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Old September 19, 2018, 12:50 PM   #26
Mike Irwin
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"The MG131 wasn't a particularly fast firing gun."

At 900 rounds per minute, it was up there.

"The biggest stumbling block not mentioned is HEAT. "

Yes, I mentioned brass' ability to serve as a heat sink.

Heat build up, causing rounds to cook off, was an early problem with the G11. That was solved, partially, with a higher ignition temperature propellant.


As for the projectile, finding something with the weight of metals is an issue. Nothing is going to approach the weight of metals. Some of the polymer-ceramic blends may start to come close, but the heaviest ones I know of are still only about a fifth as heavy as lead.
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Old September 19, 2018, 03:16 PM   #27
briandg
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Mike, we can't agree because I think that perfection had better be what we get and I don't think that we can get it. You rank the voere as a success because it worked. I consider it to be a success at a civilian, casual level. I need to give up on my statements and restate them. Caseless ammo isn't generally wanted by civilians, it's desirable for extremely high volume usage.

If we manage to put together another one-off type weapon, or even a successful program to create a heavier use system, I guess that we can call it a success. My only definition of success in this area are if we can put caseless ammo on a sales floor and the guns in the cabinets, and have them sell.

That, or have them used in the military.
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Old September 19, 2018, 03:18 PM   #28
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And yes, you are right, school got out just now and the meddling kids are going to walk past any minute now. Time to set up the sprinkler and light a cigar. I love it when they have to go in to school the next day and tell their teachers that the guy next door ruined their homework. The teachers get so tired of dogs.
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Old September 19, 2018, 03:30 PM   #29
gwpercle
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Yes it has been tried many times before , one of the early attempts was in 1968 Daisy Air Rifle co. marketed the Daisy 5.5 V/L Rifle , it used caseless 22 ammo, no primer , the heat developed from the spring compression of the piston ignited the compressed powder charge that was glued to the bullet base. No case , no primer and it worked.
The problem was ATF ruled it wasn't an airgun but a firearm and Daisy wasn't licensed to manufacture them.
Search the term "caseless ammunition" and you can read about all manner of things tried.

I do have a bag of all plastic Activ shotgun shell hulls, no brass head at all , they even have a plastic rim but they did have a primer. Shotgun shells do not need a brass head and can be made totally of plastic....get the method of ignition figured out and it would work.
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Old September 20, 2018, 08:37 AM   #30
briandg
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The VL was an interesting Idea. essentially a pellet of plastic propellant wedged into the hollow base of a pellet. It added an accelerating pressure that didn't reduce as it went down the barrel.

The same effect can be accomplished today by using heavy oil in the gun's mechanism, or even by just gunking some beeswax into the hollow bases.

the thing worked because compressing the air of a large cylinder into the tiny air space behind the bullet creates extreme heat, just like in a diesel engine. That heated air that approaches a thousand or higher causes the combustible gunk to combust and add the extra effect of an explosion to the driving force.

Since the pressure of the chamber is still so relatively low, there isn't blowback.

My spring action rifle came heavily lubed, the first dozen rounds resulted in unbelievable noise. Louder than a .22lr rifle. CCI cb shorts were far quieter.
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Old September 20, 2018, 11:16 AM   #31
Jim Watson
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Quote:
The problem was ATF ruled it wasn't an airgun but a firearm and Daisy wasn't licensed to manufacture them.
They must have gotten an FFL eventually, there was a later line of Daisy .22 LR.

Does science fiction count?
Philip Jose Farmer had muzzleloaders firing large phenolic ball.
Vernor Vinge had the "arty" with fibreglas tubes firing explosive shell. Lack of velocity made up by explosive warheads. No small arm version.
Steven Gould had guns with single use "cardboard" barrels firing ceramic slugs or "bird gravel", but the Rangers carried the Gyro rifle with a ceramic rocket projectile.
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Old September 21, 2018, 11:33 AM   #32
briandg
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Daisy could have quite easily licensed the VL name and design to nearly any manufacturer and just removed production off site and off of the company books. The licensing fees and a percentage could have been paid by someone such as savage to use the design for in house manufacture.
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Old September 21, 2018, 11:38 AM   #33
briandg
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Quote:
Does science fiction count?
The SF community has numerous references to both personal rail guns and ray/laser guns, two other problematic weapons that will almost certainly never exist.

Just like the individual asteroid mining ships that larry niven used, you can't pack the energy needed into a personal sized device. Chemical explosives and dense projectiles are the most practical and almost unavoidable solutions to personal weapons. The only alternative available now is called airsoft. That is, until we create paintballs filled with dimethyl mercury or some other skin penetrating toxin.
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Old September 22, 2018, 10:27 PM   #34
KyJim
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The Army recently awarded contracts to build prototypes of light machine guns/squad automatic weapons using non-metallic cartridges (belt fed at this point). Assuming reliability, a big factor is the weight savings. The article listed below mentions 20% weight reduction while the video, talking about another manufacturer, says there is a 40% weight reduction. I've never been in the military, but I've got to think soldiers would love to carry almost twice as much ammo with the same weight as metal cased ammo.

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-...ight-build-it/
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