jeepkahn wrote:I was just thinking that it may make mach more easily attainable, I've run the theory past some physics buffs I know and they seem to think that it will make a much larger differance in velocity and acceleration because the projectile will accelerate as if it was zero mass up to a point and by the object accelerating that quickly it will create a circumstance that will "trick" the pressured gases into behaving as they would in a vacuum, ie, increased mach #... (emphasis added)
I think you should find some "physics buffs" that actually know something about physics.
A vacuum in the barrel in front of the ammo does fairly little for a reasonably powered gun, be it a combustion, hybrid, or pneumatic.
If you are talking subsonic speed then all the air in the barrel does is add a
tiny bit of mass that needs to be accelerated. The density of air is only about 1.3mg/L. The density of a spud is about 800,000mg/L. The density of most metals are about ten times greater than a spud. So, figure it out. In a typicall largish barrel that is 2"ID x 10'L the mass of the air in the barrel is ... not even worth doing the calculation. Since the density of the ammo is roughly 10<sup>6</sup> greater than the density of the air the mass of the air is insignificant until it's volume is upwards of say 100,000 the volume of the ammo, and even then the mass of the air would only be about 10% the mass of the ammo.
Evacuating the barrel will boost the effective pushing pressure by 14.7 PSIA. Though that really isn't all that big of an affect compared to say a starting pressure of 120 PSIG. That's only a ~12% increase in pressure.
In a "vacuum-only" gun that 14.7 PSIA is all that is pushing the ammo. Even a basic combustion will outperform a vacuum-only powered gun.
For a supersonic gun an evacuated barrel has a small advantage since you don't have to heat the air in the barrel hot enough to get it's speed of sound to be greater than the ambient speed of sound. But even that is a fairly minor affect.