Quote:
The burning gunpowder accelerates the bullet.
The burning gunpowder (and the explosion of the primer) is the only energy source when a gun goes bang.
Is there some other source of energy that I'm missing?
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No but there is some implication here that the energy from that explosion is used efficiently only to accelerate the bullet.
There is a lot of energy that is "lost" in the equation to things other than the intended use. Hence recoil. If all the energy was being used solely accelerated the bullet than the premise that any energy used for anything else is lost. But this energy is already lost to recoil.
Thus if I can steal energy that would otherwise go to recoil to operate the slide I would not be stealing any energy that actually accelerated the bullet.