Ammunition

[Timerover51]

I retread the thread and FWIW I do not see anywhere that you have given offense. You made a joke that I among many saw as funny. If somebody has had their sense of humor surgically removed, perhaps they should just ignore jokes rather than make insulting comments.

Just my opinion, of course.

D. Jay Newman

That comment was regarding the possibility of caseless ammunition. Considering that various government groups have been working on this since World War 2 with a singular lack of success, I did not wish to go into a detailed discussion, and I still do not wish to, on the problems that have been encountered.

As for having my sense of humor surgically removed, I do not joke about weapons. People who have in my experience tend to have fatal or near-fatal accidents with them. I will joke with colleagues about the jet jockies and their ignorance regarding the weapons that they drop, including the 5 years and forget cycle.

 

[atpollard]

I did not know that someone had resurrected it, but that is an impressive price tag.

What about starting with an American Derringer Model 8, lengthen the barrels, add a folding stock and come up with a .45/.410 survival rifle.

 

[DangerousThing]

That comment was regarding the possibility of caseless ammunition. Considering that various government groups have been working on this since World War 2 with a singular lack of success, I did not wish to go into a detailed discussion, and I still do not wish to, on the problems that have been encountered.

And yet we're talking about an SF game with FTL travel, anti-gravity, and ray guns. Even if you don't personally like something, we're discussing the rules of the game of Traveller, not generic SF or your own personal house rules.

You do seem to know more about RW weapons, so I read your posts.

As for caseless ammo, it's the standard in some parts of my game universe, in an area which is TL 10-12, which is much higher than anything we have on Earth today to the best of my knowledge.

As for having my sense of humor surgically removed, I do not joke about weapons. People who have in my experience tend to have fatal or near-fatal accidents with them. I will joke with colleagues about the jet jockies and their ignorance regarding the weapons that they drop, including the 5 years and forget cycle.

There is a difference between joking ABOUT weapons here on the web than joking around WITH weapons. I thought the picture was funny. Highly impractical for many reasons, but still funny.

Think of the Abbot and Costello routine "Who's on First?" Nobody would really have an 8 minute understanding like that; somebody would get some paper out or just spell the names out. But when I played it a couple nights ago I heard my wife laugh out loud like she hasn't in years.

 

[Darkwing]

Agreed, Dangerous thing. I thought it was hilarious when a friend of mine pointed a nerf gun at someone and said "the real Jedi mind trick!: you want to give me all your money". When an acquaintence pulled a realistic BB gun (modeled on the Jerico 941) and tried to hand it over to "enhance" the joke, though, everyone piled on him for being a dumb *donkey*. It's ok to laugh, but there's definitely a line not to cross, either.
Or, in a Timelords game, the GM just had to bring in the Knights Who Say "Nee!". Playing ourselves, we introduced ourselves as the Knights Who Say "Boom!" "Boom?" they asked", to which we replied "BOOM!" with a .44 magnum. Everybody rolled at that point. Again, seeing it in real life would have caused all of us to come down on the offender like the Blue Bolt of Smiting.

 

[sabredog]

Speaking of the over-under handguns, what abot a high tech take on the Le Mat revolver? One heavy cartridge in the center barrel and 6 or so in the cylinder around it. IMTU I have one that is just a laser pistol with a small, single shot grenade launcher on top in case things get frisky.

Another variant is more conventional with a laser in the center and 5 10mm snub gun rounds revolving in the cylinder around it for gas, tranq, generally less-lethal rounds. Much favored with ship's crews and law enforcement.

And why would caseless ammunition explode when hit by a non-explosive round, exactly? I would assume that if it developed to be practical in application it wouldn't be having the problems earlier compounds did and be stable until the primer sets it off. It's not gun cotton stacked in the magazine, after all. The biggest problem was always moisture and crumbling in the magazines under the shocks of automatic fire, particularly heavy caliber. BTW: today MetalStorm has caseless ammo that is electrically primed and works flawlessly. The rate of fire is really something to see.

