A man has shown off the railgun that he concocted at home. It can fire projectiles at speeds of up to 560mph using electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder.
So far, it has been tested with tungsten, carbon and aluminium bullets. The weapon is powered by six capacitors and a battery, producing 1,050 volts of energy per shot.
The person who cooked up goes under the username NSA_Listbot on Reddit – said: It isn’t likely lethal, but it would definitely hurt.
The capacitors are held together in a 3D printed frame, which includes a discharge button for any energy leftover after a shot. After posting images of his creation to Reddit, one user wrote: ‘Now make a Kickstarter and mass-produce it before it’s illegal.’
Another posted some calculations and concluded: ‘This thing would sting and maybe break the skin, but it’s basically a really cool, high-tech pellet gun, give or take.’
The US military and NASA have both extensively experimented with railgun technology.
A prototype railgun that can fire a projectile at seven times the speed of sound will be tested on board a high-speed US Navy vessel from next year.
It can launch at such high speeds that it only needs to fire a $25,000 (£15,000) railgun projectile rather than a $1m (£600,000) missile to be effective in destroying ships, aircraft and land-based targets.
