What is the highest pressure pistol cartridge and how high can we make a pistol cartridges go?

GAF said:

I know this is a rifle round in a pistol but here is what will happen.

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How is this relevant?

The pressure won’t have any adverse effect on recoil, per se. What will affect recoil is the weight of projectile (also low) and the velocity (very high.) So the goal is to design something that has ultra high velocity, and get it to perform in a pistol-sized case, with a pistol-sized barrel. Recoil needs to be manageable, and the thing has to feed and eject cleanly. And a G26 or some such (typical pistol form factor) is a lot more useful than a Desert Eagle/AR or AK pistol form factor. Makes for a tough if not unattainable design brief given the metallurgy and materials we have.

It's been pointed out that there have been steady efforts over the years to develop both more powerful and higher velocity ammo and guns to go with them. The idea that those efforts slowed downed or stopped is a mistake. They never really have.

fxvr5 said:

How is this relevant?

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I think it is relevant because when pistol rounds get pushed to the levels of the above
these videos show what is going to happen. You know that in the not to distant future someone is going to
try just as above with their favorite pistol cartridge.

GAF said:

I think it is relevant because when pistol rounds get pushed to the levels of the above
these videos show what is going to happen. You know that in the not to distant future someone is going to
try just as above with their favorite pistol cartridge.

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That video is not relevant at all. This thread is about high peak chamber pressure, not high recoil. You don't seem to understand that.

Also, the 600 Nitro Express has a CIP chamber pressure limit of 2450 bar, which is 35,534 psi. That's just barely above the 9mm SAAMI pressure limit of 35,000 psi, and less than 9mm +P with a pressure limit of 38,5000 psi. Most everyone on the planet can handle 9mm and 9mm +P recoil in a handgun.

Okay

You can get more pressure simply by adding more powder to the same case.

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One can also achieve a higher peak pressure with less powder, if it’s faster burning.

There is also the fact that a high peak pressure doesn’t necessarily mean that, that load is going to have the highest velocity.

tipoc said:

It's been pointed out that there have been steady efforts over the years to develop both more powerful and higher velocity ammo and guns to go with them. The idea that those efforts slowed downed or stopped is a mistake. They never really have.

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But neither have they set the world on fire. The .357 Sig is an example -- it's available in a well-designed, conveniently-sized platform, but is outsold by the 9mm by a long chalk.

From OP:

no one seems to be designing pistol hardware to handle even higher pressures. Why? Wouldn't a 55 gr .22 caliber bullet flying at 3,000 fps out of a pistol be just as deadly as a 5.56 NATO out of a AR-15 platform?

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fxvr5 said:

This thread is about high peak chamber pressure, not high recoil. You don't seem to understand that.

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The original premise was on the question of why the pressures currently in use have reached an apparent peak, and why no more.
I will contend that OP may have failed to connect that there are two curves intersecting to reach the present result. One is projectile mass, the other projectile velocity. Projectile velocity has a component in chamber pressure, but that is not the only component of that.

These things do not operate in a 1 to 1 sort of correlation. There are really good reasons rifles and pistols are different, and their cartridges, too.
In 5.56nato a 12-14" barrel will get a 55gr projectile to near 3000fps. But, is less likely to in a 3" barrel.
A 38spl in a 3" barrel will get a 154gr projectile to near to 1000fps. In, say, a putative 20" barrel, not so much.

That former will be in a package in the neighborhood of 7 pounds; the latter about 1 pound.
All of these factors are inter-related.

Let's "invent" a thing--a .22-50, a .50bmg case necked down to .22 using a 55gr projectile. Without a doubt, this would be a "high pressure" round. Would it be "high velocity"? That's probably going to be linked to barrel length. In a 4 inch handgun barrel--probably not likely (give you even odds 3/4 of the powder burns after the bullet leaves the muzzle). Give you even odds the thing would tip the scales over 3 pounds, too.
Give the beast a 16-18 inch barrel, and you are likely to see 3000fps, but at the expense of a lot of unburnt powder. And, probably an 8-9 pound weight (and in no way resembling a hand gun).

I used to own an XP100 in .308--it was not what I would describe as a "handy" handgun. That stubby barrel was not getting the rounds up over 2000fps, other than the Accelerator rounds kicking a 55gr .22 round in a sabot. Launching only a third of the projectile mass controlled felt recoil, but only so much.

May I ask what the purpose of this question is?

