the naked prophet
Member
The recent mousegun thread got me thinking. Most of the mousegun calibers are very old - .32 auto, .380 auto, .25 auto, .22LR and so on. They are all low pressure rounds, even the new .32 NAA is a low pressure round, limited by the pressure of the .380 since it uses that brass.
What would be the ideal round for a mousegun? Using modern materials, designing a high pressure round for short barrels and thin guns.
Okay, I'm thinking that it needs to be at least as powerful as a .32 but better if closer to the .380 in power. A rimless case would help the feeding issues, and centerfire is much more reliable than rimfire. The bottleneck doesn't do much for velocity in such a short barrel, so a straight case would probably be more efficient.
A straight-case rimless centerfire high pressure cartridge. The high pressure probably requires a locked breech, which will also reduce recoil for the shooter.
A double stack magazine would be an interesting feature in a mousegun - if you could get thin enough rounds for a double stack in a mousegun sized grip, you would probably have maybe 10-15 round capacity? Interesting idea anyway.
I'm thinking something along the lines of a straight walled case with a .30 caliber heeled bullet (larger bullet diameter without the added thickness of the case taking up space in the magazine). Something similar to a 5.7x28mm case cut down, maybe a tad smaller to fit a heeled .30 cal bullet. With the near-rifle pressures, and a very fast burning propellant (with a polygonal rifled bore) you could get some decent velocities out of a mousegun length barrel.
15 rounds of hot .30 cal in your hand, not bad. I'd take that over 7 rounds of .32 auto, or even over 6 rounds of .380 auto.
Think you can get decent ballistics from something like that?
What would be the ideal round for a mousegun? Using modern materials, designing a high pressure round for short barrels and thin guns.
Okay, I'm thinking that it needs to be at least as powerful as a .32 but better if closer to the .380 in power. A rimless case would help the feeding issues, and centerfire is much more reliable than rimfire. The bottleneck doesn't do much for velocity in such a short barrel, so a straight case would probably be more efficient.
A straight-case rimless centerfire high pressure cartridge. The high pressure probably requires a locked breech, which will also reduce recoil for the shooter.
A double stack magazine would be an interesting feature in a mousegun - if you could get thin enough rounds for a double stack in a mousegun sized grip, you would probably have maybe 10-15 round capacity? Interesting idea anyway.
I'm thinking something along the lines of a straight walled case with a .30 caliber heeled bullet (larger bullet diameter without the added thickness of the case taking up space in the magazine). Something similar to a 5.7x28mm case cut down, maybe a tad smaller to fit a heeled .30 cal bullet. With the near-rifle pressures, and a very fast burning propellant (with a polygonal rifled bore) you could get some decent velocities out of a mousegun length barrel.
15 rounds of hot .30 cal in your hand, not bad. I'd take that over 7 rounds of .32 auto, or even over 6 rounds of .380 auto.
Think you can get decent ballistics from something like that?