The prototype looks viable to me. I'm not a coil gun builder at all, but back circa 1986 I was doing my 7th grade science fair project on strobe and flash units. I tried discharging the a photoflash unit's capacitor bank through a coil I removed from a small solenoid, and I was able to launch 10D nails with velocity that I definitely would consider hazardous. I was able to imbed the nails a about 1/4" into the walls of my dad's workshop--enough that they stuck into the plywood. This is not weapons caliber performance of course, but this was a hack experiment held together with radioshack clip leads, without any endeavor on my part to evaluate and improve performance. Based on what I saw with my own eyes, I have no doubt that a handheld unit could be refined to produce a 33 m/s launch.
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The prototype looks viable to me. I'm not a coil gun builder at all, but back circa 1986 I was doing my 7th grade science fair project on strobe and flash units. I tried discharging the a photoflash unit's capacitor bank through a coil I removed from a small solenoid, and I was able to launch 10D nails with velocity that I definitely would consider hazardous. I was able to imbed the nails a about 1/4" into the walls of my dad's workshop--enough that they stuck into the plywood. This is not weapons caliber performance of course, but this was a hack experiment held together with radioshack clip leads, without any endeavor on my part to evaluate and improve performance. Based on what I saw with my own eyes, I have no doubt that a handheld unit could be refined to produce a 33 m/s launch.