working guns ran off quickly. I was left with lots of parts and many straight extra pieces of pipe I threw in the bag.

The creative children left behind started putting pieces together to make some amazing guns. The little one's just took a straight piece of pipe and they all had fun.

I do own a few store bought versions but I don't like them as much. The little plastic tube breaks easily, you can only fit in a few at a time. If any if the marshmallows are melted or sticky, they get stuck in the tube, you can only shoot one at a time and they take lots of time to load.

I had someone go take pictures for me since I was filling Easter eggs and gift bags for the egg hunt and game prizes. So, here you see Princess number 3 shooting one of the store bought guns.

If you look at the top picture, you can see three marshmallows in the air above my nephews head. Someone had a few in the tube at the same time before shooting. I thought that was a great shot.

I also like that this is fun for all ages. My nieces and nephews at age 4 and 5 had just as much fun as some of the adults that participated.

My brother-in-law made this contraption that was rounded. You could also use the black flex sprinkler pipe if you wanted to have a bendable gun. It would also not break as some of mine did. However, it wouldn't have the handles and mouth pieces that some of the "Tommy" type guns have. I like those better as they give a better mouth piece than straight pipe.

Princess number 5 had one of the "Tommy" type guns and I laughed when I saw the pictures. The mouth piece got turned around and was hanging down by the handle. She was too young to remember us having the big battles as well so she wouldn't have known to pull the handle around. The glue has come off of some of the gun joints. But, like I said earlier, I wouldn't glue them anymore.

Tomorrow, I will show the guns so you can see each joint and the sizes of each. This is a fun tradition that got lost for a few years due to us doing it in camp one year and then the hot sun melted the marshmallows and all the kids had sticky goo on their shoes and dragged sand into the tents and trailers making a sticky, sandy mess. Now, we know to go to an open field to have our wars so that doesn't happen.

We have done this at parks but unless you have hungry dogs around, it can make a mess on a hot day as well.

To be continued tomorrow.