CHAPTER 422: CHAPTER 420: ELECTROMAGNETIC RIFLE

Manufacturing a gun, in a certain sense, is a fairly easy task because a gun essentially requires only three components: the chamber, the barrel, and the firing pin.

The chamber is used to hold and ignite the ammunition. If it’s from the muzzle-loading era, the chamber needs to have sufficient airtightness to ensure that the kinetic energy produced during gunpowder combustion does not leak due to poor sealing, affecting the range.

The barrel is used to stabilize the bullet’s trajectory, preventing the scatter after the bullet leaves the muzzle from becoming dangerously erratic.

The bullet also requires a firing pin to strike the primer at the base, igniting the propellant, making the firing pin an indispensable presence in a gun.

Simply put, a gun that possesses these three elements can essentially be considered a gun.

As for features like feeding, gas operation, aiming, and recoil damping, they are not necessary in some sense, as their existence merely facilitates the use of the weapon in hand.

However, if you want to design a good gun, these features are all necessary.

You need to mitigate recoil to stabilize the muzzle, preventing it from rising, and maintaining muzzle stability during continuous firing to achieve a denser spread.

You need an automatic feeding mechanism because in real combat, loading a bullet after every shot is incredibly inefficient.

You need a good gas system to quickly and unobtrusively expel gases after gunpowder combustion in the chamber. Although most bullets now use smokeless powder, these gases are still somewhat warm, which, if blown onto your face, feels similar to being close to truck exhaust, significantly affecting combat.

You also need a good aiming system to ensure you aren’t relying solely on luck for your hits...

So, designing a gun, especially a good one, is indeed quite challenging.

Chen Xin found this quite troublesome. Although there were plenty of existing firearms and sci-fi weapons to refer to, he still couldn’t find a clear direction.

Equipping it with lasers or laser technology is certainly possible; with the energy supply issue solved, such science fiction staples could be feasible. However, if the power is too low, its practical significance in combat is minimal; if too high, the cost isn’t justifiable, making traditional firearms simpler and cheaper.

As for traditional firearms, Chen Xin didn’t have any advantages in this regard compared to the current weapons designers in the country. If he were merely designing a traditional firearm, he could easily provide the requirements to national firearms designers for them to work on.

Even though a mature weapon design takes time to finalize through design modifications, making simple adjustments to existing weapons isn’t difficult.

Therefore, Chen Xin was more inclined towards the electromagnetic rifle.

In various sci-fi works, Power Armor paired with electromagnetic rifles is a standard. An electromagnetic rifle doesn’t rely on the kinetic energy from gunpowder, thus breaking the power limit of traditional firearms, i.e., an initial velocity of 2000m/s.

Moreover, crucially, the electromagnetic rifle uses electromagnetic force to propel ammo, so the ammunition of an electromagnetic cannon need only be the projectile itself, eliminating the need for casings and propellant, drastically reducing ammo weight and loading time, and increasing firing speed.

Of course, in modern warfare, even the bullet power from World War II is considered excessive, leading to the development of reduced-charge ammo; hence the power of firearms doesn’t need to be too high.

But considering it’s intended for equipping Power Armor, there’s a necessary requirement: it must at least penetrate Power Armor.

If, when faced with enemies equipped with Power Armor, your weapon can’t penetrate their armor, it would be quite embarrassing.

While heavy weapons can forcibly destroy Power Armor, they are ultimately heavy weapons—not easily deployable and unsuitable for individual carry.

At such times, using an electromagnetic rifle, powerful enough yet having several other advantages, becomes necessary.

Nonetheless, Chen Xin was puzzled about how to design an electromagnetic rifle.

The principles of electromagnetic rifles are very simple; with some hands-on ability, one can make a device at home that can shoot projectiles.

The simpler designs include coilguns and railguns, with more complex ones being advanced, implying the technology is relatively mature. The Flame Country’s military has even begun equipping experimental electromagnetic cannons and rifles.

In terms of form, coilguns are relatively early-developed, capable of firing heavier projectiles, with stable trajectories and high shooting accuracy.

Railguns achieve higher initial velocity and can adjust rail width to fire projectiles of various shapes; their high initial speed facilitates very long range.

However, for electromagnetic rifles, coilgun designs are more practical than railguns because railguns consume more energy, making them less suitable as single-soldier weapons.

Yet, Chen Xin did not discard the railgun design for electromagnetic rifles; instead, he made some modifications, creating a sniper rifle version for Qin Lan, fitting her Power Armor perfectly.

As for equipping regular soldiers with electromagnetic rifles, Chen Xin decided on the coilgun design.

The manufacturing process is relatively simple, mainly involving basic high school physics principles. As long as Chen Xin didn’t seek to create something exceedingly complex, finding a steel pipe and winding some copper wire would suffice, possibly topped off with a 3D-printed shell.

The remaining work could be left to system upgrades; with a stack of survival points, an excellent electromagnetic rifle would naturally come about.

Indeed, after a green flash, an electromagnetic rifle lay in front of Chen Xin.

The gun’s design took inspiration from the C-14 electromagnetic rifle wielded by Marines in the StarCraft series, adopting a bullpup configuration and drum feeding. It used 7.62mm caliber darts, with a 40 cm long coilgun barrel, and a Picatinny rail atop the gun body for mounting various sights.

Compared to the C-14 electromagnetic rifle, the rifle in front of Chen Xin was slender and lighter—light enough for Chen Xin to easily lift and fire with one hand, even without Power Armor.

A high-performance battery beneath the barrel powered it, providing continuous firing for over 2000 shots per charge, while a drum magazine could hold 70 rounds, sufficient for a high-intensity battle.