Why only combustion?

[Hotwired]

Dry ice bombs are against the rules last I heard and unless you contain dry ice with the water you get no pressure build-up and that chambering could be declared a dry ice bomb.


...which it could very well be with certain materials

[PCGUY]

I am open to new safe reactions, but lets not venture to dry ice. Dry ice in a chamber = brittle PVC = dry ice bomb.

[Novacastrian]

I am open to new safe reactions, but lets not venture to dry ice. Dry ice in a chamber = brittle PVC = dry ice bomb.

Yeah, sorry. I did not mean use guns made from pvc, but i'll shut my pie hole

[mtronic]

But if your pie hole is shut how you gonna eat the pie?
MMMMmmm Pie

Why bother with chemical reactions in the first place? Unsrcew cap,load, spray and pray. Whats the point in complecating things even more?
Even that gets to be too much hassel nowdays for me, pneumatics are all the rage at my house these days.

[mark.f]

I like _Fnord's idea. Maybe a very thin filament network, (ahem steel wool cough), filled with a WEAK oxidizer, (simply to make up for the lack of oxygen when confined), or maybe in a bust-disk container with pressurized air or oxygen to make up for the lack of O₂, when connected to a capacitor or capacitor bank which dumps an impressive amount of electricity through it. It'd be a difficult reaction to control, but if done right it might be up there in terms of performance with powder weapons.

Obviously, you want some sort of remote ignition and a barrier between you and this potential bomb.

Oh but where are my manners? Let me explain. This is not really a solid propellant. It's sort of a "hybrid" propellant. Gaseous oxidizer, (i.e. low-power oxidizer), and solid filamentous fuel. I think it would be safe for a mature, experienced, and cautious individual to experiment with.

[Fnord]

Mark: Thanks for reassuring me that my post wasn't invisible

I'm not sure what effect adding an oxidizer would have on this type of reaction.

I'm basically just turing metal wire into plasma from heat alone, so I'm not sure if an oxidizer would help or hinder it. You could probably just make a coil of thin resistant wire around a straw for each shot. It would take a large capacitor bank to get any kind of power from it, but it may be possible to make portable device.

Edit: ok, a coil is probably a bad shape to use, since I'm pretty sure it will be less resisitant than a jumble of wire.

[sandman]

Why bother with chemical reactions in the first place? Unsrcew cap,load, spray and pray.

that made me lol
what do you think combustion is?

[boilingleadbath]

Vaporizing a wire and using the resulting plasma to propel projectiles isn't a new idea... the technology is termed "electrothermal".

Apparently, it looks promising for achieving very high muzzle velocities.

[Necrosis]

Why bother with chemical reactions in the first place? Unsrcew cap,load, spray and pray.

that made me lol
what do you think combustion is?

It is when things go BOOM!

[Fnord]

Vaporizing a wire and using the resulting plasma to propel projectiles isn't a new idea... the technology is termed "electrothermal".

DAMNIT!
I should have known someone already thought of it.

[mark.f]

That shouldn't discourage you. What's the worse that could happen? Government investigation as to where you learned some black technology? Pfftt.... "I learnt it awl on m'own sir. I don't need yer fancy stinkin' scientists' 'papers' to build somethin like that." *spits*