Build your own gauss pistol at home!

[Bartholomew Roberts]

No joke...

http://www.gausspistol.com/

This guy has built one capable of busting a beer bottle with a 6.8g projectile from 9'. The innovation of people in making things to throw projectiles never ceases to amaze me...

 

[Sindawe]

Is it really a firearm if there is no fire or combustion involved?

Neat concept brought to reality, but not really practical. Yet. A carbine or rifle version would be even neater, maybe put the batteries or a small fuel cell in a backpack to power the capacitors and acceleration coils.

 

[Rem700SD]

Did you catch where this guy operates from? Maybe these could be used to defend the homes of disarmed(England) people if the tech gets a little better. I wonder what could happen if houshold current were applied using a similar apparatus...

 

[RyanM]

97 grains at 115 fps. That's little more than a toy. The problem with gauss guns is that a longer barrel, with more than a couple coils, requires a buttload of sensitive electronics which sense where the bullet is, and turn the coils on and off. If you don't have the money and knowhow to rig up some bullet detection junk, you're generally stuck with a single coil.

 

[wingnutx]

cool.as.hell.

 

[kentucky_smith]

attractive

 

[Fly320s]

Won't work... have you seen the price of gauss these days?

hmmm... how about a gauss potato gun? Pax, need another Christmas gift idea?

 

[mbs357]

I want one.
I wonder if this one is magazine fed?
Edit: It's not, but the creator is looking into a 'clip' fed system or a revolver type system.

 

[middy]

My wrist rocket has much superior ballistics...

Still cool though.

 

[Devonai]

From the website, answer #2 to the question "is the Gauss pistol dangerous?"

The pistol weighs over 3 1/2 lbs, so it would be dangerous if hurled it at someone.

 

[KriegHund]

Coolness...

 

[TMM]

with improved minituization, magazine fed, and making it somehow rapid-fireable, this could be quite neat.

 

[M67]

People have been playing with this for 200 years.

Some years ago I did some reading about a Norwegian scientist who dabbled in coil guns around the turn of the last century. IIRC his patents were registered in 1902. Coil guns were well known by then, I think I saw something about a shoulder fired experiment from the 1840s, and the date 1814 suddenly popped up in my head. Anyway, these 1902 patents were mostly about controlling the coils, switching them on and off as the projectile accelerates down the barrel. This guy did experiments with projectiles weighing around 20 kilograms, shooting into a trap made from several layers of timber. Indoors in his laboratory at the university, using a gun with 20 or 30 coils, I think. He talked about building artillery with hundreds or even thousands of coils in sequence, shooting shells weighing several hundred kg, over longer ranges than conventional artillery. He was ahead of his time, no full size gun was ever made. During one experiment he did overload a hydroelectric powerplant, causing a fire in the main circuitboard and "much hilarity".

The Germans were looking into the same kind of technology 40 years later, but I don't think it got past the drawing board. Rail guns are probably more practical for high velocity. Various military and space agencies are looking into that. "Rail gun" technology is used to move passenger trains at 300 mph.

None of this is done with AA batteries.

 

[Brandon]

Don't discount it yet...

Firearms were extremely unimpressive for the first couple hundred years and then only used for shock effect.

Think about how recent repeating arms are in the grand scheme of things.

Electronic and computer technology knowledge and design multiplies somewhere in the realm of high scientific notation.

If aircraft design multiplied at the same rate as electronics and computers we would have been on the moon a few weeks/months after the Wright brothers.

It's doable.

 

[telomerase]

If aircraft design multiplied at the same rate as electronics and computers we would have been on the moon a few weeks/months after the Wright brothers.

Man hasn't been able to go to the Moon since 1972. What makes you think that government won't be able to stagnate the development of electronics, too?

That's not a rhetorical question, maybe computer progress is really inevitable. But why do you think so? What would prevent "Windows NT, a boot stamping on a human face, forever?"

 

[wolf_from_wv]

I wonder how well these work:

http://www.geocities.com/njh_howard/mysite/index.html

http://www.jeffhove.com/robots/coilgun.html

 

[loose cannon]

sarah would love this gun;100fps and 20seconds a shot.no high caps for this baby.

perhaps a plug in model.

 

[Mad Chemist]

These have a lot of potential.
I have $50 bucks that says, within 5 yrs the government will begin regulating them. Any takers?

Focused and omnidirectional emp devices are interesting as well.

JH

 

[mrmeval]

Coilgun.ru

The first one I saw that's a functioning pistol with magazine feed is the one by Evgeny Vasiljev.

Here's more
http://www.coilgun.ru/

Lots more
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=coilgun&btnG=Search

Um, damn, a force field to prevent atmospheric entry to a coil gun under vacuum.

http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SPBI1PW.HTM

No joke...

http://www.gausspistol.com/

This guy has built one capable of busting a beer bottle with a 6.8g projectile from 9'. The innovation of people in making things to throw projectiles never ceases to amaze me...

 

[mbs357]

I wonder what recoil is like on a much more powerful coil gun...

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

97 grains at 115 fps. That's little more than a toy. The problem with gauss guns is that a longer barrel, with more than a couple coils, requires a buttload of sensitive electronics which sense where the bullet is, and turn the coils on and off. If you don't have the money and knowhow to rig up some bullet detection junk, you're generally stuck with a single coil.

Why couldn't you just set the coils to (do whatever it is they do) in a particular timing sequence based on expected velocity in the barrel?

 

[geekWithA.45]

Aw, damn. Now I'm going to have to build one.

 

[mrmeval]

Same as a regular gun for the same velocity and weight. The recoil may be 'sharper' but the amount is directly proportional.

Those hobby guns are already 10 shot and outperform airguns.

I wonder what recoil is like on a much more powerful coil gun...

 

[mrmeval]

In reading up on that it was unsatisfactory. It did not allow for very minor differences in the ammo which can never be perfect.
A microsecond is a huge amount of time for these things.

So far optical has been the best. One using switches triggered by the projectile were not reliable.

Why couldn't you just set the coils to (do whatever it is they do) in a particular timing sequence based on expected velocity in the barrel?

 

[RyanM]

In reading up on that it was unsatisfactory. It did not allow for very minor differences in the ammo which can never be perfect.
A microsecond is a huge amount of time for these things.

So far optical has been the best. One using switches triggered by the projectile were not reliable.

Yep. With a two-coil gun, like the pistol linked to, it's not as critical. But when you've got more than that, timing is very tricky. Imagine if you had a straight-blowback pistol, designed so the cartridge case slips out of the chamber at the exact same the instant the bullet leaves the barrel. Would you fire it? A single coil going off at the wrong moment doesn't sound that bad, but on a really really powerful one, if you've got the energetic equivalent of the entire armament of the USS Iowa going off at once...

Electromagnetically propelled weapons won't be a reality for awhile yet, mostly due to materials restrictions. Coilguns require very delicate timing. Railguns require phenomenally strong and heat-resistant rails (almost beyond what is humanly possible to engineer, at this point), and thorough cleaning every couple shots. Both require heatsinks big enough to freeze Hell, if you want any kind of rate of fire.