Home-Made Gauss Machine Gun Debuts On YouTube

[geizr]

That ending with the cake was great!

 

[gigastar]

Obvious issues with accuracy and projectile stability aside, it looks like a viable weapon from where im sitting.

And if it works as advertised, then we can get a move on and make hybrid coilgun weapons a reality. Might not be so great for small arms, but for mounted guns, tank cannons and shipboard weapons, could be the next best thing until they come out with a proper railgun that doesnt have insane power requirements, and doesnt come dangerously close to melting on the first shot.

 

[King of Asgaard]

Upon watching the video, this was the first thing I thought of [http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Gauss_Rifle], but the thought was replaced with another of how the video is nowhere near realistic, because he's not missing every shot he fires, even at close range.
(That's an XCOM joke, not a slight against the video, that shit's impressive.)

 

[Ukomba]

Hmm, why not have all the magnets on upon initial firing and have them turn off in sequence as the projectile moves through? Could be a power supply issue I guess.

The gun seems to be about as powerful as a bb gun or paint ball gun. The lack of noise makes it appear less powerful as well.

The force exerted by a coil is directly proportional to the current. The more coils you have in parallel the lower current your power source can supply to each of them. That would be my guess for why switching is better, although through the black art of circuit building that might be fixed and you might be right on it just being a power issue

That's true, but you can't put unlimited current through the coil. If the max power the coil can handle maxes out well below the output of the power source then you could power all the coils at the same time. I know the magnetic force decreases at a square of the distance from the source, you'd get less and less effect out of the farther magnets but you could still get some boost. So it is likely both, limited power makes it more effective to pump max power through them individually rather than in parallel.

 

[Rblade]

Hmm, why not have all the magnets on upon initial firing and have them turn off in sequence as the projectile moves through? Could be a power supply issue I guess.

The gun seems to be about as powerful as a bb gun or paint ball gun. The lack of noise makes it appear less powerful as well.

The force exerted by a coil is directly proportional to the current. The more coils you have in parallel the lower current your power source can supply to each of them. That would be my guess for why switching is better, although through the black art of circuit building that might be fixed and you might be right on it just being a power issue

That's true, but you can't put unlimited current through the coil. If the max power the coil can handle maxes out well below the output of the power source then you could power all the coils at the same time. I know the magnetic force decreases at a square of the distance from the source, you'd get less and less effect out of the farther magnets but you could still get some boost. So it is likely both, limited power makes it more effective to pump max power through them individually rather than in parallel.

did you see the size of those wires! I did a project with coils, a 0,1 mm wire can carry upto 2A pretty safely (1,2 by factory standard) under continues load. It's hard to eyeball but with 2 or 3 mm wire there with on off load I think you could risk cranking those bad boys up to like 100A (although that would be pushing it I guess, risking you insulation layer) Also the force of coils that size is negligible outside of the solonoid, it's even worse then squared so anything after the adjecent coil will have pretty much negligible effect. So outside of circuit convenience I don't think having any more then 2 coils on will change force in any noticeable way. (edit: just discussing btw, no intend to call bullshit on your claim or anything agressive like that.)

 

[Kennetic]

I've been telling people that these may just have a future in our military. I've thought about putting the batteries in the magazine so that you wouldn't have to worry about charge in the middle of a firefight. Cool stuff, but way over my head in actually construction. Nice job dude!

 

[Gitty101]

Is it wrong that I was expecting it to fire a straight laser beam when I saw the thing? Impressive looking weapon.

 

[Callate]

140 feet per second comes out to a bit over 95 mph, if I did the math right. That may not be "handgun" velocity, but it definitely falls into the area of "fastball" velocity... I wouldn't want to stand in front of that thing, especially on full auto.

 

[uchytjes]

And we aren't developing these guns why?

Seriously, if we could get these guns to a point where they are on par with or surpass that of current guns we could end up having even more of an advantage.

Also, this doesn't just have to be small rifles. If this technology could be used in artillery or sniper rifles, not only would it be almost completely silent, but it would mean we wouldn't have to deal with the manufacturing of rounds and gunpowder. Just machine a completely metal round and you're good to go.

 

[Darth_Payn]

This looks totally badass! With some more tweaking, it could be more accurate and the slugs would fire faster.
What year was the Shadow Moses Incident supposed to take place? I thought we'd have METAL GEAR REX's nuke-launching rail gun by now.

 

[Agayek]

And we aren't developing these guns why?

Mostly because if you want to get comparable performance, they're a) hideously more expensive, b) substantially harder to maintain, and c) in violation of that core military principle known as KISS, or "Keep It Simple, Stupid", which is vastly more important in the military than just about anywhere else.

 

[uchytjes]

And we aren't developing these guns why?

Mostly because if you want to get comparable performance, they're a) hideously more expensive, b) substantially harder to maintain, and c) in violation of that core military principle known as KISS, or "Keep It Simple, Stupid", which is vastly more important in the military than just about anywhere else.

Yeah. I guess that is a big trade off. But still, it would make for some pretty damn good big guns instead of rifles.

 

[vun]

And we aren't developing these guns why?

Mostly because if you want to get comparable performance, they're a) hideously more expensive, b) substantially harder to maintain, and c) in violation of that core military principle known as KISS, or "Keep It Simple, Stupid", which is vastly more important in the military than just about anywhere else.

