Electromagnetic projectile launchers called railguns are what many in the military are hoping will be the weapon of the future. A railgun doesn’t use traditional projectile propellants like gunpowder or explosives, but instead they use electromagnetic fields to propel projectiles at speeds that can exceed an incredible Mach 10.
Railgun Diagram
http://3dprint.com/101512/3d-printed-working-railgun/A basic railgun design will include a pair of parallel conducting rails that will accelerate a sliding armature when the electromagnetic current flows through one rail, into the armature and then back into the other rail. Using this rapid acceleration, the armature can launch a wide variety of projectiles at incredible speeds. __ 3DPrint

Hand Held Plasma Rifle / Railgun
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/3d-printing-used-first-real-handheld-railgun-fires-134325053.html
The weapon above is a 3D printed railgun / plasma rifle capable of firing projectiles of graphite, aluminum, copper-coated tungsten, and teflon/plasma rods. You cannot buy such a weapon in stores. But you can build one, if you know how.
Using a combination of 3D printing and widely available components, the man built a functioning handheld railgun that houses six capacitors and delivers more than 3,000 kilojoules of energy per shot. What does it shoot, you might be wondering? So far he has tested the gun using metal rods made of graphite, aluminum and copper-coated tungsten, like the ones pictured below.
__ https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/3d-printing-used-first-real-handheld-railgun-fires-134325053.html
We know that 3D printed firearms are old hat, with the 3D designs available on the internet.
But firearms were built by hand long before Samuel Colt standardised their production in factories. A good metalwork shop can produce large numbers of high quality custom firearms using traditional machining techniques.
But for firearms, it is the combination of additive and subtractive manufacturing that offers the greatest versatility and utility. Now that 3D printing in metals — and multitudes of other materials — is becoming more common, the best weapons makers and designers will need to learn to work with both types of “gunsmithing.”
Yet, we know that in many situations, plasma rifles and firearms are not the appropriate weapon for either offensive or defensive operations. Knives, compound bows, compressed air weapons, crossbows, simple staffs, spears, javelins, etc. etc. can be made by hand from commonly available materials by children who are quite young.
If you look within the JD Garcia curriculum for ages 3-6, you can find the early rudimentary training for simple weapons making:
Physical | Biological | ||||
Avg. Level |
Avg. Age |
Physical Theory | Physical Practice | Biological Theory | Biological Practice |
1.00 | 3.00 | Cause and effect | The lever | The human body | Body care |
1.25 | 3.25 | Clubs and poles | Modifying trees and branches |
Animal bodies; small domestic animals |
How to care for a pet |
1.50 | 3.50 | Different stones and their properties |
Using stones | Edible plants and their properties |
Gathering edible plants and mushrooms |
1.75 | 3.75 | Shaping stone | Building simple stone tools | Edible animals and fish | Hunting and fishing |
2.00 | 4.00 | Shaping wood with stone | Using stone tools to modifu poles and clubs |
Food preparation and preservation |
Cleaning and preparing small game and fish using bone, wood, and stone |
2.25 | 4.25 | Handling fire | Use of stone and wood to control fire, use of fire to harden spear points |
Advanced food preparation | Cooking vegetables, fish, and meat on open fires |
2.50 | 4.50 | Advanced fire handling and control combining wood and stone tools, theory and design |
Hafted axes and choppers are made; stone fire carriers, simple weaving and knotting of vines and leather |
Elementary tanning and use of bone, vines, and vegetable fiber |
Skinning animals and fish, preserving leather, advanced cooking. preparing vines and vegetable fiber |
2.75 | 4.75 | The bow and fire-making | Making bows and starting fires |
Advanced food preparation; advanced tanning and bone work |
Advanced cooking; clothes from animal hides; use of sinew and thongs; hunting with dogs |
3.00 | 5.00 | The use of clay and the bow and arrow; design of simple rafts |
Making and baking clay pots on an open fire; making and using simple bows and arrows |
