SpudFiles

Hello,

I noticed that teflon and steel have a very low friction constant (0.05), and I was wondering if you could line a barrel with teflon (or make a barrel entirely out of teflon) and reach higher velocities than with a steel barrel (friction steel vs steel is 3x higher than steel vs teflon). Has anyone ever tried this? Or would the effect not be noticable?

Lower barrel friction might actually lower cannon performance. For combustion cannons the friction (especially the static friction) contributes a lot to performance by holding the ammo in position long enough for combustion to proceed and pressure to build. Combustion is actually a pretty close process.

For pneumatics, friction will give the valve more time to fully open.