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I'm rather surprised that there isn't more innovation in firearms. For example: Has anyone tried to build a rifle that fires inert pellets using a combustion ch

by chroma 7y ago

I'm rather surprised that there isn't more innovation in firearms. For example: Has anyone tried to build a rifle that fires inert pellets using a combustion chamber powered by hydrocarbons (say… propane) and an oxidizer (oxygen or nitrous oxide)? That would make ammunition much lighter and cheaper, eliminate the need for brass feeding/extracting mechanisms, and allow for "dial a velocity" by feeding different amounts of gas into the combustion chamber. Another possibility would be to have a belt that accelerates the projectile. The "ammunition" in that case would be batteries and inert projectiles. Like a propane gun, velocity could be customized for each shot by varying the belt speed.

throwaway2048 7y ago
Part of the issue with a design like this would be that storing compressed gases is very bulky and prone to catastrophic total failure (very bad for a weapon being abused by grunts). Gunpowder in cartridges already contains an propellant and oxidizer, and per mass you really aren't going to gain anything from going with a gas based system. Heat management would also be a huge issue, spent casings carry away a surprisingly large amount of heat, and even then most guns are unable to sustain continuous fire rates for long. This was a serious issue with case-less ammunition designs for instance.
- donaltroddyn 7y ago
  Yeah, anyone who's had a brass casing land down the back of their neck can attest to how much water heat they draw away from the weapon. I also wonder how important the gas exchange caused by the mechanical cycling of the action is to cooling, as most modern rifles are pretty well sealed when in battery.
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
Some stuff gets pretty advanced. Check out the M134D. Sure it’s 1960’s tech, but it’s still amazing.
rocqua 7y ago
A nice thing about brass cases is that they also provide a really good seal around the breach. Especially because brass is flexible enough for the thoat to expand and seal against the start of the barrel. Any other gas based system needs to deal with keeping exploding gas from leaking out the holes through which you feed in new bullets.
saiya-jin 7y ago
Very impractical for many reasons already mentioned here. I mean air rifles designs are very old (Napoleon famously gave order to execute any enemy soldier found with one), and they haven't caught up in any modern military. It turns out its very practical to have fully contained ammo with casing, semi-waterproof, shockproof, can last decades easily and super cheap to make due to economies of scale. Heat dissipation from barrel friction is an unsolved problem, you can't just skip around physical constraints. Also, having variable power isn't very practical - you want a steady point of hit for consistent fire, otherwise you would have to re-adjust gun sights/scope every single time. One of the biggest pain points of even modern air rifles - as the air pressure goes down, so does velocity of the pellets and your precision. I think we will see sooner some sort of plasma guns than standard ammunition shot via similar ways.
- jacobush 7y ago
  There already us ammo with builtin microprocessors for adjusting trajectory etc. This coupled with some kind of guidance computer, communication with the gun sights etc would solve all kinds of problems. The sights could "project" on a screen where a bullet will land, for instance, taking into account all sorts of data, for instance where the previous shot ended up.
arethuza 7y ago
There have been attempts to make liquid propellants work - which sound, perhaps not surprisingly, a bit like the problems associated with rocket propellants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_loaded_liquid_propellants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_loaded_liquid_propellants [Inset obligatory 'Ignition!' reference].
Pamar 7y ago
You mean like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet it was featured in the 007 Movie - You only live twice, if memory serves...
al2o3cr 7y ago
AFAIK both of these have been experimented with, though without much ultimate success. For what it's worth, both ideas are represented by weapons in the old Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook so they must have been in the zeitgeist someplace: * the Royal Enfield Ordnance Liquid Propellant Assault Rifle LPA1 http://rpg.web-mage.ca/pages/weapdesc.php?id=995 http://rpg.web-mage.ca/pages/weapdesc.php?id=995 * the Malorian Arms Sliver Gun http://rpg.web-mage.ca/pages/weapdesc.php?id=824 http://rpg.web-mage.ca/pages/weapdesc.php?id=824
ajuc 7y ago
I'm pretty sure the next big thing in small arms will be electronic triggers in bullpups. Bullpups' main problem is weird trigger pull, electronic trigger solves that, and also allows some more benefits (like automatic range-adjustement if you put a cheap camera and rangefinder on the weapon). Basically when you pull the trigger rangefinder finds the range and camera takes photos one after another - waiting for the gun to get up enough so that the point that was targetted will be hit with the range that was measured. Gunner's hands are shaking a little so he will soon get on target, and then the trigger is electronically released. You also need some timeout so that if more than for example 100 ms passes without arriving at the target it fires anyway. The technology is there, very similar algorithms are used in smartphone cameras to harness shaking hands for higher photo resolution. The main problem is gun people distrust towards electronic in their guns.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  The implementation would be fairly easy and an electronic trigger would be neat, but imo the problem with bullpups will always be the somewhat awkward reload technique that's required with that design. With an AR-15 style (or an AK) I can reload it while keeping the weapon more-or-less on the target, and dealing with malfunctions is easier because you have more space in your "shelf". With a bullpup you have to reach basically into your armpit - it's not comfortable compared to an M4. (Again, my opinion.)
  - ajuc 7y ago
    With electronic trigger you don't need impact primers, you can just put a very thin electric wire in each cartridge that gets hot when you pull the trigger and ignites the powder. So you can make magazines that aren't possible with the traditional cartridges - like pipe magazines for strong rifle cartridges for example (hard to do with impact primers). I'm thinking a long plastic pipe with cartridges inside that is attached paralel to the barrel. Then you just discard it with a button and put another pipe magazine under the barrel from the front. Should be fairly comfortable even with bullpups. Additionally you can make a side port in the magazine so that you can load it with single bullets like with old wild-west rifles :)
namibj 7y ago
The HK G11 fixes the brass problem by using a solid block of propellant stuck to the bullet.

