Speaking of weird revolvers...

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Dudemeister

Dudemeister

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The posts in the Rhino DS50 thread, especially those comments about it being ugly or weird, brought to mind a few other oddities.

One such oddity is the Dardick revolver. If you hadn't heard about it, it was a magazine fed revolver. Yes, a magazine fed revolver. It had a 3 chamber cylinder, that was fed from a non-removable magazine housed inside the grip. it used a special shell (called a tround) that had a triangular cross section, and it came in .22, .30 and .38 calibers.

Here is a link to a detailed Gun & Ammo article about this rare beast.
https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/the-dardick-revolver/358541

The-Dardick-Revolver-770.jpg

Does anyone here own one?
 
The tround and gyrojet are almost mythological gun lore, lol. I think their failures are a good part of why we are still running metallic cartridges nearly 200 years on now. We've had some neat innovations that fell flat and everyone was too scared/smart to try and pick them back up.
The Remington E-tronX was a good opportunity that the industry missed. Seems like poor implementation on Remington's part doomed it from the start.
 
What dooms innovation like this is the perceived lack of reliability. People don't want to trust their lives to new technology, when the old technology seems to work just fine.

I have some old editions of the Gun Digest in which the Dardick and the Gyrojet were listed as being currently available. People scorned them. If only I had a time machine so I could go back and buy a few...
 
The Dardick had nylon adapters for using standard cartridges. So .38 Special cartridges, for example, had to be loaded into those sleeves, then the empties had to be removed from the sleeves. It was anticipated that metallic cased cartridges would be available, but imagine trying to orient a triangular case in a reloading press. Except for increased capacity the Dardick showed no advantage over a conventional revolver, and even less advantage than that offered by an auto pistol.

As to the Gyrojet, unlike a conventional firearm, the velocity at the muzzle was mediocre and increased with range as the rocket motor burned. From what I have read, it was not lethal at close ranges. Not exactly the situation one wants to be in in a close encounter of the bad kind!

Bob Wright
 
This was also just a handgun sized revolver cannon. You all know there are (well... now mostly were) revolvers inside airplanes, right?

1600px-ROKAF_F-5E%28Cut_Model%29_M39A2_Cannon_at_Jeju_Aerospace_Museum_June_6%2C_2014_c.jpg
The most common was the M39, which is still around in their most popular platform, the F5.

Sorry I cannot find the internals diagrammed or so on now, but the feed cycle is like a multi-barrel rotary (gatling) gun. Feed from external source into a chamber, system spins around and when inline with the barrel, fire. Extract (then eject) just past fire position.

Like the rotaries, same reliability and some speed advantages in that each station does it's own thing, no multi-purpose feed/un-feed machinery, so cartridges-colliding failures simply cannot occur.

Anyway, the Dardick was supposed to be for autocannons, etc. A gun to change the nature of warfare. I believe they made the small one to show the versatility, and to have something to demo that you can bring along in a briefcase. The "triangular" round loaded into the cylinder from the sides, so the feed cycle was even easier and more reliable, in theory. Don't know if enough rounds were fired to tell since it never got into service.

Here's a long lost video of the Dardick .50 being tested
 
There was a tround concept Gatling gun with six barrels in 20 mm. It was to be used in an anti satellite / anti ballistic missile system in the upper stage of a rocket. Three to four guns were to be used to damage incoming warheads or passing orbiting platforms.

There was some interest in the tround system during the development of HK self consuming ammo project and some suggested a service rifle with rotating breach might be doable.

-kBob
 
Mark Novak (C&Rsenal house smith) did a video on this & had trouble with the plastic doohickeys. Old ones are brittle/unobtainable, and his attempt to fab one failed. I'd provide a link but I don't want to provide you, the interested student, of some well-earned fun. Also I'm lazy.
 
Innovation is sometimes feared, especially with tradition-minded people like a lot of gun folks are. (We still love our 126 year old Winchester 1894’s and 109 year old 1911 pistols, the 1898 Mauser action is still the gold standard for strength, reliability and adaptability.,etc.)

For those who aren’t all that adverse to buying something new or unconventional, the cost and availability of ammo or reloading supplies (if it’s a caliber or ammo that’s a radical departure from the norm) or future repairs or accessories (if the gun or action itself is something revolutionary) are deciding factors whether or not someone will sink several hundred dollars (or more) into a cutting edge rifle or handgun and the ammo to shoot.

All of the listed guns; Gyrojet, Dardick, Etronix etc. were guns far on the edge of technology for their times. I always thought the Etronix was a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, the Dardick gun and its Tround concept was too much effort for a minimal gain in capacity and In the case of the Gyrojet, it wasn’t very accurate and ammo wasn’t reloadable, inexpensive to buy or easily found in gun stores. This was a triple death knell for that gun.

Neat bits of firearms engineering history though!! :thumbup:

Stay safe.
 
Dudemeister said:
The posts in the Rhino DS50 thread, especially those comments about it being ugly or weird, brought to mind a few other oddities.
Click to expand...

Weird revolvers, huh? I'll bite.

Another weird revolver that I'd love to get my hands on is an MTR-8:
autorevolver-revolver-mateba-mtr-8-weapon-gun-oruzhie-revolv.jpg

It's an 8-round .38 Special (maybe .357 too, I'm not sure). Supposedly they were very finely made and shoot pretty nice, seeing some success in European competitions. They were also available in smaller calibers; but instead of shrinking the gun they just increased the capacity; the .32 model held 12 rounds, and the .22 had a 14-shot cylinder. Those "discs" are a kind of hybrid of a moon clip and a speedloader. It was two plates connected by a hinge; the rounds were slid into the openings in the front plate, then the back one was closed over it, locking the rounds into place.
 
