Is caseless ammo a viable option now?

[KriegHund]

Back in the 1970's H&K devoloped the G-11. There were several problems, mostly complexity, ammunition expense, and

Antibubba asked, "How is a seal formed in the initial burn?"

That, as someone said, is the rub. A lot of methods have been tried but the simple fact is that the old fashioned cartridge case has proven to be the only way to get a really tight seal. And that is why dozens of "caseless" designs, dating back to the Volcanic, have failed. Even Daisy had a try at it, igniting their caseless round by air jet. Other ignition systems have been normal primers (the problem then is getting rid of the primer without it getting in the way), burnable primers, sparks, and fire from an external primer, very similar to a percussion gun (percussion revolvers used caseless cartridges quite similar to some of those tried recently).

The idea comes up again every so ten years or so and gun writers have a ball playing with the idea and copying predictions for the future from the manufacturer's brochure. But in the end, the lack of an effective breech seal has defeated them all. The other major problem is that caseless ammo tends to be fragile. Ammunition takes a heck of a beating under military storage and handling conditions and none of the caseless rounds tried so far has stood up to that kind of handling, not to mention the stresses and strains imposed on ammo in feeding through an automatic weapon. Lab tests by manufacturers can't begin to simulate real world conditions.

BTW, before someone reminds me, I am aware that big artillery pieces and naval rifles are "caseless", using bagged charges and a seal built into an interrupted thread breech. But those breech seals are big and require frequent replacement. Plus the guns are single shots, not repeaters or automatic weapons.

Jim

But that was 30 years ago. Weve made alot of advances, specificly in plastics and materials.

What im looking for is your expertise in such matters.

A) can we make the ammo cheaper?
B) can we make a simpler weapon (Maybe use regular box magazines so that the rounds can be fired normally rather than with a 90 degree roatating bolt?)
C) Can this gas seal problem be fixed?

 

[dfariswheel]

In small arms, the caseless ammo problems simply haven't been solved so as to allow a really practical caseless firearm.

The problems include really effective waterproofing, durability of the ammo during shipping and carrying, problems with TOTAL combustion in the chamber, how to clear the chamber in case of a mis-fire, and effective chamber sealing in high powered rounds.

In spite of a LOT of research and development dollars and years, the caseless round is still an idea that just failed to pan out in the real world.

 

[db_tanker]

To bring this into the discussion...I was in Armor many moons ago...and we were blessed with the German designed M-256 main gun.

Fired a 120 mm sabot that discarded and was a simple little dart, first fin stabilized and then later cone stabilized...very nice and VERY effective.

Now...we had combustible-cased ammo...and the only thing left after firing was a cap at the end that housed the primer, unless it was a sabot round, and then it had an ignition rod. the ones for the HEAT rounds made hellacious ashtrays...

But anyway, it was a laminated coating on the case, and was a very efficient way to make ammo. No brass whatsoever, the caps were made of steel.

Perhaps this is where attention needs to be payed to, instead of somthing silly like a Gyro-Jet pistol or somthing...

D

 

[Oleg Volk]

Ejecting casing removes heat from the breech...caseless won't do that.

 

[Medusa]

Well, the G11 project managed to create reliable caseless ammo and resolved the problem of removing the heat that is usually done by cases. It was close to perfection and was cancelled due political and economical reasons (two Germanys uniting)

 

[jerkface11]

Weren't rifles caseless for centuries? What advantages would caseless ammo give? You couldn't load your own. It would be harder to tell different types of ammo apart (no headstamp). It seems like fixing something that isn't broken.

 

[mikec]

One of the ideas of caseless was the weight savings in shipping and soldier carrying. I have heard that many soldiers carry 7 30 round mags for the M-16, 210 rounds. Weigh the bullet and powder charge and then weigh an empty casing. Multiply by 210.

What is the cost per round for the case? Multiply THAT by say 250,000,000 and you see why as well.

Another idea is can the action be made smaller?

The military doesn't care about reloading, except for units like the AMU.



edited to fix grammar

 

[ctdonath]

As Oleg indicated, the ultimate problem with caseless ammo is heat removal.

Ever touch just-ejected brass? dropped it fast, and/or have the scars to prove it? If that heat remained in the chamber, you soon would have an unusably hot chamber. Removing the shell removes most of the heat.

 

[Medusa]

Throughout 1988 and 1989 the West German Army ran fifteen of these rifles through a gruelling series of tests, firing over 40,000 rounds of ammunition. Troops from infantry, armored, parachute, and reconnaissance units evaluated the G11 as a replacement for the G3 rifle while technicians at the German Ordnance Center at Aachen performed tests on both the weapon and the ammunition. Rifles were tested for accuracy, endurance, reliability, and safety. The rifles were fired after being frozen, baked, immersed in salt water, and buried in mud baths to determine their resistance to the most extreme environmental conditions imaginable. Ammunition was subjected to heat, solvents, moisture, and impact to ensure that it was robust enough for military use. In fact, the testing of the ammunition was taken to such extremes, a full box of cartridges was dropped from an aircraft in flight.

Field stripping and maintenance times for the unique HK system was markedly less than the other candidates in the hands of the test personnel. This is due both to the fact that the unique caseless propellent leaves almost no fouling behind after firing, and that only five parts are removed by the operator during field stripping (compared to ten with the M16 rifle). The HK rifle also received high marks for reliability, ease of handling, minimal recoil in semi-automatic mode, and its high capacity (45 round) magazine. As one might expect, the troops enjoyed not having to "police" any brass after the conclusion of range firing.

http://remtek.com/arms/hk/mil/g11/g11.htm

The temperature question is resolved by lowering the FA rate to 600 (some sources note it as a 460) rpm, cartridge ignition temp is raised. The burst rate is indeed 2000rpm but 45 round mag won't last long.