Vern Humphrey said:

But neither have they set the world on fire. The .357 Sig is an example -- it's available in a well-designed, conveniently-sized platform, but is outsold by the 9mm by a long chalk.

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It's also outsold, and always has been, by the 40 S&W and recently by the 10mm.

A new round, to be successful, has to find a place. It has to have, or create, a market to thrive. If not it either fades away or becomes a niche cartridge. It has, very often, little to do with how good a round is. Often it's timing and finding a market, or creating one. The list of good rounds laying by the road is long.

For semis the only truly successful round of the post war period has been the 40 S&W and the 10mm to a lessor extant. Other than those, everything else is close to or over a century old. The 9mm is older than the 45acp.

With the exception of the 357 magnum and the 44 Magnum wheelgun rounds, that we can say are truly popular, are also close to or over a century old.

This thread is nearly useless without Clark.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?members/clark.2492/

Flechette said:

So can we make a .45 or 9mm sized cartridge with better performance? I think that a smaller bullet at much higher speeds would do it. a 5.56 out of an AR-15 platform has good performance. 55 gr @ 3000 fps. Can we get a pistol to do that without the huge cartridge? If so, that means necked down 9mm with really high pressures.

Can we make those pressures work?

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Yes. Pistols chambered in 9X23 Winchester take the same pressure as the 223 Rem (55,000 psi). https://www.shootingtimes.com/editorial/cartridge-review-9x23-winchester/99601

A 22 caliber round, the 22TCM, is loaded to 40,000 psi according to the articles below. It pushes a 40 grain bullet at 2,000 fps from a 5" barrel. Increasing the pressure limit to 55,000 should gain several hundred fps, but trying for 3,000 would be tough unless using much lighter bullets.

https://www.shootingtimes.com/editorial/review-ria-22-tcm-conversion-kits/99564
https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2018/3/28/review-the-22-tcm-cartridge/

The FN 5.7x28 round is close to the desired speed but it is a much longer cartridge than what will fit in a typical auto pistol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_5.7×28mm

Yep, the above post #41 is a good one. The 5.7x28 has been around since 1990 but has made no great impact, despite high hopes for it as a military and police round. It's a good round that does not provide you with anything that the M4 doesn't in a handier size with greater capacity. It has to fill a need or it becomes another good round without a lasting home.

The 22 TCM developed by Fred Craig and Armscorp is a great little bottleneck round. It also has no home at present and has created no large market.

The 9x23 Winchester is a great round. It began in the 1980s when the 38 Super was king of the hill in pistol competition. It was developed to do what the 38 Super did (make major power factor but with a 9mm bullet that was great with compensators) but with more power and no "Super Face". It's introduction was delayed by lawsuits and while that was going on they went and lowered the standards for what made Major, and the 40 S&W and 357 Sig showed up. So it's home (potential market) was gone. It is still a great round that only Winchester sometimes makes.

So the issue isn't that maybe no one can make a pistol for carry and self defense that get to close to 3,000 fps but that once you got it who will buy it and why? If I want a handgun and round that has 1800 fps at 100 yards that is not a single shot, why waste that in a handgun when I can have better control in a carbine?

You have a choice of building an action that will last for a long time or buidling an action that will beat itself to death in short order. Pick one. Metallurgy has limits. This reminds me of all the younger guys who buy a Jeep and then want to know if they can stuff a really hot V8 engine into it. Why SURE! Hope you really like breaking parts and working on it a lot.

I think this may be a case of diminishing returns/ what you get isn't worth what it takes to get there.

As an example, I like 45 acp for carry. The main reasons being that it makes a big hole even if it doesn't expand and it's subsonic and fairly low pressure which is better if fired in close spaces. I don't need a small cartridge that with concussion that'll leave my ears bleeding and a bullet that will penetrate soft armor. It doesn't need to.

If we look at a 45 bullet , pushing it to 2000 fps is overkill and requires a much stronger and heavier gun. There isn't anyone sane that would say a 454 casull makes a good cartridge for social work, actually the opposite is true. It's a 65k psi monster intended for knocking over steel targets at relatively long distances (for a handgun) and punching holes in things that bite.

Looking at the other side , a tiny bullet with a diameter of .17" like the 17 hmr. With a chamber pressure of just 26k psi will still zip right through a person , more isn't really required. Cartridges like the 5.7 running at 50k psi is more than is required to do its work, a tough bullet has no problem punching through soft armor or a hollow/soft point can expand and tumble doing everything it's intended to do.

