I came up with the idea of using my 37mm to launch a parachute equipped video camera projectile for taking aerial video/photo. The problem I'm having is the camera can only handle so much force when it's launched, and using low launch charges doesn't allow much altitude (maybe 150ft). So I got the idea of using a finned projectile with a model rocket motor to boost it to higher altitude (I'd like to reach 1,000ft). I'm not 100% sure how to build it though, or if someone makes a projectile I can use or repurpose. Anyone tried rocket boosted projectiles before for anything like this?

The model rocket folks have been doing it for years, and since they're not doing it out of a rifle attached launcher, avoid all sorts of NFA craziness.

Yeah I thought about just building a small rocket and using a normal launch pad for this but I thought it would be interesting to make it into a self contained shell. Less to set up and quicker to launch. Easier to aim too so that I can counter wind drift to retrieve.

I was considering if it would fall under "DD" but since launching a camera is not even remotely "anti-personnel" I don't think it falls under the NFA. I only posted here because this was the only place I could think of where people have experience with 37mm launchers. Mine isn't rifle mounted, it's a standalone.

I actually found a place that sells a "rocket flare" casing that uses an Estes A size motor. Should be perfect. I just need to figure a chute size and I should be GTG. Once I get this working I'll post some videos.

I have tried several times to get a model rocket engine to work out of my 37 mm launcher.
I put a very short section of fuse in the opening on the engine and a light lift charge. I did not want the engine light while still in the tube. I have watched them burn trough aluminum cans and didn't want then to harm the launcher tube. That part worked great the projectile went out about 30 feet and when the engine light off started tumbling end over end and only went a few yards
Not enough room in the 37mm for proper fins and  you have to watch how the weight to thrust ratio is played out

sabot a rocket with rearward opening spring loaded fins.
Use a G triggered switch and micro electric timer to ignite the engine with standard rocket igniter.
GPS tag it for easy retrieval.

Cmon, just look at motor/fin assisted howitzer rounds to know how to build it..


Duh..

Why not go with a go pro in a potatoe cannon?  Make magazine had plans for a fin stabilized projectile you 3d print.  I had some interns build one last summer while they built and hacked 3d printers.  Plans worked pretty well but there are a few things I would change.

Could you take the model rocket kit with the camera add a few fins in the front. Get a PVC pipe and mount  the ignighter about midway up the tube and run the wire to the back. Load this from the rear hook up the ignighter and shoot kind of like a rpg-7

It would probably be considered a DD on its own.  Closest thing to it would be rounds for the Gyro-jet pistol (each is a DD).

This same problem applies to the rpg-7 vs rpg-2; the 2 is simply a recoilless smooth bore using a BP charge.  The 7 contains a rocket booster in each round.

Thought only the 13mm Gyrojet bullets were DDs?  After that ruling, they released it as a 12mm, I thought.

There's a company making 37mm projos that use a model rocket engine Here

When they say "fused" on that site, could this mean engine's ejection charge = initiator = "bird bomb" payload?

A round designed to propel a camera is obviously not in any way designed or intended to be anti-personnel where as the gyrojet rounds are all designed primarily to be anti-personnel rounds so I don't think the presence of a rocket means anything as far as DD classification. There are legal non-DD flare rounds that use rockets.

I found another guy who made one for a 26.5mm using a spring loaded fin design, but he's having issues with the camera breaking anyway. I also found another guy building one for a 26.5mm that is planning to embed the camera's guts in epoxy and make the camera the actual nose cone of the projectile.

The potato cannon is a really good suggestion though. I might actually abandon this and go with that. I have a 2" pneumatic cannon that will send a golf ball high enough that you can make lunch before it comes back down. I can experiment with launch pressures a lot easier with that then using powder in the 37mm to launch it.

I was also thinking I don't really need the rocket motor if I use the air cannon, I could probably just put an ejection charge controlled by a gravity switch to pop the chute when the projectile goes weightless at the apex. A fishing sinker attached to a microswitch with an "in bore" safety switch to prevent inadvertent detonation while loading and an activation switch on the nose cone would work.

I do like that "rocket flare" casing they sell though. I'll have to order one of those.

I'm also thinking I should put some type of tracking/locating device in there. If nothing else at least a bright flashing LED light. Maybe one of those bluetooth locators though... I'd hate to launch this thing and then lose it!

In most of the 37mm projectiles "Fused" means that they pre-drill, and fasten a piece of visco into the payload compartment...im assuming this is the same thing, visco leading from the ejection charge of the motor so you can make a firework type display with either stars, or chopped up crackle fuse

We built them all the time out of cardboard tubes and model rockets when I was a kid.

X Products 'Can Cannon' for a camera launcher.  I saw a vid of someone launching a gopro. :-)   It's big enough.