 

[mikec]

A thought about the hot cases... How hot would a chamber get if the powder wasn't inside a metal container? Does the brass or steel case cause heat retention? Is the case part of the problem?

Why did HK pick a 4.73mm round? Was it their idea of the next wave of high velocity small caliber super rounds or was it the largest bullet that they could get to work with the caseless technology in a rifle?

 

[Medusa]

Why did HK pick a 4.73mm round? Was it their idea of the next wave of high velocity small caliber super rounds or was it the largest bullet that they could get to work with the caseless technology in a rifle?

As you might expect, ammunition maker Dynamit Nobel is working on large caliber applications for its caseless technology and is currently developing a caseless 25mm cannon round for the "Bushmaster" cannon, the main armament of the U.S. Army's Bradley fighting vehicle.

http://remtek.com/arms/hk/mil/g11/g11.htm

I believe the small caliber was selected to keep the cartridge weight down so the could sport a lot of them around (see the image in my previous post).

 

[c_yeager]

I think plastic casings are going to be the new thing. They actually do a far better job of keeping a chamber cool because they dont transfer as much heat into it in the first place, they are almost as light as caseless rounds and work as well as brass-cased.

 

[whm1974]

So the kinks have been worked out of caseless ammo. If some country wanted to they could field rifles that use caseless ammo.

Or a company could come out with a replacement for .22 LR/WMR ammo.

-Bill

 

[only1asterisk]

c_yeager,

I agree with the apparent qualities of current plastic cases there is no reason for caseless.

David

 

[Tony Williams]

The US Joint Service Small Arms Programme is currently looking at options for replacing the 5.56mm M249 SAW. One of the projects uses plastic-cased ammo, the other is caseless.

Quite how that fits with the proposed new family of 5.56mm small arms (including a SAW) I don't know, but they seem to be running the projects in parallel.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

[Kurush]

Part of the point of caseless was that you could achieve a very high rate of fire since you could skip the extraction and ejection steps. The idea was to put bullets right behind one another to dig through body armor. As someone else mentioned the G11 had the cyclic rate cut way back but the 3-burst could still get this effect. I don't know if we have any potential opponents in the forseeable future who issue rifle plates so DOD may not care about this.

 

[Cosmoline]

Ejecting casing removes heat from the breech...caseless won't do that.

That is the central problem with caseless designs and the major reason we're still using brass cased ceterfire ammo that's changed little in fundamentals since the 1870's. The brass is amazingly good at removing heat and debris from the chamber. It's hard to imagine a better way of doing it. Anytime you have combustion you will have heat, and that heat will need to be removed.

 

[Hawk]

Hmmm. Seems like Deja Vu all over again.

Are civilian rifles up for discussion?

More at Voere

Anybody know if these things are currently being imported?

Ammo specific link

 

[The_Antibubba]

IC Machinegun?

Couldn't you do away with the attached propellant entirely? An air rifle uses compressed air. Why not an internal combustion cylinder? Combine fuel and air behind a hollow based bullet, add spark, and off it goes! Add a second barrel and piston, and crankshaft, and they can work together. I can see this working first on a Vulcan or a Gatling-type.

If you have trouble picturing it, think of a potato gun with military applications!

 

[whm1974]

More at Voere

Anybody know if these things are currently being imported?

Ammo specific link

I didn't even know they were still making these.

 

[Tony Williams]

Couldn't you do away with the attached propellant entirely? An air rifle uses compressed air. Why not an internal combustion cylinder? Combine fuel and air behind a hollow based bullet, add spark, and off it goes!

I have a vague recollection from decades ago that some air rifles could be 'juiced' to provide a higher velocity by soaking the actions in oil. This would ignite on firing, causing an effect called 'dieseling' IIRC, which boosted the MV. A bit erratic though, and not good for the gun.

On a related topic, I also have a vague recollection of somebody trying to make this more consistent, with an air gun which contained a small quantity of propellant in the back of the pellet. The heat of conpressed air on firing set off the propellant.

There isn't much that hasn't been tried.

People have been trying to devise a workable liquid propellant gun for a long time, but the technical difficulties have so far proved too great. The last time was for the US Army's Crusader 155mm gun, but this was dropped at an early stage (long before the gun was cancelled).

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

[Hawk]

Voere

AFIK, it's alive and well and without an importer.

The VPC was all in a bunch about the thing, apparently forgetting that the Black Magic Juju of the Voere really doesn't do anything that a shell catcher and a litter bag doesn't do as well.

Breathless panting here.

Kinda makes me want one more. Spotty importation wouldn't be much fun as a continuing supply of the rounds would be nice. The rest of the Voere line looks pretty nice but I expect it'd be a niche market with the VEC-91 being a niche in the niche.

 

[JShirley]

I just kinda leery of an exposed explosive charge. Odd, I know...

John

 

[Hawk]

It'd be a propellant, not an explosive. Needs containment to generate any excitement.

My conjecture is that one would have to try to light one off externally.
Chunking some in the fireplace might be even less exciting than doing the same with traditional rounds as they lack even the marginal pressure afforded by the brass case.

We need someone with an import license and a "group buy" mentality to take this from the realm of (my) aimless speculation.

Where’s Spiffy?

 

[Working Man]

Metal Storm

Anyone seen this?

http://www.metalstorm.com/