[Gabe]

. . . You know, the two bullets in one cartridge idea from the 80's. Did it not work as advertised? Are there legal reasons preventing civilian ownership?

[Jake 98c/11b]

No legal issues that I know of, just an issue of consumer demand. There is simply not enough demand to justify production I guess. It would be more expensive even with a substantial market, how much though I couldn't guess.

[mete]

Gabe, idea of the '80s ?? NO ! Remington in fact discontinued their 45acp duplex round in 1919 I think. It was made for bank guards. Lots of ideas are reinvented by each generation about every 25 years. This idea wasn't good 80 years ago and still isn't.

[Jim K]

The duplex load in 7.62 NATO was part of the experimenting that was intended to lead to the SPIW and other exotic weaponry. They also had rounds with 3-5 fletchettes, with multiple bullets, etc. But almost 30 years later, we are still shooting plain old bullets, one at a time.

Jim

[Gabe]

Interesting, I didn't realize its been around so long. It may not have lived up to the original military requirement, but duplex loads sound very promising in a home defense situation. Say a 44 Magnum with two 150 grainers from a lever carbine.

(Great possibilities in revolvers IMO, but this is a rifle forum)

[BigG]

Elmer Keith also documented what he called a duplex load - a rifle cartridge case with a long flash tube similar to an artillery shell. It ignited the front half of the powder and gave extra velocity as the rest of the powder apparently stayed in the case and fully burned, rather than some spewing out of the bbl unburned. He proved it to the Army at Ogden Arsenal where he got std 50 BMG ammo to increase some 200 fps (IIRC) just by putting the flash tube in. He said before you could pick up pounds of unburned powder in front of the machine gun testing area. The army never adopted the idea as it was probably more trouble than it was worth and they were in the middle of WWII. He did similar work with his OKH hunting cartridges documented in Gunnotes and some of his rifle books.

[Jake 98c/11b]

Gabe, I usually see them in straight walled pistol cartridges rather than rifle rounds. Two or three short wadcutters, some of the time with a RN or SWC on top, in a .357 or .44 case. I remember, years ago, an article in Guns and Ammo about the .357 Maximum Quadriplex cartridge. Took a .357max case and stacked four stubby wadcutters inside. First two were .355 then two .357, total weight was about 300 grains at a moderate velocity. A traditional .357 revolver used a cylinder bored to length for the longer case, but was otherwise unaltered. In theory it was far more effective than a single projectile load. It should be more effective because several bullets striking the targer at the same time, or nearly so, are supposed to be far more effective. As I remember it two rounds at once is supposed to be four times as effective and three would be nine time as effective, etc.. What this overlooks is that it is four times (or nine or whatever) as effective as the projectile used. Four times as effective as a 75 gr wadcutter at 780fps may not be all that great, certainly not enough to make me load for it. I think the article said two projectiles could be loaded in the .38 spc case, three in the .357 mag but needing the .357 maximum for four. I will admit, if I had a .357 Rossi 16" mod 92 clone with the large loop lever I would have to give it a try (this being the rifle forum I felt the need to say that).

Remington loaded a duplex .38 a few years back, used two pellets of buckshot now that I think of it.

[Black Snowman]

I've seen someone do the "double wad cutter" in a .357 mag revolver. Horrible accuracy. At only about 7 yards one shot would put 2 holes roughly 2-4" apart and niether would be very close to point of aim. In all fairness I don't know how the gun normally performed but according to the owner "A heck of a lot better than that!"

[C.R.Sam]

Using a long flash tube to ignite the powder from the front was tried in the pre-smokeless powder days. Expensive to build and load. Little or no positive effect.

Was tried again later with smokeless powder and found to have positive effect. Since then specialty rounds have been so constructed. Still too expensive for normal , non military, use.

Sam

[Daniel Watters]

http://www.thegunzone.com/salvo.html

Military experiments with multiplex cartridges date back more than a century. I threw together the above-mentioned list several months ago.

Just the other day, I found the following quote, reputedly published in the Sunday Times (London) around the time of the Project SALVO experiments:

The War Office at present doubts the need for the Duplex Cartridge -- "the British Tommy has always been the most accurate rifleman in the world. The Americans aren't so hot: they probably need two bullets. We don't -- but we're quite willing to listen politely."

Just in case their attitude might be construed as sour grapes, the War Office hints that Britain long ago developed a far superior form of duplex cartridge.