Paper pellets make great projectiles, just ask any schoolkid. Paper Shooters, rifles made primarily out of cardboard, can fire those paper pellets up to a distance of 25 yards, lending a degree of professionalism to a pursuit that is usually more of a hobby.

Developed by a team of designers that includes former Nerf engineers, in collaboration with Bang Creations, the Paper Shooters kit comes with all the tools needed to build the working gun. Apart from the plastic firing mechanism the gun is pretty much all cardboard, and the three varieties—Digital Ops, Golden Touch and Zombie Slayer—look surprisingly realistic (although perhaps only if you're James Bond in the case of Golden Touch).

The creators have just launched an Indiegogo campaign for £42,000 ($64,439), to satisfy the minimum order number required to begin manufacturing kits in China, and to raise additional funds for further die-cutting tools and molds.

Wired.co.uk spoke to Mike Howarth of Team Paper Shooters by e-mail about the gun. He said: "I'm an entrepreneurial 29-year-old from Manchester who loves designing new products. This is my first product—designed initially in my apartment—and has just blossomed from there into a really great piece of kit. This is my first product, although there are lots more to come!"

Each kit contains a plastic firing mechanism and skeleton, layers of cardboard "skin" for the gun that are either glued or clipped on, eight gold shells, 50 pieces of premade ammunition, a mold for making new ammunition out of paper (any soft paper will do) and a target in the shape of a zombie's head.

Howarth said: "The plastic is merely a 'skeleton' (minimum amount) as it shoots wet paper ammo that the user makes themselves." The soft paper pellet ammunition fits into cartridges the shape of real bullets, and creating a cardboard gun that could handle moisture was a particular challenge.

The cartridge casings eject out of the side every time the user reloads, just like a real semiautomatic rifle. Apparently, the pellets have aerodynamic qualities similar to Airsoft rounds ("the accuracy is very good up to 65 feet [20m], then probably drops slightly after that," says Howarth), so they are actually quite dangerous if not treated with respect. It's very much for teenagers, not children, with an age guidance of 14-years-old and up. According to Howarth, "the 'gunsmith experience' is definitely the main selling point."

Also, while the kits come predesigned, "users can absolutely print their own card frame as we supply the card template blueprints via email with every kit," Howarth said. It's not quite 3D-printing an actual gun, but it's a lot safer and a lot more legal.

This post originally appeared on Wired UK.