Homemade Portable Railgun Approaches Air Rifle Energies

Ammoland ^ | 19 October, 2015 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

A homebuilt, portable railgun is claimed to have achieved projectile energies comparable to commonly available air rifles.

In the picture above, the capacitors, which store the railgun electrical energy, have been painted white.  They are the large cylindrical objects at the front and bottom of the gun..

Here is a video of a test of the railgun.  The rail gun can be carried, contains its own power supply for a single shot, and expels a projectile fast enough to make a half inch dent in plywood.  It probably would have penetrated the plywood, if the plywood had not had a steel backing.

Link to video

The original post only says that the velocity was over 250 meters per second.  That translates to 820 fps, or 560 miles per hour.  A poster on freerepublic noted a critical, and missing bit of information.  From freerepublic.com:

“How heavy was the projectile? An arrow traveling at 800 fps is a formidable projectile, for instance. Mass matters.”

I was able to find the mass of the projectile with some Internet research.
From YouTube:

[TChad]

Do you know how they guide the projectile?

Maybe using GPS:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-08/its-experimental-rail-gun-navy-wants-gps-guided-hypersonic-projectiles

[G Larry]

I recommend the “Exact Jumbo Heavy Diabolo” at 18.13 gr.

Cost more, better flight, more energy to target.

Knock down rabbits at 55-70 yards all day long.

[Utilizer]

Related post (with building commentary) here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3192196/posts