Steampunk coilgun looks like the love child of Walther PPK and a radar gun

Steampunk designers make some cool stuff that often looks modern and old at the same time. One of the coolest steampunk designs we have seen in a while was that steampunk Professor X wheelchair that turned up last week.

We spotted a cool steampunk coil gun over on Make today that looks like the weapon James Bond would use in an alternate universe. The coil gun actually shoots projectiles that are apparently powerful enough to punch through cardboard at close range.

The gun uses a coil of copper wire along the barrel to launch the projectiles and the power source is external. Inside the brass case of the power pack are 15 photoflash capacitors that get the needed juice to fire from two AAA batteries. Check out the dark video below to see the thing fire.