Telescoping ammunition

[Vern Humphrey]

That Forgotten Weapons video left something out. How would you eject a live round?

If you're talking about the Dardick, no problem. Simply remove the magazine, cock and lower the hammer twice. The cylinder will rotate, and two live rounds will eject.

 

[Flechette]

In 1861, the U.S. was twenty years behind the power curve.

In 1841 The Prussian army adopted the Dreyse breech-loading, bolt-action, rifle.
View attachment 770057

Which incidentally, also used a caseless cartridge . . .

Interesting.

Being a bolt action negated the cook off problem...

 

[lysanderxiii]

Actually not. The Dardick "tround" was a triangular extrusion (usually of aluminium) with a hole drilled through it lengthwise and chambered for the .38 Special. A cartridge was chambered in the tround, and it was fed through the magazine. The "chamber" in the pistol was in two parts -- a V notch in a cylinder matching with the top strap. The face o the tround was pressed to the breech, and there was probably less gas escaping on firing than you would expect with a conventional revolver.

That would make it a cased round....

 

[Vern Humphrey]

That would make it a cased round....

That is correct -- actually double-cased, since the tround was formed by inserting a .38 Special cartridge into an extruded triangular outer case.

 

[mstreddy]

Regarding the Dreyse, a buddy of mine has one. He went through some trials in getting it to work right; replacement needle, breech plug, and creating the paper cases. He brings it out to the range regularly and it's one I love to shoot.
The Dreyse used or is now modified to use a cork or plastic breech plug to get the breech closed on the paper cartridges. It really is a cool gun from an era where we were going from muzzle to breech loading.