 

[Darkwing]

The Le Mat revival is a good idea, I included a couple on my list, but the players weren't interested. Too many other intersting options.

I've never cared for the caseless bullet idea, although I'm not so hostile as timerover51 to the concept. Basically, assuming you can get it to work, in order to avoid crumbling, you'd probably have to go to sealed magazines. No combat reload. No ejecting a dud - one of the supposed virtues of a caseless round was no ejection port, because it was "unnecessary". How do you remove the round in the chamber when downloading? How do you customize, which reloading allows?

It's not of interest to me. If it did see use, it'd likely be a military/ Law Enforcement round anyway.
Another, somewhat more interesting idea, to me, is self-forging projectiles as small arms. I deliberately didn't include them, because my list was already fairly long, even with the LAGs, SAWs, and other man-portable non-small-arms removed.

 

[aramis]

One of the best caseless round designs is actually cased - the case-carrying bullet. The sides of the bullet form the case; it loads exactly like a cased round, and gives the bullet the extra mass and stability of a long round (they're often over 10:1 L:W). The problem is that that also means more barrel friction. It's a very short duration rocket round, for most purposes. The main problems are ignition of the propellant, and that the propellant isn't actually sealed. A lesser issue is that all such rounds are effectively full metal jackets - hollowpoints and semi-jacketed tend to have issues from what I've read of the tests on case-carrying rounds. Then again, most of what I've seen about CCR have been for 5" naval guns, not small arms

The attached graphic shows three types of rounds - top to bottom: centerfire cased; case-carrying; typical caseless.

 

[Greylond]

The problem so far with caseless ammo is the ammo cooking off due to heat build up. The H&K G11 had that problem.

The issue about ejecting a dud round in the G11 was easy because the action was made with an exit port on the bottom and the user could push a button to eject out a bad round.

The wiki page on it has some good info;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_&_Koch_G11

 

[Fritz_Brown]

OK, I was laughing at the idea of hollow-point 5" rounds. 'Cause, you know, you need them to mushroom when they hit.....

The G11 was a pretty good design, but it was set up exactly as Darkwing mentioned: sealed mags. This became a small problem with logistics of resupply.

Caseless ammo is a problem (currently - could change over time) for reload. Maybe it could be done with a 3D printer? Hmmmmmm.....

 

[Timerover51]

Agreed, Dangerous thing. I thought it was hilarious when a friend of mine pointed a nerf gun at someone and said "the real Jedi mind trick!: you want to give me all your money". When an acquaintence pulled a realistic BB gun (modeled on the Jerico 941) and tried to hand it over to "enhance" the joke, though, everyone piled on him for being a dumb *donkey*. It's ok to laugh, but there's definitely a line not to cross, either.

Last year, a teenager was playing around with a highly realistic BB gun in the next town. Someone called the police to report a teen with a gun, so the police responded. The kid rather than putting down the gun when ordered, pointed it at one of the cops. Result, one dead teenager, no charges against officers. Aa fair number of teens around the Chicago area kill people, therefore the police were judged to have a legitimate basis for believing their lives and possibly other were in danger.

 

[Greylond]

Caseless ammo is a problem (currently - could change over time) for reload. Maybe it could be done with a 3D printer? Hmmmmmm.....

Yea, our resident "gun guy"* in my regular group was talking about that not long ago.

 

[atpollard]

Flintlock era paper cartridges were caseless in the sense that the case combusted during firing. PVC will burn but requires a high temperature ignition source. A "plastic" coating with a higher than cook-off ignition temperature (electric ignition?) might be developed to serve as a stable, waterproof fully combustible cartridge.

Just spitballing ideas.

 

[atpollard]

The Le Mat revival is a good idea, I included a couple on my list, but the players weren't interested. Too many other intersting options.