Riomouse911 said:
Innovation is sometimes feared, especially with tradition-minded people like a lot of gun folks are. (We still love our 126 year old Winchester 1894’s and 109 year old 1911 pistols, the 1898 Mauser action is still the gold standard for strength, reliability and adaptability.,etc.)

For those who aren’t all that adverse to buying something new or unconventional, the cost and availability of ammo or reloading supplies (if it’s a caliber or ammo that’s a radical departure from the norm) or future repairs or accessories (if the gun or action itself is something revolutionary) are deciding factors whether or not someone will sink several hundred dollars (or more) into a cutting edge rifle or handgun and the ammo to shoot.

All of the listed guns; Gyrojet, Dardick, Etronix etc. were guns far on the edge of technology for their times. I always thought the Etronix was a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, the Dardick gun and its Tround concept was too much effort for a minimal gain in capacity and In the case of the Gyrojet, it wasn’t very accurate and ammo wasn’t reloadable, inexpensive to buy or easily found in gun stores. This was a triple death knell for that gun.

Neat bits of firearms engineering history though!! :thumbup:

Stay safe.
Click to expand...

The EtronX should be the darling of long range shooters. Zero lock time and bolt inertia. Two more variables out of the equation. You could also create a trigger to whatever specs you desire. Remote firing a rifle for handicapped people is another possibility.
 
kemikos said:
Weird revolvers, huh? I'll bite.

Another weird revolver that I'd love to get my hands on is an MTR-8:
View attachment 924898

It's an 8-round .38 Special (maybe .357 too, I'm not sure). Supposedly they were very finely made and shoot pretty nice, seeing some success in European competitions. They were also available in smaller calibers; but instead of shrinking the gun they just increased the capacity; the .32 model held 12 rounds, and the .22 had a 14-shot cylinder. Those "discs" are a kind of hybrid of a moon clip and a speedloader. It was two plates connected by a hinge; the rounds were slid into the openings in the front plate, then the back one was closed over it, locking the rounds into place.
Click to expand...
On the Rhino thread I also mentioned the other Mateba, the Unica 6, which was unique in that it was a recoil operated semi-auto revolver. The recoil of each shot pushed a pluger that cocked the hammer and turned the cylinder. Thereby the first shot was DA, subsequent shots were SA. So it was a DA/SA revolver.

And it wasn't the first attempt. before WWI, the Webley-Fosbery was another attempt to create a semi-auto revolver, and it worked reasonably well. There are a few YouTube videos showing the functionality.
 
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Originally I posted this in the revolver section because the Dardick is a revolver, but since other, non-revolver, devices were mentioned like the GyroJet, and the Tround in particular, let me mention the H&K G11, which was a rifle that fired caseless ammo, yet it was never actually produced. Its development during the 60's and 70's was done in the heat of the cold war, and when the Iron Curtain fell, development stopped as well. But that wasn't the only reason. Other technical issues with the caseless ammo: fragility, sensitivity to heat and so on, put the kabosh to the project.

Speaking of caseless ammo, the Daisy Air Rifle company made the V/L rifle, which shot caseless ammo. Daisy tried to sell this rifle as a "non-firearm" because it didn't shoot metallic cartridges, but the government basically decreed that it was indeed a firearm, and Daisy was not licensed to produce firearms, so they were forced to pull it off the market. I still have a bunch of V/L caseless ammo boxes.
 
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Dudemeister said:
On the Rhino thread I also mentioned the other Mateba, the Unica 6, which was unique in that it was a recoil operated semi-auto revolver.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that one too. Actually I'm a sucker for unorthodox solutions to complex engineering problems (which is why in addition to the Rhino I own a Bullpup9, a Hudson, a Strike One, an R51, and an SCR), so pretty much any Mateba is on my list.
 
no.5enfield said:
The EtronX should be the darling of long range shooters. Zero lock time and bolt inertia. Two more variables out of the equation. You could also create a trigger to whatever specs you desire. Remote firing a rifle for handicapped people is another possibility.
Click to expand...
It’s the primer/ammo issue that doomed that idea.
Like hydrogen powered cars: a fantastic idea with great potential killed due to a poor supply/support network.

Stay safe.
 
I owned a V/L rifle ... the 22 cal ammo came in clear plastic tubes .. it looked like a 30gr 22 bullet glued on a white pencil eraser .. I honestly can’t remember to much about it .. I bought it a gunshop fot $100 with a bunch of ammo thrown in ..1978 ?
I can’t remember exactly
 
Friend long ago (there was a closeout by a dealer, it was cheap) had a Mateba and it was awesome. Really well built, well finished gun and absolutely a better idea in many ways. Really neat.

G11 was adopted for service by the West Germans, but around 10 minutes before that country stopped existing, so then they briefly entertained getting G.41s, then they just sorta gave up entirely for years due to budgets. Too many other issues. Anyway, adopted much more than say the EM.2 was adopted by the UK. Around 1,000 were made, and they were issued to entire (though small) units who had started writing procedures, etc. to prepare for mass adoption. I assume a few crates in the back of the Raiders warehouse.

G11 had many cool things but best by far to me was burst fire. At 2100 spm. An a recoil controlled subframe. So, the last round fires well before the firer can move. Out to a couple hundred yards, you can put all three onto a person. Neat. But... a lot of gun, a BIG change in everything from ammo carriage to manual of arms. A year earlier and it could have changed the world, not just itself but as this thread is going: by showing everyone how a radical idea can work at mass adoption by people who make loud noises and break stuff for a living.
 
I remember the Etronix. What a joke.The local shop near me in GA at the time had the rifles and ammo. Before long they couldn't nearly give the guns or ammo away. They sure were pumping the propaganda it when they had them though.
 
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