Coilgun With Laser Sights Built In An Airsoft Rifle Housing

This coilgun started as a stock Airsoft rifle. The stock weapon cost about 40€ (just over $50), but we think it was well worth it since it provides plenty of room for all the coilgun components and solves most of the mechanical issues of the build like a body that is comfortable to hold, a trigger, etc.

The clear tube which serves as the barrel (the same setup as we saw in this coilgun guide) is protected by three stainless steel barrels which surround it. They each host a laser diode which results in a Predator-style aiming mechanism that is shown off in the video after the break. There’s even a night vision system that uses IR leds and a viewfinder attached to the stock.

A camera flash is scrapped for the transformer inside. This acts as the voltage generator, charging up a few capacitors. It seems to have no problem generating enough juice to work well, despite the fact that it’s only being powered from two AA batteries mounted in the magazine.

25 thoughts on “Coilgun With Laser Sights Built In An Airsoft Rifle Housing

  1. Neat work. Stands alone on it’s merits.

    RE: SMPS etc for speed/enhanced parameters. Sometimes stuff like a flash board’s “Good Enough” is good enough for the first builds.

    As for the Printable Weapons debate? I’d suggest a united front in Hackerdom that **ALL** fabrication technology is inherently neutral.

  2. What about making a coilgun that “fires” plasma?
    I looked into a variant of this using an exploding wire inside a magnetic bottle, turns out that if you use about 100,000 uF at 25V (0.1F) discharging through 30ga wire it forms briefly a Z-pinch.
    This helps confine the plasma for about 1ms which is enough to travel several feet.

    It works because the plasma stays hot in air thanks to the Leidenfrost effect which keeps balls of water airborne above a hot plate.

    1. I was thinking it’d be a great way to decrease the surplus population of pigeons and garbage gulls.

      A rock was a great technological achievement, too. Lots of people have been bludgeoned to death with rocks.

      It happens. All you can do is be good.

  3. Oh please. He doesn’t give muzzle velocity or muzzle energy estimates for a reason: in these coilgun builds they’re just not very impressive compared to say, a nice air gun. He doesn’t show groups from this thing either. The last time I pointed this out here someone accused me of missing the point. All I can say is, guilty as charged, I don’t see the point. This “hack” is about as exciting as tarting up a Red Ryder spring-loaded BB gun with LEDs; except the Red Ryder would probably shoot straighter.

    1. Do you really think he made this because he needed to shoot holes in things and thought it would outperform an air gun, rather than because it’s a fun project that results in a neat toy?

      The reason you never see muzzle velocity numbers for these sorts of things isn’t because the maker is ashamed of his failure; it’s because the maker doesn’t *care*.

        1. Grow up. He made the damned thing because it was a fun project. Something straight out of science fiction.

          If you’re an American, you should understand the fascination that many young people have with shooting arcades and first-person shooters.

          If you are not American, then your culture more than likely grew out of a peasant/serf/nobleman scenario where only the elite of the culture were permitted to have personal weapons. If so, I’m sorry for you. Sorry for our differences.

  4. back in hs we built what was essentially a rail gun out of graphite coated brass bars by coated i mean we took pencils and scribbled the whole surface then dropped a steel ball bearing it took a few tries to get it to not just stick and make a really loud bang when it worked it sent the ball bearing through the metal roof of the structure needless to say i haven’t messed with rail guns since iirc we had 8 1fared caps rated for 40 v two banks of four charged to around 80 or 160 volts i cant rem which worked better if the two banks of four(which were in parallel) hooked up in series or parallel i’d like to see some portable rail gun builds over coil guns imo far more destructive velocities could be achieved

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