With the modern .45LC/.410 shell revolver (like the Judge), most of the reason for a LeMat no longer exists. Add in a modern .454 Casul capability and the Judge becomes THE JUDGE.

 

[sabredog]

Flintlock era paper cartridges were caseless in the sense that the case combusted during firing. PVC will burn but requires a high temperature ignition source. A "plastic" coating with a higher than cook-off ignition temperature (electric ignition?) might be developed to serve as a stable, waterproof fully combustible cartridge.

Just spitballing ideas.

The weapons MetalStorm makes are electrically primed and caseless. The entire barrel (in a cluster or single) is the magazine, and the rounds are stacked inside. It is a really neglected technology and works amazingly well and with an incredible rate of fire for the support models. They even have a shotgun version for under the barrel of a battle rifle, or used alone. And a grenade launcher.

The G11 is so old an example now that it is hardly worth mentioning. I think the experience ruined a good idea for a long time but it seems like MetalStorm has the right idea now and is probably what you would see in future operations - especially in space since the magazine/barrels can also be sealed.

http://www.metalstorm.com/IRM/content/home.html

 

[Fritz_Brown]

The G11 is so old an example now that it is hardly worth mentioning.

Holy moley! I was researching it in college, and it wasn't brand-spanking-new then. It *is* old!

 

[atpollard]

I might be completely off base, but I am aware of Metal Storm ... amazing to watch it fire and they have a Grenade machinegun version ... but I have a psychological hard time visualizing a future world of muzzle loading firearms []

I really need to see a better reload system to view MetalStorm as a real contender ... but that is just me.

 

[Darkwing]

With the modern .45LC/.410 shell revolver (like the Judge), most of the reason for a LeMat no longer exists. Add in a modern .454 Casul capability and the Judge becomes THE JUDGE.

I haven't heard of a .454 Casull version. I prefer the Governor: .45 LC, .45 ACP, and .410 to the Judge.
As for the LeMat, notice the idea is 2 totally different guns in one body. So your Judge won't stack up against the new Traveller LeMat with a center laser and snub revolver cylinder, or (my version) a gyrojet revolver with a shotgun/pistol cartridge center (and the opposite, also available).

 

[Darkwing]

Last year, a teenager was playing around with a highly realistic BB gun in the next town. Someone called the police to report a teen with a gun, so the police responded. The kid rather than putting down the gun when ordered, pointed it at one of the cops. Result, one dead teenager, no charges against officers. Aa fair number of teens around the Chicago area kill people, therefore the police were judged to have a legitimate basis for believing their lives and possibly other were in danger.

This was happening with laser tag guns and BB guns when we were kids; it hasn't changed. It's just one of the reasons not to horse around with a gun or realistic gun replica.

 

[atpollard]

I haven't heard of a .454 Casull version. I prefer the Governor: .45 LC, .45 ACP, and .410 to the Judge.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. There is no .454 Casull Judge. I was suggesting an enhanced modern version of the Judge similar to the old Colt Buntlines ... start with a .45/.410 revolver, beef it up to .454 Casull, extend the barrel to 12 inches, add a folding stock ... the result is a 5 shot pistol/carbine capable of shooting .454 Casul for big game, .410 shot shells loaded with birdshot for snakes or buckshot for groups and .45 LC or ACP for basic handgun functions.

As for the LeMat, notice the idea is 2 totally different guns in one body. So your Judge won't stack up against the new Traveller LeMat with a center laser and snub revolver cylinder, or (my version) a gyrojet revolver with a shotgun/pistol cartridge center (and the opposite, also available).

The basic need met by the LeMat, as I understand it, was to provide multiple light shots and one big shot in a single weapon. The .45 LC/.410 shotgun revolver provides 5 or 6 shot capability with the flexibility of any combination of large caliber handgun to buckshot to birdshot. IMHO that trumps a lot of the LeMat capability and flexibility. Add in .454 Casull as an optional round, and you have darn near the upper limit on handgun power (short of the laser which might be high power and recoilless).

