Former secret silent cartridge design

[4v50 Gary]

Here's a blast from the past. A silent cartridge with six pieces, one being an internal piston that drives the bullet (fourth piece) out of the case. As opposed to a regular cartridge which could be done with stampings, this would be expensive to make. Note how the bullet has a band around it too.



http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/334799.pdf

Wouldn't mind doing one just to play with. I'd use brass for the base.

 

[Joea132]

I've read about the Russian design before and found it interesting. One thing I remember reading is that they had to make the cases very thick to contain the gasses safely.

 

[barnbwt]

Yeah, the Russian thing was like two cylinders nested, with the bullet driven by the smaller one. I'm thinking it was the chamber itself that kept the piston from flying out (like a right-angle shoulder for it to crash into)

So underpowered it could barely do someone in from across the room (so it's intended use was obvious )

TCB

 

[ChaoSS]

I wonder if it would be possible to design something similar, except instead of the cartridge containing everything, the bullet could be seated on something larger than it that would then be seated in the cartridge. The barrel would be sized properly for the second part, kind of like a sabot, but it would just be behind the bullet rather than containing it. At the end of the barrel it could go down to the bullet size for an inch or two to give it some measure of accuracy. The "sabot" would remain in the barrel, blocking the gases.

It would necessarily be single shot, but should be somewhat more powerful.

 

[Jim Watson]

Never saw a captive piston silent cartridge in a bottleneck caliber, but the pistol types are pretty well known.

 

[jonnyc]

Before anyone goes off designing and fabricating these encapsulated rounds, know that they are legally considered "silenced" weapons by themselves, and loaded examples can only be possessed via the same process as a suppressor.

 

[MErl]

*discussion banned by ITAR*

Send in your comment or the only thing we'll be able to say about that government published item is "nifty." Any talk of how to make it or improve on it will be forbidden.

 

[ApacheCoTodd]

Man - given that extended "piston"...

extraction and ejection would suck!

Todd.

 

[bannockburn]

I remember an article in Soldier of Fortune magazine back in the early '90s that featured Knights Armament Company's silenced Ruger Super Redhawk .44 Magnum revolver. It used ammo that had the bullet inside an aluminum piston assembly that utilized a plastic seal at the front of it to create a seal between the round and the barrel. The piston assembly, which also had a rubber seal around it to seal in the gas, was then placed inside a .44 Magnum case. Along with a sound suppressor, the sound signature produced was 119dB or only 7dB louder than that made by the hammer falling on a empty chamber.

 

[H&R Glock]

Underwater Firing gun

this Russian design was first made to use in a gun that would fire underwater. I believe it turned out to be impractical. I saw this story about 25 years ago or more.

 

[alsaqr]

There was a silent round for the M79 40mm grenade launcher. The M463 40mm grenade had a thin flexible aluminum "piston" that protruded from the cartridge case after the round was fired. All the propellant gas was contained. i fired one of those rounds: There was the click from the weapons action and then a subdued whoosh sound.

The M463 was a specialist type developed during the Vietnam War by AAI, and was "SF" or Smokeless/Flashless, and used a type of piston system to force the grenade out of the cartridge, but keep the propellant and gases contained. While this did reduce the effective range of the projectile it did allow for an almost silent 40 mm HE grenade.

http://dictionary.sensagent.com/United States 40 mm grenades/en-en/#Other_High_Explosive_Cartridges

 

[taliv]

seems like it would be a lot easier to go electric

 

[jonnyc]

The round that Gary posted was not for an underwater pistol, and the underwater dart was successful and an issue item.