I don't usually put things in the form of questions, but, have you got any suggestions for solidly locking a breech on a weapon meant for tens of thousands of cycles, locking it so solidly and completely that no gas can escape, and make it so flawless that even a wad of sand in the action couldn't disable it?
We've had something that sort of does that for over 100years. However, I don't think it does as well when scaled down to small arms size. Artillery (including naval rifles) using "caseless" ammo (projectile and bagged powder) has been around for quite a while, and absolutely does work.
I don't know about "tens of thousands" of shots, artillery barrels don't last that long, but it is the bore that wears out, not the breech. My point is that the interrupted thread breeches of really big guns hold the pressure just fine, without using a case. If it can be done with the big guns, it could be done with small ones. Figuring out HOW with small ones is "fiddly bits", and is probably cost prohibitive, compared to the cased round systems we already use, but I believe it can be done. The prototype "caseless" guns had to seal the chamber, somehow.
As to "will we live to see railguns (as small arms) in our lifetime? I can't say, but my grandfather lived to see the first heavier than air powered flight, AND to see a man walk on the moon, all in his lifetime!!! (ok the old boy did make it to 96, and got there 13 years AFTER we landed on the moon...)
The thing with rail gun tech is that today, we are looking at biplanes, and wanting an F-22 to buy off the shelf, tomorrow.
That ain't gonna happen, not tomorrow, and not next week.
In the scifi I've read, handgun size "rail guns" are always small bore, 2, or 3mm, one story had a character packing what was the "magnum" version, a 4mm, which was noted for its heavy recoil...
Some fire glass beads (with a tiny metal core for the magnetics to work on)
Mag-Lev can float an entire train, and move it at up to 300mph TODAY.
MRI are special fields, not focused the way the field would be in a weapon.
30+ (maybe 40+ now
) years ago I remember hearing about one "rail gun" test bed was built at some university, fired a pencil sized object. 6' long acceleration path, 24' "deceleration" path. When they fired it, the projectile reached the end of the deceleration path before the image of it at rest faded from the retina's of those watching. (or, so they said,
)
Pont is, we can do that now, and we're like the WWI biplane, can do maybe 100mph, all out. 30 years after that, 450-600mph, and 30 years after that, Mach 2 (more? things like that get "classified
)
We MIGHT see effective rail guns as small arms by the next century, maybe sooner, if the push is there (right now it isn't) a LOT can happen in 80 years or so...not that I personally expect to see it.