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Dust off your crystal balls

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I am thinking that magnaporting will become more universal on all barrels.
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As will hearing aids for shooters.;)

I'm an old curmudgeon, and I say there should be only one hole in a barrel, and it should run from breech to muzzle. I don't need any gun that needs more than that one hold.
 
Disposable guns made from recycled 2 liter soda bottles. Heck, we're halfway there now. Sadly, they will cost just as much as a good all steel gun.
 
A GPS chip in the back of your neck with a heads up display so that you can't miss your shot. Of course it's up to the computer whether of not the bullet actually launches. Same for your ability to run red lights.

We should start spending more money now on the arts. Fine arts. Like traditional shooting. For the sake of history.
 
As soon as we get a camera that is as good or better than the human eye, that Bluetooth integration will become a reality. The camera will be pointed in the direction of the barrel, and an inboard computer will find what a camera on the glasses is seeing, then superimpose a crosshair of what the gun sees onto the glasses's field of view. But until we get tiny cameras that see as well as we do, the systems will be unreliable.
 
Seems like as newer and newer stuff comes out I want to shoot more revolvers and more single shot pistols. Heck... gotta get a muzzleloading pistol and deer rifle this year...
 
As soon as we get a camera that is as good or better than the human eye
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Why would that be requisite?

FWIW, while the human eye is something like 500MP when you multiply rods and cones and do some other goofy math, we have limitations that digital imaging does not. More importantly, the average human perceives a 300 DPI digital image at reading distances to be photograph quality.

The image produced by a cheap, simple VGA camera has plenty of resolution when the screen is only an inch and a half.

Besides, we're talking about a HUD, not high resolution surveillance.
 
Caseless Ammo - They have been trying to figure it out for 150 years starting with the Volcanic. Once the get it right it will change everything.

Electro-Magnetic Propulsion - A hand held rail gun, or just plain portable, would be a serious game changer.

Direct Energy Weapons - Laser Blasters would be pretty cool.

Smart Projectiles - Guided bullets that change from penetrating to fragmenting depending upon need.
 
Not too sure about scopes being integrated, but an integrated red dot type sight could be easily built into the frame of both autos & revolvers as noted above. Done with co-witnessed irons preferably.

But I'd bet that next real change is if someone makes a practical caseless round.
 
Yeah. As soon as a technology is tried once and didn't work perfectly, it is never tried by anyone ever again.
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It's been almost 20 years, nobody bought it then, no other manufacturers tried it, and the "benefits" are dubious, far outweighed by the detractors.

In theory, the no moving parts except the trigger is a good idea. In practice, it makes no measureable difference in accuracy, is more failure prone than a mechanical system, and requires an additional component beyond ammunition and firearm. Can you imagine having that trophy animal in your sights, only to discover your rifle's batteries are dead? And what about in a SD situation :eek:?

The EtronX trigger group:

arcignition_silo71.jpg


But I'd bet that next real change is if someone makes a practical caseless round.
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I just don't see it happening. The rounds work fine, the problem has always been the platform. Even once you get the chamber sealing squared away and the loading system worked out so that it doesn't damage the ammunition during feeding, there is still the heat and carbon/debris issue, and no one has found a practical way around that. Brass cases do more than just house the primer, charge and bullet-they're a heat sink, and they also take the carbon with them when they leave, in addition to other tiny debris that adheres to the brass during firing and gets extracted with it. Caseless ammo makes chambers look like the inside of gas piston tubes. The only way to fix that is a propellant that is 100% consumed during firing, leaving no residual deposits (which still does nothing for the debris and heat problems).

I know I seem like a pessimist in this thread, but it's kinda hard not to be when you've followed these developments from concept to prototype, sometimes to production and eventually to failure.
 
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Doesn't brass also expand to seal the chamber when fired?

I vote for more effective and practical sound suppressing technology.

