Slashdot Mirror
Building a Full-Auto Gauss Gun
Okian Warrior writes "Adding to the 3-D printed gun/rifle controversy, Delta-V Engineering built a Full-auto Gauss gun (aka 'machine gun'), capable of firing 15 steel bolts from its magazine in less than two seconds. At 3% the muzzle energy of a .22, it's still in the prototype stage. Bullets are made from turned-down nails, and the gun uses no chemical propellants. The builder has posted the design notes online. Video of the gun in action is pretty interesting."
"Adding to the 3-D printed gun/rifle controversy"
How? Neither the Hack A Day article nor the design notes mention "3d" or "printing," and the fact that it's a gauss gun implies that metal is pretty central to the design... which can't be 3d printed at this point in time.
okay, a .22 averages around 1,120 f/s. 3% of that is 33.6 feet per second. That translates to around 23 MPH. Yes, I can see how this highly dangerous weapon might add to the controversy of 3D printed guns. It is only slightly slower than an olympic sprinter running at full tilt.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Saying that this contributes to the "3-D printed gun/rifle controversy" is a falacy. This weapon has limited components associated with 3D printing. The majority of the device appears to be machined aluminum. Not to mention the large about of electronics and power technology incorporated in the design. This has about as much to do with the "3-D printed gun/rifle controversy" as it does the "electrical engineering controversy".
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
This kind of gauss weapon is not new. The big limitation is power.
If you're the U.S. Navy, with a nuclear power plant aboard your aircraft carrier, a railgun is easy to power:
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,160195,00.html
A rifle? Catch Doc Brown next time he stops over in 2013. Maybe he has an extra Mr. Fusion to spare.
If you throw that in a backpack, maybe you can power your handheld rifle for a few shots.
Couldn't BFC's (Big Fucking Capacitors) be used to store charges? Like the kind you would get from a car stereo dealer?
Can anyone explain why they would/wouldn't work? I'm fairly newbish when it comes to the intricacies of electronics, and trying my best to develop a healthy understanding.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
In the US, it is legal to make a gun. A real gun that fires real bullets (one at a time).
But it is illegal to sell it, unless you're a firearms manufacturer.
Most people don't realize this, and is the heart of the 3D printed gun "controversy". The only reason it's a controversy is that most people don't know this. The ATF isn't very concerned, because the 3D printed guns will not really change the amount of guns in circulation... they're a one-off and will not last for generations, unlike a real gun.
I don't believe a gauss gun qualifies as a firearm. Thus, the laws against fully-automatic firearms (or firearms at all) don't apply, and is more akin to a BB gun, paint pellet, or airsoft gun. But this gauss gun has the potential of actually firing lethal rounds because it's not limited to the speed of expanding gases, which I find interesting.
Yes it is.
This clearly falls under the the first point.
Ehh, who needs mod points.
By that definition, then nerf and airsoft machine guns are illegal. Clearly you're missing something. Either that, or the US laws really are that bad, and the only reason why everyone is not in jail is because of selective enforcement.
For those who don't realize it, selective enforcement means the government and police can throw anyone they dislike in jail. It's a major enabler of tyranny.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
The big problem with this post is that it misses the entire point of the problem. You can make Gauss guns with ease, they work, and they fire things at high enough velocities to destroy hardened armored targets. That is not a challenge, the problem is making them last more than a few shots before they self-destruct.
This story was all about a low velocity gun that can fire more than 10 bolts at low speed. Again not a big deal. The problem is that they are using low power (relatively) to do this and it lasts a "long" time. When you up the power to useful level, it rips the rails us, oxidizes/burns them, warps them from heat, and all the other problems that are real engineers are struggling with.
In essence the OP says that they can avoid all the consequences by avoiding the useful effects of the device. Great, how can this not be considered a step forward! I can make a 500MPG car that doesn't actually move very fast and isn't large enough to carry a can of beer much less a person, is that too a massive advance in tech? Idiots.
From "The Maths" section of the builder's website:
"The most frequent comment I get on my coilguns is that I should use a lighter projectile to improve performance. This equations [sic] shows why that suggestion is wrong. It’s counter-intuitive, but for a fixed power and distance (e.g. fixed capacitor bank and coil), a lighter projectile will gain less muzzle energy than a heavier one."
The drawbacks you mention apply to rail guns, not Gaus guns. Gaus guns have serious problems of their own (most of the prototype designs aren't powerful enough, the only design I've read about that would probably have truly useful velocities requires superconducting magnets. If you read the wiki article, apparently there's serious problems with iron projectiles.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
http://www.askmar.com/Massdrivers/Superconducting%20Quenchgun.pdf
On Page 6 it has an interesting table of the actual mass and physical dimensions of the accelerator. Note that muzzle energies far greater than proposed for the Navy's railgun project are possible (the smallest one is 1820 megajoule's, the navy wants a 64 megajoule railgun) but also notice the huge size and bulk of the launcher : 147 meters long.
But there's no arcing problem, and the proposed design is supposed to be reusable.
Walking behind me as I watched the video and all she said was "No.".
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
It's very helpful that Slashdot has put little coloured Facebook / Twitter / G+ icons next to spammers. It makes it much easier to ignore their posts...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News