4 ms·

They’re very underpowered compared to an actual gun.

• kingkawn 2y ago
  What if it were a rifle to house a much larger electromagnet?
  • icegreentea2 2y ago
    There is a company messing around with commercial coilguns: https://arcflashlabs.com/product/emg-02/ https://arcflashlabs.com/product/emg-02/ They basically make something in a rifle form factor. It's still limited to 75m/s. That's low end air rifle speed.
  • myrmidon 2y ago
    The problem is that their efficiency at converting electricity into projectile kinetic energy is really bad (like single digit percentages bad), getting electrical energy and power density is quite difficult in the first place (capacitors have abysmally bad energy density compared to gunpowder), and coils absolutely hate having their current changed quickly (which you need for this to work).
    • kingkawn 2y ago
      Great and informative response, thank you
  • jakogut 2y ago
    The problem with coil guns in particular is the ferrous slug is drawn to the center of the magnetic field. The field has to be collapsed at the right time to avoid sapping velocity from the slug, counterproductively. Many designs that achieve respectable velocities use a multi-stage coil, which requires precise timing for each magnetic field, a lot of power, and high current capability. Generally, that means large batteries for a power source and large capacitors to feed the coils, which becomes heavy and expensive. Even rifle variants rarely make more energy than a .22 LR, a feat which is easily overshadowed by air guns several hundred years old. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle
    • 15155 2y ago
      > his air gun which fired 22 times at one charge I think these might be classifiable as assault weapons.
      • jakogut 2y ago
        If anything, I think it goes to show that weapons like this are anything but novel and unusual.
  • dragonwriter 2y ago
    Conventional guns are also more powerful as rifles than handguns, the same problem remains.
  • jjk166 2y ago
    The electromagnet isn't the issue, it's the capacitors to power the magnets. A coil gun capable of matching a small handgun would be too heavy to reasonably carry. At the scale where they could become competitive with a conventional gun, you have an artillery piece.
    • kingkawn 2y ago
      An artillery shell that only required slugs without more complex manufacturing would be pretty useful…