My new venture: Rail/coil guns

[SP00K]

I'm very interested in building either a rail or coil gun. If someone could help me out via pm or email it would be fantastic.

I've gone through countless sites, videos, and books but I'm still uncovering a few questions here and there like:

Which is easier to build/more cost effective?
Would a coil wrapped along the entire length of a coil gun barrel increase power?
What's better and why/for shooting projectiles accurately/energy and time efficiency(from experience)?

Note, I do not plan on taking this new project lightly.

All tips and experiences would be greatly appreciated.

[245Tommy]

A coilgun is a hell of allot easier and cheaper to build than a railgun, the rails have to be replaced every few shots or dozen shots depending on the design. I built a gun that used a 12 layer 30mm long coil that shot a .25cal bullet with relatively good efficiency, here's some coil sizes that you could use http://www.instructables.com/id/Coilgun ... d-Results/. Amateur coilguns shoot impracticably slow(mine shot around 90 fps) and the fastest I've seen are a little over 100ms, why don't you consider an etg, http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/4mm-etg-t20124.html, http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/28-8kje ... 13449.html, http://4hv.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum ... .php?63596.[/url]

[geardog32]

yeah i would recommend a coil gun because it will be easier. basically with a coil gun you will be using a very short electro motive force to give the projectile momentum. then when the projectile is just passing through the coil it shuts off and the projectile carries on. to gain more power you can add more coils in stages. i am considering building one also, with three or more stages. where you get into real problems is getting the timing right on multiple coils. you have to have some understanding of time dependent dc circuits. if i start on mine soon i will post my progress and help out, but i dont see myself finding time for a while.

[inonickname]

I'm very interested in building either a rail or coil gun. If someone could help me out via pm or email it would be fantastic.

I've gone through countless sites, videos, and books but I'm still uncovering a few questions here and there like:

Which is easier to build/more cost effective?
Would a coil wrapped along the entire length of a coil gun barrel increase power?
What's better and why/for shooting projectiles accurately/energy and time efficiency(from experience)?

Note, I do not plan on taking this new project lightly.

All tips and experiences would be greatly appreciated.

A coilgun will be cheaper to build and cheaper to maintain. Railguns need rails etc. replacing regularly. For more power in coil guns, the best route is to use multiple stages. Simply having longer coils wont cut it.

Efficiency is an iffy one. For EM weapons, it swings a lot on how much go your capacitor bank has. For lower energies, and ETG or coilgun will work best. Accuracy, it depends. A high power railgun will have a lot more flat flight, though it's a lot easier to produce an aerodynamic round projectile rather than a square one.

[SP00K]

Thanks guys, I've narrowed it down to a coil gun (yay!). Mostly for it's simplicity, and the fact that it's silent.

ETG's, although cool, kinda defeat the purpose of my new project. My idea was to steer away from explosive propulsion (or else I would have made another combustion, pneumatic, or hybrid launcher).