What if They Rifled Bullets Instead of Barrels?

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They do:

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When I was a kid I fired bullets through my colt and s&w. Had both right and left hand twists after that. That should make a forensic guy do a double take.
 
Most bullets or shotgun slugs go supersonic at some point just short of the muzzle.

And at that point, the bow shock wave causes all air to become turbulent over the rifling vanes on a slug, or bullet.

In other words, no air can stay in contact with the vanes to cause rotation.

You have to have laminar flow air sticking to the bullet in order for any air pressure to cause rotation. And that ain't gonna happen at supersonic velocity with conventional bullet shapes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow

The other thing is, air flow over rifling on the bullet would be so slow to act and get the bullet up to the necessary RPM, the bullet would be tumbling before any stabilizing spin could be imparted to it.

Typical rifle bullets spin at 200,000 to 300,000 RPM.
It would take tremendous air pressure on the vanes to get it up to that RPM before it already became unstable and started tumbling.

rc
 
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Another thing would be soft copper rifling versus hard steel barrel, I would assume the rifling would be crushed or totally distorted by the time it exits the muzzle.
 
The "rifled" bullets would have to be harder than the barrel, like having steel bullets and a copper barrel, and the barrel would be useless after very few rounds through it.

Woody
 
How about stabilizing fins that pop out after the boolit leaves the bore? They do that with the heavy stuff. :p
 
I rank this idea with the reverse bottle neck cartridge -- i.e. 10mm necked up to .45 :)

Actually many of the first muzzle loader handguns were this way with a smaller diameter powder containing section to improve the burning of the crude powders of the time by increasing the initial pressure.
 
Fins don't need nearly as much spin to stabilize. Think of arrows. They're not fast, but they're plenty stable once launched. Wait, they've already done this.. it's called flechettes and for some unknown reason they're illegal in my state.

If you're worried about CSI, use #00 buckshot in a breechloader.
 
The gyrojet pistol of the 1960's tried to spin stabilize the rocket "bullet" by using angled ports for the rocket fuel to spin the projectile out of a smooth-bore barrel.

Again, low initial velocity as the "bullet" got up to speed caused poor accuracy.
On the order of the manufactures claimed 5-mil accuracy (about 17 MOA).

In actual practice, it was worse then that.

rc
 
I think fin stabilized, guided projectiles launched in a sabot will be in the near future. They are already experimenting with them. That's not the same as a rifled bullet but the concept is similar.
 
RC, wasn't that contraption called the 'Dardik?' IIRC, it fired a triangular cartridge called a 'tround.' It was a solution to a problem that didn't exist.,
 
Nope, the Dardick was, in spite of its odd "Trounds" and open chambered cylinder, a conventional internal combustion firearm. Indeed, they offered triangular adapters for .38 S&W if you could not find their proprietary ammo. Or for the .22 LR conversion.
No relation to the actual rocket launcher Gyrojet.

The Army has been fooling with fletchette guns for about 40 years now.
There is a book: "SPIW, the Deadliest Weapon that Never Was."
A typical fletchette gun barrel is rifled about one turn per 100 inches. Not to spin the long skinny dart for stability, but to separate the sabot segments and let the projectile fly on its way.
 
I wonder if anyone has ever purchased multiple barrels for a Dan Wesson revolver for this purpose. Just discard the used barrel & install a different one on the revolver.
 
Guess it would depend on how often you would want - or could afford o- to replace barrels ! Then there's going to be the issue of indexing succeeding rounds ! Doesn't take a ballistician to anticipate how quickly accuracy is going to degrade !

Seems like yet another "solution in search of a problem" ! >MW
 
didn't the 20 pound Parrot gun have a rifled bore and a rifled bullet? Rifling on the bullet actually fit inside the bore?

You're thinking of the Armstrong Rifled Cannon. The Parrot had a attached dish on the rear of the shell that the detonation of the powder expands into the rifling.
 
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