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Rail gun fires slug at Mach 7.5

SouthernBoy

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Tomahawk wrote:
I think it works out to 7818158.48439835 ft-lbs of muzzle energy. Too bad the "barrel" wears out after four rounds:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/01/us_navy_railgun_test_video_success/
Ok, this is great. Now I'm gonna want one of those. But there is a problem. Over penetration. And frangible bullets may not take the stresses. So what is a gun guy to do?

Solid dish-shaped projectiles! No more worry about expansion or any such silly thing.. the dish rounds are already expanded! Just load 'em up and let go at the BG's. Nice big entrance holes and no through-and-through wounds to make you worry about collateral damage to innocents.
 

Weak 9mm

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Nice. There's a whole lot of fire-like stuff coming out of there btw. What's up with that? I figured it would be like silent (Other than the bullet) and flashless if it's electromagnetic. Also, it appears that the slug sheds some kind of possibly charged and probably protective shell after leaving the barrel.
 

Tomahawk

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I was wondering about the fire, too. Maybe it's the metal itself igniting from the heat.

The shell thing is likely a conductive sabotthat carries the current from one rail to the other, which, when crossed with an orthoganal magnetic field accelerates the slug. But I'm just guessing here, since there's no further info.
 

Weak 9mm

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Tomahawk wrote:
I was wondering about the fire, too. Maybe it's the metal itself igniting from the heat.

The shell thing is likely a conductive sabotthat carries the current from one rail to the other, which, when crossed with an orthoganal magnetic field accelerates the slug. But I'm just guessing here, since there's no further info

I also just read, on that same wiki page, that for this to work the projectile must "close" the normally open circuit, so you were correct in thinking that it's a conductive sabot. When I made the post above about the sabot possibly being charged I was also thinking about the fact that if the slug were aluminum, it would need an outer "shell" in order for this to work properly if was being driven by a magnetic field.

The logic behind the design of this weapon is surprisingly simple, it appears that it's just that the implementation of this logic is rather difficult. I get the feeling that they'll have to figure something out (Something ingenious) to solve the problem of the barrel's longevity. The problem I see is that the sabot probably needs to have a very good connection with the barrel in order for this to work properly. I imagine it fits in there pretty snugly, and with those velocities I can't imagine what materials are capable of handling the friction generated.


20 kilometers per second has been achieved with small projectiles explosively injected into the railgun.


Also, It does appear that the fire may actually be from the method they use to introduce the sabot into the barrel initially (This "explosive injection" they speak of).




Edit: Is it just me or are the quote things kind of buggy? I can't ever seem to easily erase them, not to mention that now that I've backed that empty quote up below the first quote, I can't even put the cursor in it. If I hit the up arrow, it just jumps right through the empty quotes and into the box above. lol.:cuss:
 

Doug Huffman

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Re the script, yes wotta pain to use with my security stuff.

Re 'fire', is incandescent gasses, absent combustion, from lots of energy into low specific heat stuff.

Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns and the truth. NRA KMA$$
 

Tomahawk

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20 km/s, holy crap! Do you have any idea how fast that is? A satellite in low Earth orbit moves along at 7.8 km/s (about 25 or 26 thousand fps). Add another 3.1 km/s to that in order toreach the moon. No wonder these things wear themselves out after one shot.
 

Weak 9mm

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Yeah this is in the vicinity of 65,600 ft/sec. :shock:
 

SouthernBoy

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Tomahawk wrote:
20 km/s, holy crap! Do you have any idea how fast that is? A satellite in low Earth orbit moves along at 7.8 km/s (about 25 or 26 thousand fps). Add another 3.1 km/s to that in order toreach the moon. No wonder these things wear themselves out after one shot.
Manned space craft in the early to mid 60's traveled at 18,000 MPH as they circumvented the globe. As you go higher, your velocity can be reduced since you are moving away from the earth's gravitational pull.
 

Custodian

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Holy crap! The Navy has been hiding all of that cool jet age future tech!

Time for a quote.

Though he may have been a criminal, Wesley Snipes' Simon Phoenix had a valid point... "Wait a minute, this is the future. Where are all the phaser guns?"

So where is my Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40 watt range? And more importantly do I need a permit for that too? And if so, can I carry it concealed? Open?

If not... What about this?

http://amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm

Oh yeah, Laser Ray Gun! High-tech S**t!
 
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