Mag-lev air rifles?

[zzyzx]

How about longer barreled air rifles that are actually powered by magnets? I know we have long artillery pieces (though experimental) that can launch large loads using alternating magnetic fields. Big ones are long and can launch pieces bigger than boxcars. Can they be scaled way down, the pellet put in front of the metal carrier, the trigger pulled and the pellet sped up and out of the barrel? Then the carrier/ram moves back for the next pellet?

Could it be made small enough and powerful enough for .177 or .22 pellet rifles?

[RedFeather]

It would no longer be an air gun UNLESS you used it to accelerate the piston.  Otherwise it is a "rail gun".  Maybe one day something like that will be possible.  Probably have to buy a hand-cranked field generator to "pump it up", though.  Remember - T?here's no such thing as a free lunch."

[oldpink]

hehe
Couldn't you just imagine in the future, when technology really advances enormously, and we are blasting deer from several miles distant with our rail gun rifles?

[uncle paulie]

I'm thinking that would take some of the fun out of it. Sort of like shooting them with a cruise missile. Mmmm, maybe that would be fun!

pv

[SciGuy]

How about using rare earth magnets to replace the spring?  Of course the action would need to be made from aluminum or maybe even carbon fiber.

[RedFeather]

Sure.  Why not?  Got any ideal of the recoil on a gun capable of cleanly taking deer at several miles?  Ouch!  Double-ouch!  No, triple-ouch! BTW, the Germans built a rail gun back during WWII.  Saw a picture of it sitting on a pier.  It used a bank of submarine batteries.  (In case you are wondering, a sub battery weighs about half a ton, so don't get any ideas.)

[Brushy Bill]

I am still waiting on my jet pack.
It is dangerously close to 2011.
We were supposed to have jet packs
by now.   

[oldpink]

I am still waiting on my jet pack.
It is dangerously close to 2011.
We were supposed to have jet packs
by now.   

hehe
I started to post the YouTube link to Tim Wilson's "Jetpack" until I realized it was the unedited version, complete with extensive use of the F bomb.
Deleted it once I realized my mistake.

[newguyontheblock (Nathan)]

there is now a pack, it cant be called a true jet pack because your trailing a long high pressure hose that goes to a unit in the water that follows you around, the unit has a motor and pump and you use water to be about 30ft in teh air and scream across water!


Ninja edit: officially named the Jet-Lev
Ninja edit V 2pointoh: sorry for teh thread hi-jack!

[Cptjbud]

You tube that thing - that looks crazy fun!

[rash_powder]

Here ya go.....


http://www.gausspistol.com/

[sjfrockerdude]

Having built a few under powered coil-guns I would have to say its extremly impractical with current tech. You would have to haul around a massive battery just to get a few shots... not to mention that current coil guns are around 13% effecient if I remember correctly, and they also rely on huge banks of extremely expensive capacitors. but it would still be cool, maybe in 20 years.

Ps. Not tyring to be a kill-joy, just saying.
Pss. Typing this from my phone so pardon all the errors

[DougT]

I like the idea but inpractical.  If you had a slug to carry the lead pellet and got it up to speed in a very short distance, it would also have to stop in an even shorter distance.  Can you say double recoil.  Oh, and carbon fiber is conductive.

[Bentong]

It might be able to scale it down but magnify the co$t. Would you pay say $20,000 for the rifle that a $200 air rifle can effectively do

[r1derbike]

Oldpink, I'm thinking that ballistic boxcar should take-out a deer no problemo...

...Charles