by chroma 7y ago

throwaway2048 7y ago

Part of the issue with a design like this would be that storing compressed gases is very bulky and prone to catastrophic total failure (very bad for a weapon being abused by grunts). Gunpowder in cartridges already contains an propellant and oxidizer, and per mass you really aren't going to gain anything from going with a gas based system. Heat management would also be a huge issue, spent casings carry away a surprisingly large amount of heat, and even then most guns are unable to sustain continuous fire rates for long. This was a serious issue with case-less ammunition designs for instance.

donaltroddyn 7y ago
Yeah, anyone who's had a brass casing land down the back of their neck can attest to how much water heat they draw away from the weapon. I also wonder how important the gas exchange caused by the mechanical cycling of the action is to cooling, as most modern rifles are pretty well sealed when in battery.

GhettoMaestro 7y ago

Some stuff gets pretty advanced. Check out the M134D. Sure it’s 1960’s tech, but it’s still amazing.

rocqua 7y ago

A nice thing about brass cases is that they also provide a really good seal around the breach. Especially because brass is flexible enough for the thoat to expand and seal against the start of the barrel. Any other gas based system needs to deal with keeping exploding gas from leaking out the holes through which you feed in new bullets.

saiya-jin 7y ago

Very impractical for many reasons already mentioned here. I mean air rifles designs are very old (Napoleon famously gave order to execute any enemy soldier found with one), and they haven't caught up in any modern military. It turns out its very practical to have fully contained ammo with casing, semi-waterproof, shockproof, can last decades easily and super cheap to make due to economies of scale. Heat dissipation from barrel friction is an unsolved problem, you can't just skip around physical constraints. Also, having variable power isn't very practical - you want a steady point of hit for consistent fire, otherwise you would have to re-adjust gun sights/scope every single time. One of the biggest pain points of even modern air rifles - as the air pressure goes down, so does velocity of the pellets and your precision. I think we will see sooner some sort of plasma guns than standard ammunition shot via similar ways.

jacobush 7y ago
There already us ammo with builtin microprocessors for adjusting trajectory etc. This coupled with some kind of guidance computer, communication with the gun sights etc would solve all kinds of problems. The sights could "project" on a screen where a bullet will land, for instance, taking into account all sorts of data, for instance where the previous shot ended up.

arethuza 7y ago

There have been attempts to make liquid propellants work - which sound, perhaps not surprisingly, a bit like the problems associated with rocket propellants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_loaded_liquid_propellants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_loaded_liquid_propellants [Inset obligatory 'Ignition!' reference].

Pamar 7y ago

You mean like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet it was featured in the 007 Movie - You only live twice, if memory serves...

al2o3cr 7y ago

AFAIK both of these have been experimented with, though without much ultimate success. For what it's worth, both ideas are represented by weapons in the old Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook so they must have been in the zeitgeist someplace: * the Royal Enfield Ordnance Liquid Propellant Assault Rifle LPA1 http://rpg.web-mage.ca/pages/weapdesc.php?id=995 http://rpg.web-mage.ca/pages/weapdesc.php?id=995 * the Malorian Arms Sliver Gun http://rpg.web-mage.ca/pages/weapdesc.php?id=824 http://rpg.web-mage.ca/pages/weapdesc.php?id=824

ajuc 7y ago

I'm pretty sure the next big thing in small arms will be electronic triggers in bullpups. Bullpups' main problem is weird trigger pull, electronic trigger solves that, and also allows some more benefits (like automatic range-adjustement if you put a cheap camera and rangefinder on the weapon). Basically when you pull the trigger rangefinder finds the range and camera takes photos one after another - waiting for the gun to get up enough so that the point that was targetted will be hit with the range that was measured. Gunner's hands are shaking a little so he will soon get on target, and then the trigger is electronically released. You also need some timeout so that if more than for example 100 ms passes without arriving at the target it fires anyway. The technology is there, very similar algorithms are used in smartphone cameras to harness shaking hands for higher photo resolution. The main problem is gun people distrust towards electronic in their guns.

remarkEon 7y ago
The implementation would be fairly easy and an electronic trigger would be neat, but imo the problem with bullpups will always be the somewhat awkward reload technique that's required with that design. With an AR-15 style (or an AK) I can reload it while keeping the weapon more-or-less on the target, and dealing with malfunctions is easier because you have more space in your "shelf". With a bullpup you have to reach basically into your armpit - it's not comfortable compared to an M4. (Again, my opinion.)
- ajuc 7y ago
  With electronic trigger you don't need impact primers, you can just put a very thin electric wire in each cartridge that gets hot when you pull the trigger and ignites the powder. So you can make magazines that aren't possible with the traditional cartridges - like pipe magazines for strong rifle cartridges for example (hard to do with impact primers). I'm thinking a long plastic pipe with cartridges inside that is attached paralel to the barrel. Then you just discard it with a button and put another pipe magazine under the barrel from the front. Should be fairly comfortable even with bullpups. Additionally you can make a side port in the magazine so that you can load it with single bullets like with old wild-west rifles :)

namibj 7y ago

The HK G11 fixes the brass problem by using a solid block of propellant stuck to the bullet.