32-Megajoule Rail Gun
Like every other red-blooded American boy, I enjoy the notion of propelling a piece of lead at up to Mach 8 and at “extreme” ranges. That’s why I was glad to hear that BAE Systems has delivered a rail gun capable of such feats, and that the US Navy signed for the package
Not exactly a firearm but I won’t discriminate against any device that can hurl lead and twice the speed of a .204 Ruger 🙂
Mind you, the Navy isn’t like pissing its pants for joy that it gets to play with a 32-megajoule rail gun. This is America, after all. What the Navy really wants is a 64-megajoule rail gun. But since that might take 13 years and would require, yep, 6 million amps per shot, the Navy’s gonna have to quit bitching and enjoy the toys it has, at least for now
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I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. I retired as Editor in Chief in 2017. During my decade at TFB I was fortunate to work with the most amazing talented writers and genuinely good people!
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Has nothing to do with moving the projectile with magnetic fields. Basically, there are two strips of metal (rails) that are squeezed together via a magnetic field. As they are sqeezed together, a projectile is propelled down the rails, like a bar of soap shoots from your hands when you sqeeze it too tightly. The effect is a massive velocity that vastly exceeds chemical propellants. The downsides are that the rails wear down very quickly due to the immense friction, and the immense power usage of the device.
Further, you are thinking of a Gauss gun, which the projectile must be magnetic. This is an entirely different (but also electrically powerd and magnetic) design then a rail gun.