Obviously not a smart choice for military use, but the issues you mentioned wouldn't be all that problematic for target shooting. I'd love something like this for competition shooting rather than traditional firearms. I'd love to have a casual competitive scene where people could bring their own constructions and test against eachother, and if you're not that handy you could get pre-built ones and tinker with them to your liking. It'd be a competition both in terms of accuracy and construction, so not as serious as traditional firearms competitions, but probably end up being way more fun.

 

[Agayek]

Obviously not a smart choice for military use, but the issues you mentioned wouldn't be all that problematic for target shooting. I'd love something like this for competition shooting rather than traditional firearms. I'd love to have a casual competitive scene where people could bring their own constructions and test against eachother, and if you're not that handy you could get pre-built ones and tinker with them to your liking. It'd be a competition both in terms of accuracy and construction, so not as serious as traditional firearms competitions, but probably end up being way more fun.

Oh absolutely. For target shooting, Gauss weapons are just about perfect. The kind of meet & greet you're talking about here would also be pretty damn sweet. Would be pretty awesome to go to one of those.

That's one drawback it would be hard to correct.

As far as I'm aware it's impractical to rifle a gauss gun as you would a regular one to make the projectiles spin and thus keep their trajectory. The rotational action comes from the expanding gases squeezing through the grooves and forcing the projectile to spin (although I', sure most people already know this) and is the essential ingredient in making guns accurate and long range.

That's why you use fins (or some other equivalent) on the bullet instead of rifling on the barrel. Stabilizing grooves carved along the round that force air aside and use the bullet's own momentum to turn itself would probably be ideal for this situation, but I'm no expert on aerodynamics, so I could be wrong.

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

I think that barrel needs to be rifled, that would help with the projectile tumbling and instantly increase the power of the weapon.

Other than that, the question is, how is this superior to gunpowder weapons? Off the top of my head, easier to produce the ammo (it's just metal slugs), a lot less noise, would work in a vacuum (for all your Space Marine action). On the downside, there's plenty of electronics that can get messed up and field repairs are pretty much out of the question (I doubt soldiers will be carrying around space circuit boards in their packs), while regular guns don't really have much that can go wrong (other than the occasional jamming problem).

All in all, the weapon would have to provide a noteworthy increase in firepower to be worth the added risks and hassle of all the electronics. Perhaps we'll get there one day, but not soon...

i could see something like this being the weapon of choice for special ops teams in the future. completely silent, caseless, and could potentially do more damage once its refined as it fires an entire bullet. delve into more sci-fi aspects and i could see people in the far future modifying the gun to have electromagnetic properties placed onto the bullet, possibly creating EMP rounds that could take out computers, or a small non damaging sticky bullet that could snap onto a surface and send an electromagnetic charge through a cable attached to the bullet and bottom of the gun, frying electronics without destroying them. Oh, the possibilities!

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

And we aren't developing these guns why?

Infantry-sized weapons: Too complex to utilize in the field and at this point would be too prone to failure to justify the incredible expense.

Tank-Sized Weapons: Maybe. Current slug sizes at this point simply require too much power to fit onto an Abrams-sized platform and heat dissipation may be a problem with the armoring.

Artillery sized weapons: Currently in development by the US military. Given current power demands, the most reasonable one would be ship-mounted. However, it would likely qualify as an unjustifiably expensive weapon given that it would only have anti-ship and artillery purposes, both of which are better and more accurately done via missiles.

On topic: The design could probably be brought up to lethal potential by modifying the mass and shape to reduce the energy needed to accelerate and reduce drag on the slug, likely by thinning and grooving the slug [footnote]Maybe even a cylinder shape, perhaps? The necessity for the closed back in conventional munition was to catch the ignited propellant, which is not necessary for a magnetically accelerated projectile and may increase drag.

In theory it could be highly lethal against unarmored targets similar to hollowpoint rounds.[/footnote]. Remember that penetration only requires concentrated inertia.

 

[Platypus540]

Other than that, the question is, how is this superior to gunpowder weapons? Off the top of my head, easier to produce the ammo (it's just metal slugs), a lot less noise, would work in a vacuum (for all your Space Marine action).

Actually, most modern guns can theoretically fire in a vacuum, since the propellant is included in the gunpowder, kind of like a rocket engine. Don't think anyone's ever tried it though. Those other advantages still stand, of course, and when they're scaled up railguns can fire a slug much faster than any cannon or missile, this is why the US Navy is field testing anti-ship railguns right now.

 

[Baneat]

And we aren't developing these guns why?

Mostly because if you want to get comparable performance, they're a) hideously more expensive, b) substantially harder to maintain, and c) in violation of that core military principle known as KISS, or "Keep It Simple, Stupid", which is vastly more important in the military than just about anywhere else.

Yeah. I guess that is a big trade off. But still, it would make for some pretty damn good big guns instead of rifles.

To match the power of an AR15 I bet you need a gun even larger than an M82A2.

And it needs to charge and it's really complicated

 

[WanderingFool]

But more important than any of that, it's stupidly cool...

Im sold, Ill take 7. Yes, I know I only really need one, but I want fucking 7, dammit!