Penetrating 1/4" plate steel

[thespeedycicada]

you might need a little more power than 2500 ft/lbs even with a harder projectile a supersonic hybrid perhaps?

[cdheller]

http://www.ramset.com/fasteners_powder.asp

ramset might have the tip you need.

they are made for penetrating into concrete and steel using a .22 blank pushing on a 3 or 4 in plunger.

tough metal , relatively cheap , already proven to work

1/4 and 3/8 threads to screw your sabot body on

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[DYI]

Although I would rather save this for when I actually post the launcher, it is large bore (by my standards), and is capable of muzzle energies upwards of 3500 ft/lbs in its current configuration, possibly over 7000 ft/lbs with a larger chamber and barrel. I am building a finned steel round now, made out of 1/4" steel rod which I will harden using _Fnord's method. If that doesn't work, I'll have to find some carbide or tool steel.

[dongfang]

Hi,

How about just drilling a hole in front of the re-bar, and sinking a hardened tool, like a mandrel or a sharpened, good quality Phillips screwdriver bit, into it?

Regards
Soren

[Matheusilla]

How about a large center punch or a cold chisel? You could even sheath a large drill bit into a steel pipe or solid rod. Just leave the drill shank sticking out and sharpen it to a point.

[thespeedycicada]

you can get big tungsten slugs off e-bay for cheap (well at least for tungsten) that should do it with a hybrid at least.

[DYI]

There is only one hybrid that I know of that can achieve a higher muzzle energy than this gun, and that is Killjoy's FEAR. I don't have the facilities or money to build a hybrid that could equal or exceed the power of this launcher, or even come close.

I may not even be able to order anything from eBay, since I don't have PayPal, and can't get it.

[thespeedycicada]

why dont you try an actual bullet its probaly not that much better than what you were doing before but its worth a try.

[Killjoy]

^Unless its armor piercing at best it will just dent the steel plate, the copper and lead are just to soft and steel rounds will just smush like the rebar.

And DYI if I lived in canada I could have loaned FEAR to you. All this talk though is giving me the urge to try out armor piercing tests with FEAR.

[SpudBlaster15]

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[thespeedycicada]

^Unless its armor piercing at best it will just dent the steel plate, the copper and lead are just to soft and steel rounds will just smush like the rebar.

And DYI if I lived in canada I could have loaned FEAR to you. All this talk though is giving me the urge to try out armor piercing tests with FEAR.

thats what i mean you may be able to find armor pierceing rounds that are inert somewhere or you could make a saboted tungsten dart out of this it seems to be near pure and it comes in small packs toohttp://www.uniweld.com/catalog/alloys/t ... n_main.htm

[DYI]

Pure tungsten is dense, but it may not be hard enough for this purpose.

@Killjoy: I'm surprised you havn't tried this already with FEAR. I'm working on the dart in my tech class now, because we're essentially free to work on whatever we want there, other than actual weapons.

@SB15: thanks for the tip on tempering the steel. It should come in handy in this project.

I have yet to find anywhere in Canada where I could by carbide / tool steel rods, so I guess that is out of the question.

Didn't _Fnord almost manage to shoot through 1/4" steel plate with his giant pneumatic?

[Fnord]

Oh yeah, I did! (almost)
I totaly forgot about that.
When I shot with my BGP, it punched a dent that was very close to cutting through the plate, but that was with a big blunt piece of 1/2 inch pipe, not a sharpened armor-piercing round.

[st.croixsurfer]

may i suggest some sort of magnetic explosive round

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

I don't see a problem with using steel to penetrate steel - before the invention of the tank, the world's navies had been lobbing steel sheels to penetrate steel ships for decades. Also, it's only well into world war 2 when muzzle velocities started to exceed 4,000 feet per second that it was found that steel shot was shattering and designers turned to harder materials like tungsten carbide.

One idea you might borrow from shell design is to "cap" your projectile with a softer metal like in this German 38cm shell as fired by the Bismarck - the idea is to protect the steel from shattering as well as "lubricating" the shot's passage through the plate.

You do realise and M1 Barret Rifle without amour piercing rounds will not penetrate clean through 1/4 steel plate,and that has I believe has a muzzle energy of 16,600 joules/12,200 ft/lbs,with a 45gram projectile.So you need not only high energy but a very hard projectile to actually penetrate the steel.So using extremely hard projectile such as tungsten is on your to do list.

very, very wrong.

Have a look at the available rounds for the Barrett:

At 200m, the AP round will penetrate a whole inch of steel. At 500m, the sabot round from the same cartridge will go through 1.34 inches of steel.

Edit: USMC demonstration video showing the Barrett terminal ballistics