Short duration pressure pulses generated by impacting samples with thin plastic sheets, or flyers, are being widely used to investigate dynamic materials properties. Peak pulse pressures are directly dependent upon impact velocity. Two types of exploding foil launchers are currently available that can produce flyer velocities of 0–0.4 and 0.8–4.0 mm/&mgr;sec. A ``velocity gap'' has existed between 0.4 and 0.8 mm/&mgr;sec which has limited the usefulness of the over‐all technique. A third launcher design has been developed that can accelerate flyers to velocities between 0.4 and 0.8 mm/&mgr;sec. The new design uses a free expansion gas chamber to moderate the performance of the older high velocity launcher. This design produces flyers with planarities usually less than 0.4 mm.