As an aside from CT, the original Laser Pistol had a carbine-size receiver with a pistol grip and short barrel ... that is a little bulky to fit in the center of a revolver.

 

[DaveChase]

I haven't heard of a .454 Casull version. I prefer the Governor: .45 LC, .45 ACP, and .410 to the Judge.
As for the LeMat, notice the idea is 2 totally different guns in one body. So your Judge won't stack up against the new Traveller LeMat with a center laser and snub revolver cylinder, or (my version) a gyrojet revolver with a shotgun/pistol cartridge center (and the opposite, also available).

Not to say that a 454 casull is the best but it is up there for taking out big game.

Now you can fire 45LC, .410 (brass) and 454 casull
The S&W Governor is a very good pistol. Big, stable, 6 rounds and can be a great revolver backup for your .45auto (uses moonclips for this caliber).

But the 454 with the right load and bullet can put some serious dents into armor (body not vehicluar armor, but it will mess up some armored windshields).

The problem with most 454's is that they are heavy (5lbs or more) and if you use the bigger loads or hot load your ammo, you better have some very strong hands (grip) and forearms (recoil) or use both hands. But if you hit the target it will be very obvious to everyone.

If you do your own reloading you can make about any caliber a shot (like shotgun) load. You can buy 9mm, 45LC, .45 auto, 44 mag, etc bird shot ammo. It has small BB's in a clear (or lightly colored blue, most common) cap where the bullet would normally sit.

In the beginning of the 454 casull rounds, the brass was too soft for the regular to high power loads and had fail rate (meaning the brass could not be reloaded or quickly ejected) of about 50% after shooting.

Today, it is appears that the fail rate only applies to the upper end high power or custom hot loads.

The S&W .500 is a good hunting, take down your target also. But there are not many speicalized rounds for it, unless you do your own reloading.

The Judge is a good all round revolver for most. Regular 45LC will kick enough that most will want a two handed grip, until they are use to it. Cowboy 45LC is easily handled by most, it uses BP for the poweder and is still powerfull enough to hunt with (taking out deer, coyotes, etc).
A 45LC P+ will kick very strong, and currently I would not want to shoot this round regularly though a Judge for 2 reasons. 1) It is hard on the hands, 2) it is hard on the firearm. (Note that the new Judges are supposedly able to hand this but Tauras makes no claims that it does, they have just strengthened the cylinder.)

.410 shot through a Judge actually kicks more than Cowboy 45LC and about the same as 45LC. A .410 slug will kick more than 45LC. There are home defense rounds for it also.
Short barrel and home defense versions are good for everyday carry and home defense. The longer barrel is better if you want to hunt with it.

The idea of why the Judge is a good home defense fire arm is:
1) It's a double action revolver, pull the trigger and it fires.
2) .410 rounds and 45LC (Cowboy) rounds normally do not penetrate or travel far after pentrating typical home walls (That is why a shotgun is normally the highest recommended home defense firearm.
3) You can combined different round in the cylinder with the typical set up being .410, 45LC, .410, 45LC, 45LC
4) It is less likely to jam than an automatic.

Of course there are many given reasons why one should not depend on a Judge for home defense, but I don't agree with most of those reasons. The only valid point is that it is a 5 round capacity firearm, but there are speed loaders (holds 5 shots for a quick reload).

A Judge is a good firearm (pistol) for those who want to shot/own something for many different things and do not know much about firearms.

If only they would make the Circut Judge (carbine style firearm) with a folding stock, it would be extremely popular instead of just popular.

A reason to consider a round like 454, 45LC, .410, (or even the .45auto in the Governor) is that they all can use the same powder and bullet. Just depends on how you want to reload and use it for.

Final point, there are 5 and 6 round 454 casull pistols out there. In the beginning they were only 5 but as technology advance and people were willing to carry a heavier and bigger firearm, they now make a 6 round one.

Dave Chase