Sound suppressors have been thought of as mostly a novelty, but more and more people are buying them despite government regulation. The AAC TiRant and Silencerco Osprey are very effective and allow reliable operation in Browning style operating systems with a Nielsen device and light weight construction.

I think it would be very interesting to see integrally suppressed handguns.
 
I just don't see it happening. The rounds work fine, the problem has always been the platform. Even once you get the chamber sealing squared away and the loading system worked out so that it doesn't damage the ammunition during feeding, there is still the heat and carbon/debris issue, and no one has found a practical way around that. Brass cases do more than just house the primer, charge and bullet-they're a heat sink, and they also take the carbon with them when they leave, in addition to other tiny debris that adheres to the brass during firing and gets extracted with it. Caseless ammo makes chambers look like the inside of gas piston tubes. The only way to fix that is a propellant that is 100% consumed during firing, leaving no residual deposits (which still does nothing for the debris and heat problems).
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The HK G11 firing the 4.73x33 mm caseless ammunition was about to become the standard issue rifle of West Germany but was stopped because of the reunification of Germany. Them Germans got it working good enough, it could be continued where they left off.
 
It took hundreds of years from the advent of gunpowder to get where we are now. 20 years is nothing. In the year 2312, if we haven't destroyed ourselves or had a new Dark Ages, we're not going to be using mechanical hammers and strikers.
 
The HK G11 firing the 4.73x33 mm caseless ammunition was about to become the standard issue rifle of West Germany but was stopped because of the reunification of Germany. Them Germans got it working good enough, it could be continued where they left off.
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The G11 was as close as we've come, but it still had problems. Gas sealing issues were never fully resolved, extraction of failed rounds remained a major problem, and even the final generation of the ammunition was not as robust and element-proof as cased rounds; If the coating wore off in any spot, moisture would wreck the rounds in short order.

The G11 worked, but it was far from combat-ready.

And while caseless ammunition still shows promise, it doesn't really have any advantages over conventional ammo. The purpose of the G11 was ROF to increase hit probability, but in the end, they settled on conventional ammo to feed the G36 and MP7. The ACR tests also determined that it was not a significant enough improvement.

Maybe we'll see them, but I suspect that no further development in the 20 years since the project ended is indicative of the future for caseless rounds. Besides, what would us handloaders do in our spare time? ;)
 
Metal Storm Pistol. It's already in the works.
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Yeah......a decade ago. Discovery channel/military channel/history channel ran episodes featuring them very frequently in 2003/4. I remember it well. The VLE is a very interesting concept, but afaik, still has a lot of bugs to work out.
 
I was thinking multiple round variant pistols like on Judge Dred: Flare, full auto, double whammy! Even a palm reading protection device to prevent someone else from using it.
 
I actually think we will see firearms overall, but especially handguns, being made ever
so cheaply, cutting every possible manufacturing cost to make the cheapest weapon and make the most money. I do not..anytime soon..forsee "the next step" in gun design
like for instace Glock did in the eighties. Adding more lights,lasers, rangefinders, gadgets,
ect.ect. is not weapons "evolution". Personally, its the OPPOSITE, imo.
A weapon firing caseless ammo would be deleted IF it worked. Ive held caseless ammo in my hand before, and Im damned if I know why we dont have this in general production by now. Maybe new alloys or coatings will come along, but actual DESIGN changes I do not see coming soon at all.
A revolver will look like a revolver and a semi auto will look like a semi auto for the next forseeable future.
Also-I see even more gadgets and contraptions coming out that are supposed to make
"shooters" hit easier, faster, farther,ect. with the least effort. All for the people who wont take the time to LEARN firearms, sights, sight adjustment, and the like. Much like the current "tactical" crowd we see today.
Ever know that one "old guy" who can hit anything with about any weapon he picks up?
Without a laser, or rangefinder, or some tactical nonsense, just iron sights?
Well, THAT guy isnt being catered to anymore.
Hope this is a good FIRST POST.
Hi fellas!
 
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