Caseless ammunition and self propelled bullets..where are we??

[saturno_v]

What is the state of the art at the moment for caseless ammunition?? If I recall correctly we had at least one cartridge that reached the "functional" status (I mean it came out from the test laboratory as finished usable product).....Is that correct??


What about self propelled bullets?? I remember I read something many many years ago about the Army doing experiements in that field in the early 70's.....basically they were minuscole Ramjets with tiny quantities of solid propellant ignited by the regular powder launch charge in the case and air friction from the initial velocity........too expensive vs. little benefits??

Any useful links for info??

Regards

 

[highorder]

Caseless ammo faces several tough issues:

• An ejection path is still required for duds, dummies, etc.
• Brass acts as a heatsink, critical to function.
• complete burn of the propellant and binder without fouling is problematic
• Robustness of ammunition is an issue. Exposure to damage, moisture, etc.
• long term storage under all conditions doesn't compare to sealed cartridges.

Metallic cartridges will probably take us right to directed energy weapons.

 

[natman]

Voere made a caseless ammo rifle, the VEC-91, in .224 caliber. Both the ammo and rifle are now collector's items.

 

[P.B.Walsh]

Metallic cartridges will probably take us right to directed energy weapons.

+1

Well, if we even get there, but I would say it's possible.

 

[Kitchen_Duty]

well to get a preemptive strike I'm going to place my WTB ad in our forums for a plasma rifle. FTF Seattle please have CCP, prefer black plastic

 

[RP88]

I see polymer-cased ammo and a better propellant making ammo a bit smaller and lighter very possible; same with lighter mags and materials. Maybe also better bullet construction. However, as said, the weapons systems and the ammo have looming issues to resolve when it comes to caseless and telescoped caseless ammo.

 

[armoredman]

The rocket propelled rounds, AKA the famous Gyrojet, are also collectors items, nifty idea, just didn't work very well then. I don't see anyone trying that line again any time soon.

 

[saturno_v]

Armoderdman...thanks a lot for your info...very interesting stuff!!!

A Gyrojet article on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet

A small youtube video of the Gyro Rocket Pistol in action from the History Channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoffTmg9bxU

It seems like some enlisted men brought their Gyro Pistol in Vietnam because of their lack of noise while promised more power than 45 ACP.

So there were a lot of problems but probably the technology had some room for improvement.....however seems to me that the idea is now completely abandoned at least from mainstream firearm research.

I'm imnpressed at the collector values of surviving Gyro Pistols and Carbines...and $100 per round!!! More than a 700 Nitro Express!!!

This guy, Steve Ritter, is trying to revive the idea, check on here:

www.deathwind.com

 

[Slamfire]

The Germans perfected a caseless round and rifle. As I understand, they were going to replace their infantry small arms with the new system.
The cost of German reunification buried the project.

Even though there are advantages to caseless rounds, it is not 200% better. It is going to take something 200% better to get the military to change.
And that is not going to happen given smokeless propellants and jacketed bullets.

If and when we get “plasma rifle in 40 watt range”, then we will dump the current technology.

 

[Nicodemus38]

the british developed a select fire infantry rifle that got as far as prototype testing. they liked to call it caseless ammunition, but it used a bullet, powder, and a primer held together with a polymer case. they decided to scrap it from all acounts as it had the best rpm when in 3 round burst mode then it did in semi or full auto.

the american military has rocket assisted artillery rounds for 6inch cannon. they supposedly give the projectile an extra 20 miles of range with a slightly lower payload of explosives.

the problem with caseless ammunition is that even if you develop a waterproofing method that will completely remove any risk of contamination of the powder charge, you still need the ability to make sure the powder, bullet, and primer will stay together as a single usable unit wether it dropped 30,000 feet form the back of a plane or fell into a rice paddy in a monsoon from a helicopter landing troops to instant combat.
the only cartridge that sucessfully could be claimed as caseless ammunition with the old volcanic cartridge, however they could never get enough black powder into the bullet base to make it worthwhile for defense or hunting. and they still had to worry about the primer and primer disk from popping off.

 

[rangerruck]

Done... about 30 to 40 years ago. Daisy invented the perfect 22 round, and the rifle to go with it. I know a guy who has a couple of the rifles, and cases of the ammo, he sells a box of ammo for about 30 to 35 bucks. you pick up the box, it feels like it will float, and there is no jinglying noise at all...

 

[saturno_v]

the american military has rocket assisted artillery rounds for 6inch cannon. they supposedly give the projectile an extra 20 miles of range with a slightly lower payload of explosives.

Yes, in the artillery field the base bleed rounds are reality since more than 25 years...I believe that one of the first weapons to use this system was the fabulous G5 155mm South African Howitzer designed by the great Gerald Bull.

 

[jbkebert]

I own one of the Daisy rifles and have a couple hundred rounds for it. They come in a plastic tube pretty neat little gun. It is NIB never fired and I am going to keep it that way for the time being. I really don't even know of a value for the rifle. Makes for a fun conversation though.

 

[highorder]

I believe that one of the first weapons to use this system was the fabulous G5 155mm South African Howitzer designed by the great Gerald Bull.

Base bleed arty shells aren't "rocket powered", but you are correct that Dr. Bull was responsible for the concept.

 

[saturno_v]

Base bleed arty shells aren't "rocket powered", but you are correct that Dr. Bull is responsible for the concept.

They are equipped with a rocket engine, the only difference is that it doesn't provide almost any net thrust, it is used only to reduce tail drag.

 

[Jim K]

The problem is a very old one - the difference between possible and practical.

Sam Colt patented a revolver sometime around 1860 that used an air jet instead of a percussion cap to fire a conventional skin or foil cartridge. Daisy used the same idea.

Jim

 

[SWAddict]

Probably the rifle that came the closest to entering into large scale production was the H&K G11 Assault rifle. H&K was very close to having a reliable, practical weapon system but the end of the cold war more than like killed any demand for such a weapon. Here is a wikipedia link about the G11: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_&_Koch_G11

 

[HorseSoldier]

+1. The G11 was supposedly ready for prime time, though how true that was never was put to the test (and I'm not sure if the Cold War era Bundeswehr had worldwide operational parameters in mind when they signed off on the design, since they were basically exclusively focused on war in Central Europe in those days).

The current state of the art is the LSAT program, though whether that ultimately goes into full scale fielding/production in either format (caseless or cased telescoping) remains to be seen.

 

[gunnutery]

Metallic cartridges will probably take us right to directed energy weapons.

Agreed

 

[armoredman]

You want rocket assisted rounds? 16"50 cal RAP, goes waaay beyond the 25+ miles standard range of the 16"50 rifle.
For those confused, the 16"50 rifle is mounted on a few big ships, with names like New Jersey, Missouri, etc.