Home-Made Gauss Machine Gun Debuts On YouTube

[Caffiene]

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

You have two hands, dont you? You obviously really need at least two.

(And if you dont have two hands for some reason, the second one would fit nicely with a bionic arm adding the necessary second hand)

 

[SanguiniusMagnificum]

Gentlemen (and women and everything inbetween), only one obvious question remains. Can we supersize it, fix it on a giant mecha and make it fire tactical nukes?

 

[rofltehcat]

Hrm... couldn't many of the problems be fixed by smaller projectiles, maybe even with fins for stabilization like on a sabot round?

 

[Teoes]

I'm super jealous that someone had the time, knowledge, tools, materials and wherewithal to knock up something like that and have it looking better than half-decent. Of course somewhere in a government-owned bunker is all the really tasty stuff. /tinfoilhat

Gentlemen (and women and everything inbetween), only one obvious question remains. Can we supersize it, fix it on a giant mecha and make it fire tactical nukes?

What kind of stupid question is that? Of course we can! Giant mechas with super-sized gauss machine guns firing tactical nukes for all!

 

[Zetatrain]

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.

If I recall correctly, the US navy did create a railgun prototype (for a warship) a few years ago and were putting it through some trial runs. Don't really know what's going on with the project as of now.

 

[nyysjan]

Gentlemen (and women and everything inbetween), only one obvious question remains. Can we supersize it, fix it on a giant mecha and make it fire tactical nukes?

With the proper funding, HELL YES.

 

[CrystalShadow]

It's probably due to lack of rifling... It isn't shown, but I doubt it is (also no mention of bullet spin on the guns stats over on his page). I'm a complete layman when it comes to projectile physics so excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong, but he probably would have been better with Ball-bearings, as you had considered. The length vs its width and breadth would have a sever impact on it's trajectory. Heck a shorter bullet would have probably worked better.

That said, it looks pretty sweet, but there is something abjectly terrifying about watching someone fire a homemade gun.

There is no rifling on a coil gun, it's one of the drawbacks to the design.Don't quote me on this, but I'm not sure the bullet would be able to spin properly anyways since it's being pulled through the barrel progressively instead of pushed from the back.

Okay then, thanks for that. I edited a bit more into my post. What if one was to use the magnets to cause the spin? Like a small slightly curved magnetised strip on the bullet (or in the barrel?) that acts against the coils pull but not enough to affect acceleration?

I'm fairly confident you could devise a rotating magnetic field - the operating principles behind brushless electric motors in fact depend on it. However, it would add considerable complexity both to the design of the rifle, and probably also to that of the bullet.
(Off the top of my head I can't quite remember the design details of an appropriate electric motor design, and certainly not how you would adapt it to add spin to something like this...)

My guess, given the number of coils in a rifle like this, would be to use a split coil in place of a solid ring (eg 8 small partial coils in a ring around the barrel for instance), then offset the angle of each set of coils, so that relative to the barrel, each coil in the sequence has it's set of magnetic fields at an offset to the previous coil.

The main complication (aside from the massive increase in wiring involved), would be that it would also require that the bullet has a more complex construction, since a solid piece of metal won't rotate at all. Some parts of the bullet would have to be more attracted to a magnetic field than others.

(I guess given the example of using 8 fields for each coil, a star shaped projectile consisting of 8 fins, rather than a solid piece of metal might work.)

This would get pretty complicated, but it might work.
Of course, there may be much simpler solutions though...

 

[newwiseman]

I'd rather use a series of capacitors to make for a higher powered single fire gun (like an old bolt action rifle), but the semi auto is nice very sleek.

 

[Saulkar]

The advantage of a gauss rifle would be that there is no energy going backwards, so it wouldnt throw you around like a toy whenever you pulled the trigger.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The magnets still need to accelerate/PUSH the "mass" of the bullet, the force of which is exerted on them. Their recoil is almost completely equal to the force of the projectile leaving it, even if the projectile hovered in the barrel without touching anything.

 

[SadisticFire]

Forty-two meters per second. A solid metal cylinder charging right at you. That thing is scary. I would not want to be standing in front of that.

 

[The Lugz]

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.

I believe the military skipped gauss for this reason, it has too-many drawbacks for serious warfare versus traditional systems, it makes much more sense to use a full on rail gun at which point accuracy is moot because the projectile has such a high velocity that it doesn't have time to veer off course.

( also it's generally turned to magma, so you can't really put fins on it anyway )

 

[Elate]

While it may not be powerful enough to kill someone, I'd say it would be a useful non-lethal weapon perhaps a step above rubber bullets.

Then don't bring it to Florida: They'll throw you in jail for firing a gun UNLESS you kill someone.

As someone who is looking to move to 'Murica, I've been reading up on defensive gun use. The consensus is that if you use a gun to defend yourself, make sure it's fatal, otherwise you'll go to court/hell/jail at the hands of the attacker, even though it was self defense.

I meant more for police though. That thing looks like it could break skin, but not cause massive organ damage etc.

 

[Pinkamena]

Love the design. I was going to build a coilgun once. Spent half a year on planning, and wrote a program to simulate it to find the most effective design. Was going to be a 2-meter long, 9 stage gargantuan, firing 100-gram projectiles at a theoretical 800 km/s. Got pretty far too, but the project came to an abrupt stop when I had a short circuit and I fried a 500 dollar part...