Advanced food preparation including drying, smoking, & curing; health care |
Cooking, drying, and smoking with clay pots; preparing and using medicinal herbs and poultices |
3.25 | 5.25 | Advanced paleolithic stone work of knives and axes; advanced bow making; advanced clay work without wheel; large rafts |
Making stone tools to make other stone tools; making advanced bows and arrows; bellows and advanced pottery; building a large raft as a group project |
Gathering seeds and planting edible plants; basic first aid |
Gardening; preparing soil and cultivation; practice of first aid |
3.50 | 5.50 | Neolithic tools; construction of shelters; advanced counting; how to make a small dugout canoe and paddle |
Construction of simple neolithic tools; the use of tally marks and stored pebbles; building a small dugout canoe and paddle |
The biological need for shelter; building of lean-tos and simple teepees; clothes for extreme cold; simple agriculture |
Construction of lean-tos and teepees; more advanced gardening; making bone needles and a parka |
3.75 | 5.75 | How to construct advanced neolithic tools and work stone and wood; more advanced counting and Arabic numbers to 10; how to build a large dugout canoe |
Building advanced neolithic tools; working wood, simple carpentry, building semi-permanent structures; advanced tallying systems; building a large dugout canoe |
How to make boots and moccasins from leather and plant fiber; how to know when to plant and when to harvest; taking care of goats and sheep |
Construction of complete wardrobes of leather, plant, and animal fiber; more advanced gardening and animal husbandry |
Tool-making and weapons-making go hand in hand. This is natural, since virtually any tool can be used on the spare of the moment as an improvised weapon. Dangerous Children learn early, how to make weapons and how to improvise weapons from everyday objects.

Handheld 3D Printed Railgun
https://www.inverse.com/article/7243-some-genius-3d-printed-a-railgun-that-fires-projectiles-559-mph
They are not taught to build firearms, plasma rifles, railguns, explosives, etc. until they are deemed emotionally and developmentally mature enough to know how and when to use such weapons wisely and safely.
Not all Dangerous Children will learn to build weapons such as missile launchers and remotely controlled armed drones. As mentioned in an earlier posting, Dangerous Children tend to specialise, based upon their innate aptitudes, inclinations, and levels of emotional development and displayed wisdom.
For most Dangerous Children, their words and non-violent actions will have the most potent effect upon the world that they will require. That is as it should be. Only when pressed beyond reasonable alternatives will most Dangerous Children display a covert prowess in controlled violence and mayhem.
But in the end, we are all evolved from killers, else we would not be here at all. Violence — including lethal violence — will inevitably play a role in the coming expansion of an abundant human future. The bullies and predators of the skankstream will not voluntarily allow the “utopian” future to slip through their fingers without a fight.
This article is modified from an earlier posting first published on The Dangerous Child blog
More:
Why Gun Control Debates are Becoming Irrelevant
- http://www.wired.com/2014/05/3d-printed-guns/
- http://3dprint.com/89919/shuty-hybrid-3d-printed-pistol/
- http://gizmodo.com/3d-printed-guns-are-only-getting-better-and-scarier-1677747439
- https://defdist.org
Note to those unfamiliar with The Dangerous Child blog:
It is the opinion of most members of the presiding boards of the majority of the Al Fin Institutes, that a solid grounding in Enlightenment / Dark Enlightenment philosophy is crucial for the basic education for most intelligent humans. That is why this blog contains so many links to philosophy and Dark Enlightenment reading sites.
The Dangerous Child blog is a more targeted newsletter oriented to those who understand the more unfortunate consequences of the dysgenic Idiocracy. Such readers understand that words, information, and conventional political action are unlikely to be enough for the transitional and suicidal Idiocratic (dumbed down but dictatorial) world that lies between the present and a more abundant and expansive human future.
Those who are too squeamish to face the dark realities underlying their very existences, should probably not visit the Dangerous Child website.
