![](\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/articles\/59e09e4a384f13515d31ff6f\/lede\/1507892908310-image1.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Credit to Author: Matthew Gault| Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2017 13:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Railguns, devices that use electromagnetic force to fire projectiles, are a staple of science fiction. They’re the most powerful sniper style gun in the Quake series<\/a>, the coolest weapon in SyFy’s Dark Matter<\/i><\/a>, and the nuke launcher on top of the mighty machines of the Metal Gear series<\/a>. It’s tech the world’s militaries want on their side too. The U.S. Navy is working on a massive railgun meant to fire from ships<\/a>, but the weapon is still years away from deployment.<\/p>\n In a YouTube video<\/a> and an essay posted on Imgur<\/a>, one intrepid engineer calling himself NSA_Listbot<\/a> has done what was long a science fiction dream\u2014he crafted a portable semi-automatic railgun. It’s not perfect\u2014the magazine only holds three rounds and he keeps a firing extinguisher on site in case something goes wrong\u2014but users can hold the gun without support and fire three rounds with minimal effort.<\/p>\n NSA_Listbot crafted another railgun two years ago he called the XPR-1, but the beast was heavy and only fired one shot at a time. He had to prop it up to support its weight. The capacitors were the heaviest component and NSA_Listbot spent two years redesigning the gun with the idea of using more energy dense photoflash capacitors.<\/p>\n