What happened to caseless ammunition?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Bwana John

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2004
Messages
2,960
Growing up in the 60's hanging out at the local gunship the next big step in firearms technology was going to be caseless ammunition, with the propellant being in this shape and form of a hard case that consumed itself and used an electrical pulse for ignition.

The West Germans possibly developed it already but it was not important or worth the price of implemention after the fall of the ComBloc.

The metallic cartridge case has had a great run when compared to other techonologys, but why has the development of something else more efficient not occurred for so long?

Less material used, lighter, less mechanical functions (no extraction or ejection), faster lock times using electricty.

Don't get me wrong, I love flint, cap, rim, and centerfire... But what happened to caseless?
 
Well, not really fewer mechanical functions--it still needs to feed, and extraction and ejection are incorporated into that currently.
IMO, using only third-hand info, it left a sour taste in arms contractors' mouths. The original attempts didn't work well, and it's a lot easier to develop around existing rounds or at least current technology.
Especially since they do still need some way to extract, in case of misfires. And that's tougher with materials softer than a standard round.
Plus, to get it to sell right now, no one will make an electric ignition. It's awkward for civilians, militaries aren't always somewhere they can charge, and don't want to carry more batteries. You could get around that with a piezoelectric trigger but it'd have to be heavy, or embedding a primer into the propellant block but then you'd need a way to clear it out of the chamber.
Besides, would you feel comfortable fording a stream or making an amphibious assault with a belt full of uncased ammunition you're going to have to rely on to complete a mission and get back to base alive?
Of course, my opinion is that caseless will still catch on somewhere. It may need another decade or two of material and adhesive development for the propellant, or at least a good enough incentive to do so. It will definitely need to come around if we ever field some kind of spaceborne military, because there'd be no need to keep defending anything after a while: brass perpetually in low orbit speeds would do an excellent job of area denial for everyone involved. Assuming we don't develop energy weapons by then or equip every craft with casing recovery attachments.
 
Anybody have one of the Daisy .22's that had the propellant plug glued to the back of the projectile that was set off by the heat of air pressure created with a pump lever?(using Boyles law PV/T)

Kind of a hybrid air/powder cartridge, much like the dieseling concept threads currently in the airgun fourms
 
I was going to say this reminds me of a thing a saw on future weapons a few years ago. Turns out to be ten years ago,holy crap!

 
The biggest issue was always the durability of the ammo, especially the loose ammo. Most of the other issue could have been or have been addressed. The durability issue was the biggest reason it failed as a military cartridge.

Case telescoped ammunition is the new hotness in the DOD R&D world.
 
I have always suspected that the next big thing would be breach loading bullets fed from something like a small pistol magazine with either a gas or liquid based propellant injected into a void behind the bullet. As long as the bullet itself was designed with a rim you could clear it should you ever need to. A propellant reservoir would be a major target though, something akin to the napalm tanks of backpack units in WWII. A rupture or detonation might take out more than just that operator though.
 
The durability is one I left out.
Extracting a dud? Possible. Tougher with nonmetallic materials.
The bigger problem would be them getting rubbed together and bounced around in transport or while carried.
 
I really don't know. A bud of mine claimed that the reunification of Germany, and the associated costs, killed off the German program. And it might have. Maybe the lack of a case, to reduce bolt thrust, is what doomed the program. Ha, ha, ha. :rofl:

7dmjk74.jpg

As much as there are all sorts of good reasons for caseless ammunition, the presentation below addresses a bunch of issues I never knew existed.

Caseless Ammunition Small Arms, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly


https://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Caseless-Ammunition-Small-Arms.pdf
 
Don't forget cases also are an integral part of sealing the chamber during the firing cycle.

That was one of the biggest hurdles; designing a chamber which sealed 50,000+ PSI effectively without eating itself. Remember, even the ringed piston in an AR doesn't get a complete seal, and it's only dealing with a small gas volume at a fraction of chamber pressure.

The aforementioned loss of the metallic case acting as a heatsink and poor durability of the ammunition complete the trifecta of doom for caseless ammunition.
 
I think the killing point for caseless is, indeed, the gas seal. The easier way would be a 'semi desposable' 'bolt nose'. I think what's more likely to catch on first is just a semi-cased round.
Basically caseless, but with the bottom of it pressed into a short cup of brass to house the primer and a rim. The chamber could be just about any shape, likely either a straight portion just long enough for the cup and then a sharp taper (to facilitate easier-feeding rounds) or little more than a portion of barrel with the rifling bored out.
 
The real problem is that modern cartridges have 130+ years of continuous military development and are really, really good, and define the entire market.

Caseless cartridges only potentially solve two problems. Weight, and that of the "hyper-burst". Does that make up for all of the disadvantages? So far, not really. The whole "hyper-burst" thing never really went anywhere and isn't really relevant to civilians. Reducing ammo weight would be nice, except there's a lot we can do with case materials and construction first.

Telescoped polymer-cased rounds are much more reasonable, except it looks like those are going to be doomed by "overmatch" requirements.
 
A problem that does not exist needs no solution. IMHO

Ounces equal pounds, pounds equal pain.

The weight savings would be significant for a soldier. Lighter weight ammo means he carry less weight for the same load-out or more ammo for the weight of his current loadout depending on mission needs.

Example: For every round of 5.56x45 NATO you could carry two rounds of 4.73×33mm caseless ammunition (DM11) for the HK G11 had it become reality. When you take into accoun the magazine the saving was greater. The M4 adds ~1lb for a 30rd magazine. The G11 magazine weight 1.5ls but contain 90rds.

The HK G11 ammunition, had it become reality, would have been roughly half the weight of standard 5.56x45mm NATO.
 
Last edited:
Perhaps gaseous propellants instead of solid propellants have some promise.
Gas powered nailers have come a long way in the caseless realm. I don't know if the technology could be scaled to drive a bullet the same way it drives a nail, but the nailers work well and this article shows how they work: https://www.protoolreviews.com/tools/hows-it-work-fuel-powered-cordless-nailers/4454/
The nailers need a micro-processor to run them, and that is the last thing I would want on any gun of mine, but hey, maybe its the way of the future.
 
Some days when I go to pick up my empties I'd swear that the 10mm Auto rounds from my G29 were caseless....
:rofl: Seems like ever since I first got into 10mm, back in the 80s, the biggest obstruction to reloading them was the fact that all the weapons launched the cases into the next county. Also seems I never learned, as I never purchased a capture device.
 
I would suspect that reducing weight of batteries and body armor and other non-mumitions kit offers far greater potential weight savings than focusing on the ammo at the expense of a complete weapons redesign.

They try to reduce weight anywhere and everywhere for the soldier, hence the, "Ounces equal pounds, pounds equal pain." saying. All of those areas and more are the focus of weight reduction by various R&D efforts. The drive to reduce the weight of ammo it one of the reason we went from 7.62 NATO to 5.56 NATO and is what has driven 3 or 4 different .gov funded attempts by the various branches to perfect the polymer ( or hybrid metalic/polymer) rifle case.

In addition to the individual soldier think about how much ammo the military uses and the cost of moving it throughout the supply chain. Reducing ammunition weight helps the soldier but it also helps the energy cost up the entire supply chain. The US military uses billions (with a b) rounds of ammunition a year in training and operations. Reducing the weight of ammunition has big effect on a massive supply change not just the weight the soldier has to hump in the field. Not to mention the cost of producing and then dealing with the brass cases that would go away if they went caseless.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top