You make an excellent point, but I feel compelled to point something out: If that Yahoo article is correct, the guy didn’t build a weapon, he built something more akin to a child’s potato pistol. 560 miles per hour is not really a “ballistic” velocity — my Grandpa’s FN FAL from the 50’s can fire a projectile at over 830 meters per second, which works out to something like 30,000 miles per hour. (Although MPH is an odd way to describe a projectile’s velocity!) More recent weapon systems are, of course, capable of firing projectiles at even greater velocities.
I am in full agreement with the point you made, in any case! Every competent man needs to learn how to make the tools he might need, and weapons are very valuable tools indeed.
Thanks for the comment.
You make some good points, although you may be exaggerating the speed in mph for 830 metres per second, just a bit. My estimate is just under 2,000 mph.
This early prototype handheld railgun requires a good bit of improvement to be useful as more than a low power pellet gun and plasma show, as you say. But it is getting there.
Man-portable weapons will be based upon chemical explosives and fuels for quite a while due to the power to weight relationship. Stationary or heavy vehicle based weapons systems are likely to start using electrical weapons, destructive lasers, particle beams, microwave beams, sound-based weaponry, and other forms of energy projection that use equipment too heavy for men to carry.
All of those alternative forms of weapons will eventually be made more compact, as the technology develops.
Thanks again for pointing out a few details that I failed to highlight. Feel free to comment at the other blog as well.
Thanks! 🙂
I feel as though directed energy weapons are fairly easy to defend against. A thin layer of ablative pyrolytic graphite will defeat most lasers and plasma projectiles — at least for a little while. And plasma has range issues that need to be sorted out.
…If pyrolytic graphite can’t be obtained at short notice, most antiballistic ceramics are, coincidentally, also very good at defending against directed energy weapons. (Silicon carbide, for instance, is nearly ideal for both purposes. It’s light, relatively cheap, extremely good at defeating ballistic rounds, and is ablative when heated up near 3000°C — so the ablation cloud shades and reduces the effect of the laser’s beam.)
Call me crazy, but I think that the crossbow has a lot of merits which are overlooked. It’s small, mechanically simple, doesn’t require chemical propellant, and is silent in operation. The long-rod nature of the bolts may even enable them to penetrate antiballistic fibers and plastics.
Aside: The FAL has a muzzle velocity of 840 meters per second as per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_FAL
…I work with materials and do a lot of armor research and development. I know that we tested a plate against the FAL, and impact velocity was over 800m/s from a distance of about 30m. Those things are pretty darn fast — almost a kilometer a second! To certify an armor design to the NIJ Level IV spec, it needs to be proof to a .30-06 APM2 round travelling at 868 meters per second. (Not easy… which is why there is no multi-hit requirement, and is also why there are no polymer or metal NIJ IV armors — only ceramics.)
30,000 mph exceeds the escape velocity from the earth.
I would guess that a bullet fired at 30,000 mph in the lower atmosphere would be vaporized.
Erebus, my friend–better rerun those calculations…If we’re talking about an FN 7.62 mm with standard NATO ball ammo 830 m/s sounds about right, which is around 1850 mph. The 560 mph projectile is right around a standard .45 ACP with 230-grain ball. So the rail gun could be effective; though I’m also somewhat baffled by the “3,000 kilojoules” the gun is said to deliver–that’s completely crazy. A .50-call machine gun only delivers about 15k joules of muzzle energy.
The mass of the projectiles doesn’t seem to be given anywhere, but even if the figure is just 3k joules it’s still likely to be potentially lethal.
I’ve been into this stuff since I was a young striving-to-be-Dangerous-Child and both 30,000 mph and 3,000 kilojoules jumped out as highly improbable.
Oops… You’re right. I fudged the calculation. Made it a lot more complicated than it needed to be, in retrospect.
I don’t quite understand the kilojoules thing, either. Probably just a mistake on their end. It doesn’t make sense for the projectile, and doesn’t make sense for the capacitators. 3000 kilojoules is one hell of a lot of force! A projectile from that aforementioned FAL should deliver just over 3000 joules of energy upon impact.