My point is that even if you could push a 5.7mm bullet twice as fast (5,000 fps) I don't think much would be gained. The bullet would need to be seriously tough to not just disintegrate on target, that tough bullet wouldn't deform on flesh and would just push a tiny wound track. If it were intended to tumble as suggested then it wouldn't need to be nearly as tough or have such a high velocity.

It seems you end up in a round and round where each compromise creates limitations that may not be desirable .

Even looking at it from a rifle cartridge point of view, I think the trade offs would be many and benefits would be few. We have cartridges that work to over a mile effectively , how much further can a guy see or accurately shoot? Long range bullets need to be heavy enough to buck the wind and efficient enough to have a decent trajectory. If we took a 338 lapua as an example , doubled its velocity ( call it 6,000 fps) the benefit would be better armor penetration and a flatter trajectory at the cost of massive concussion , heavier weapon and decreased service life. What we already have is a cartridge few can even take advantage of as it is.

I like thinking outside the box but pressure is not always your friend. I have a couple 454 casull revolvers, they're crazy and awesome but if I'm going to put a hole in something the target doesn't know if the bullet just barely made it through and fell on the ground upon exit or if it buried 2 feet into the berm behind it, as long as it made it through its just the same thing. Some targets are tougher than others but in the real world things don't take much to poke a hole in. The exception being armor, as far as I know there is no handgun cartridge capable of passing through hard body armor, 500 magnum (is a absolute beast of a cartridge usually doesn't even scratch it. I can't see anyone wanting to touch off a 100k psi load , 60k is unpleasant enough and all the hardware required to contain such pressure is heavy. All for an end result that pretty similar to what we can do with conventional components .

Recoil, noise and concussion need to be considered and even if we had components that supported such high pressure the result would be unpleasant to say the least .


Just my .02, worth what you paid for it.

tipoc said:

The 9x23 Winchester is a great round. It is still a great round that only Winchester sometimes makes.

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Corbon and Buffalo Bore also load the 9X23 Win.

The whole idea isn't how much pressure can be generated - the whole idea is to drive a projectile at a given velocity & maintain minimum pressures.

Ok, what about something like the Bain&Davis from a platform like a Desert Eagle? Could you make bottleneck from a .44 to .32? Would 2500fps be doable? Could the platform be scaled down to duty size?

Pudge said:

Ok, what about something like the Bain&Davis from a platform like a Desert Eagle? Could you make bottleneck from a .44 to .32? Would 2500fps be doable? Could the platform be scaled down to duty size?

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OK, what about it?
Yes.
With a light enough bullet and just the right powder.
No.

Flechette said:

That's largely how they get high muzzle velocity over artillery from 100 years ago.

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But, that's really only incremental, not phenomenal. The enhanced artillery powders are also very hard on rifled bore liners, too. So, re-lining is scheduled much faster than it once was.

Which is part of your question. We have hit something of a plateau in chemistry, in projectiles/barrel lengths/bores; to a certain extent, in barrel lock up.

Note that the Browning-style tilting barrel is virtually the 80% solution; every other method has been tried, and yet, the only successes have been that tilt barrel.

What's hard to appreciate is just how efficient our use of chemicals to launch projectiles really was, even a couple centuries ago. Really, most of the modern improvements are in manufacturing tolerances and consistency. Which seems unimaginable. But is the case.

Halving the half gets to diminishing returns pretty quickly, and we have an immense amount of time trying every possible solution out. James Parish Lee introduced the 6mm round (with a straight-pull bolt) back in the 1890s. And before smokeless powder, too. The French 'secret' (smokeless powder) rapidly turned the world from 10-12mm rifles to 7-8mm ones, to see those scrunch down to 6.5 a century ago.

A hundred years, a hundred nations, thousands of thinkers, tinkers, and experimenters have tried everything. Will there be something new under the Sun? Possibly. Will it be enough better to change the world is the more important question.

Jim Watson said:

OK, what about it?
Yes.
With a light enough bullet and just the right powder.
No.

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With Hornady claiming 2400 fps with a 110 grain .358 XTP, by necking down, and dropping down in weight, maybe using sabots, we could get darn closer to the 3000 fps goal in the OP, and in an existing platform. If there were significant benefits from such performance, I think we'd be there, and perhaps even in a scaled down package. But Bain&Davis and its potential to crank up the velocity of the .44 magnum is custom work today, while we have manufacturers producing .44 special handguns.