If I am remembering its design correctly the Dardick was the opposit of the self cocking revolver. The trounds fed from a magazine into a three chambered cylinder with one side of each "triangular" chamber open. The trounds themselves were not actualy triangular but three sided epitrochoids, like the "piston" of the wankel engine. This shape will roll along with its "top" always at the same height and this characteristic was supposed to give it handling benefits in a cassette like magazine. As the cylinder rotated it picked up a tround through the open side from the magazine and then, as the cylinder continued to rotate, the third side was closed by a part circular shield forming a kind of fixed top and side strap. At the top this strap formed the third side of the chamber. When the tround lined up with the barrel the thick part of the plastic could take the load on the two unsupported corners as it was fired.
It was designed as part of an exercise to produce a machine gun which could fire by timing the ignition as the cartridge lined up with the barrel. That is, no stopping and starting or reciprocating and therefore a very high rate of fire. Nothing came of this but a remarkably ugly and expensive handgun was produced powered by a double action trigger. It is easy to see why this action was very heavy. Hence it is the opposite of the auto cocking revolver - rather than making the trigger pull nicer it made it nastier.
Only a mathematician uncontroled by engineers could have come up with this idea. It is simultaneously very clever and completely stupid. Maybe it was done under government funding to a specification drawn up by a civil servant whose training was in foreign languages and philosophy who was then put in charge of selecting the winning design. As a machine gun it would have seemed quite impressive until they started driving it fast. Then the plastic of the trounds started melting aginst the friction of the shield. The drag either threw its timing out and it kept blowing up or the melted plastic just gummed up the works. An idea this elegant could not be allowed to die so the mathematician managed to raise money to produce the handgun version! Sounds feasible to me!
English1
It was designed as part of an exercise to produce a machine gun which could fire by timing the ignition as the cartridge lined up with the barrel. That is, no stopping and starting or reciprocating and therefore a very high rate of fire. Nothing came of this but a remarkably ugly and expensive handgun was produced powered by a double action trigger. It is easy to see why this action was very heavy. Hence it is the opposite of the auto cocking revolver - rather than making the trigger pull nicer it made it nastier.
Only a mathematician uncontroled by engineers could have come up with this idea. It is simultaneously very clever and completely stupid. Maybe it was done under government funding to a specification drawn up by a civil servant whose training was in foreign languages and philosophy who was then put in charge of selecting the winning design. As a machine gun it would have seemed quite impressive until they started driving it fast. Then the plastic of the trounds started melting aginst the friction of the shield. The drag either threw its timing out and it kept blowing up or the melted plastic just gummed up the works. An idea this elegant could not be allowed to die so the mathematician managed to raise money to produce the handgun version! Sounds feasible to me!
English1
