Weapons of the future are gradually appearing on the shelves, making so far timid, but such important steps. Thanks to the small American company Arcflash Labs, which was founded just a year ago, a compact "railgun" appeared on the civilian market, which anyone can purchase and shoot from. The start of sales of the novelty - the EMG-01A electromagnetic rifle - became known in the second half of July 2018.
The developers of the electromagnetic rifle are young research engineers David Wirth and Jason Murray, who developed compact railguns in 2010 and 2015 and posted videos of their tests on the YouTube platform. A year ago, two Americans joined forces, the fruit of the union was the registration of a company called Arcflash Labs (electric arc laboratory). In just a year, their start-up was able to surprise the world. The public was presented with a commercial EMG-01A electromagnetic rifle, which can be purchased by anyone who has $ 950 in his pocket. The first owners of the new rifle, which can fire up to 8 rounds per second at a speed of about 45 m / s, can become a part of history themselves, or at least touch it. To date, sales of new items are carried out throughout the United States on terms that are completely similar to sales of pneumatic weapons.
The world's first commercial electromagnetic rifle was designated EMG-01A (Electro Magnetic Gun, Model 1, Alpha version). The weapon is known to be 3D printed using a bullpup layout. The rifle uses the principle of an electromagnetic mass accelerator, known as the Gauss cannon, to accelerate the projectile. The barrel of the EMG-01A electromagnetic rifle is housed inside eight inductive coils (solenoids), which are triggered sequentially one after the other as the projectile passes through them. The weapon implements the principle of the so-called traveling magnetic field, which is used in linear electric motors. Each of the eight solenoids is equipped with an infrared port that switches current to a neighboring coil in literally nanoseconds.
To power the solenoids, representatives of the Arcflash Labs company decided to use a 6S LiPo lithium-polymer battery with a capacity of 1500 mAh, the battery provides the production of 10 shots without recharging. This type of rechargeable battery is widely used by modelers and is commercially available. The arrow is indicated by the LED indicator that the rifle is loaded. A special display is provided for selecting the fire mode and setting the EMG-01A. In addition to the rifle itself, the package includes a 6S LiPo battery, one box magazine for 9 rounds, and one 40 amp fuse. Charger and ammunition sold separately.
It is worth noting that the concept of an electromagnetic rifle, created by Wirth and Murray, is completely different from the concept of a railgun - an electromagnetic mass accelerator (electromagnetic push), which accelerates a conductive projectile along metal rails under the action of Ampere's force to tremendous speed and is actively used today by a number of large companies for the development of promising electromagnetic weapons. Despite the obvious theoretical advantages (no need to store a stock of charges, high projectile flight speed), progress in the creation of full-fledged combat railguns so far seems to be quite modest - the installations themselves are very large in size and energy-intensive, which allows them to be placed only on board sufficiently large ships. and the mass of the projectiles is relatively small.
At the same time, the developers of the EMG-01A rifle managed to create a weapon sample that is identical in weight and dimensions to an ordinary assault rifle, length - 520 mm, although it is significantly inferior in power. It is worth noting here that the model, which was created by Arcflash Labs, does not pretend to be not only combat, but even sporting and hunting weapons, rather being so far only a successful demonstrator of technology. The main vocation of the EMG-01A model is to prove the performance of the chosen concept. Unlike prototypes of military "railguns" electromagnetic cannons, which can occupy entire buildings and fire projectiles at five times the speed of sound, the EMG-01A electromagnetic rifle has only a microscopic fraction of the power of its huge war cousins.
Despite its extremely modest power, the Arcflash Labs rifle has grown into a full-fledged commercial product - a plinking (recreational shooting) weapon. The EMG-01A rifle is quite suitable for dealing with targets such as glass bottles, beer cans or even small steel sheets up to 1 mm thick. At the same time, in the design of the electromagnetic rifle, not only publicly available parts were used, which include the battery, but also elements familiar to small arms, for example, a detachable magazine for 9 rounds, which is something hybrid between the magazine of the Glock pistol and the battery., a fire mode translator, as well as a standardized mounting plate designed for mounting various scopes.
Currently, the EMG-01A rifle shoots exclusively special ammunition - small carbon steel cylinders with a diameter of 6, 35 mm and a length of 19 mm. The weight of each such cylinder is 4.6 g. Of course, an electromagnetic rifle is able to shoot any cylinders of this shape and size, but the developers recommend using proprietary bullets specially created for the EMG-01A and designated 2575 Magnetic Armature.
The muzzle energy of an electromagnetic rifle is 4.65 Joules, which is comparable to conventional models of pneumatic weapons that shoot explosive balls. Obviously, the power of the weapon is rather weak, primarily the rifle is intended for recreational shooting and target shooting, but in the future, the developers promise to improve their weapons. At the same time, increasing the power to compete with cartridges equipped with a powder charge will require significant efforts from the developers. Now, rifle projectiles accelerate to a speed of 45 m / s, which is almost 10 times slower than a bullet of a small-caliber cartridge of the.22LR type. It is possible that the existing design also has reserves for increasing power, and Arcflash Labs will be able to make more powerful weapons, which will expand the scope of the rifle, at least to shooting pests and hunting small game. If you increase the initial flight speed of a bullet at least twice, the classic pneumatic weapon will have a very strong competitor.
Of course, we are not talking about solving more serious, especially police or military tasks in the near future. This requires a significant increase in the power of the weapon. At the same time, one cannot completely exclude any non-standard and special areas of application for such a rifle, for example, in space, where there is a need for weapons that have no recoil.
The performance characteristics of EMG-01A:
Caliber - 6, 35 mm.
Ammunition - cylindrical 6, 35x19 mm, weight 4, 6 g.
The initial speed is 45 m / s.
Muzzle energy - 4.65 J.
Weapon dimensions: 520x170x99 mm.
Barrel length - 254 mm.
The weight of an unloaded rifle without batteries is 2.5 kg.
Rate of fire: 4-8 rounds per second.
Working voltage - 300 V.
Power supply: 1500mAh 6S LiPo rechargeable lithium polymer battery.
Food - a standard 9-round box magazine.
