The future of rifle ammunition

[ALDA BERGR]

About 50 years ago they were predicting that the future of ammunition was a hard pellet with the bullet glued to the front and the pellet was fired electronically. No case, no primer and no ejection after the round fired, so what happened to that idea? And, for the next 50 years we were still loading brass cases.

Yeah, at least commercial sporting use.

 

[theotherwaldo]

... so what happened to that idea?

The problems include getting a good breech seal, cook-offs, structural integrity of the "pellet", consistent ignition, fire hazard and how to store and carry ready rounds.
I had a design where the breech cupped the "pellet" and sealed on the base of the bullet, but I could only get it to work on low velocity rounds.

 

[Jim Watson]

There was investigation of a "neckless" plastic cartridge similar in appearance to the True Velocity military proposal.
The difference being that it was meant to fit a standard chamber with the advantage of weight saving.
The liability being that the plastic case had less volume than brass, therefore lower power at standard pressure. The jump of the bullet through the chamber neck wouldn't do anything good for accuracy, either; but that might not matter in a machine gun.
The True Velocity/Sierra collaboration has a conventional external profile, neck and all. So if molded properly, bullet alignment should be good.