StormWutzke
Plastic
- Joined
- May 21, 2023
I am a metal worker and have been making handmade knives for several years now. If anyone has paid attention to the custom knife world they have probably come across the work that Larrin Thomas has done that have really challenged what we thought we knew and led to far higher performance blades than in the past. As someone from a rural area I have an interest in firearms as well and like to tinker with things. What has really popped out at me is how locked in time most of the firearms community is and how long it has been since we have really had any major changes. The 65kpsi pressure limit has basically stuck for over 100 years and the modest gains of the new 6.8X51 have been made to sound crazy. Our materials and manufacturing technology have come a huge way during that time. I was hoping maybe this is a place where a few people are interested in options that could actually be realistic.
My first thought is that rifles seem like a dead end but maybe I'm wrong. With 3D printers offering very tight tolerances are we at a point where we can start making use of custom sabots for fin rounds? It would seem that if a copper or other monolithic bullet was used as a head it could be attached by (friction) welding to a finned shaft or could be drilled and pressed.
Since it's now possible to get relatively economical pressure testers I think testing could actually be done safely. I believe that they max at around 80kpsi but that would still be a substantial increase in pressure compared to production cartridges. I think there could be some substantial real world gains to be had from ultralight mountain guns with very short barrels to heavy barrel ultra long long range guns. I don't know if software is good enough after that point to continue going up in pressure and don't know where the pressure limit is that detonation becomes a problem with modern powders. My thought was to actually start tinkering more at the low side of pressure and begin with something like a single shot shotgun for economy. The large piston size of both 12 and 20 gauge shotgun bores seems ideal for what I am wanting to try anyway and by adding inserts like long choke tubes experimenting with ways to alter the internal volume would be relatively easy.
After working to get the best out of knives it really has stuck out to me how low the expectations for material performance is for firearms and probably my biggest interest is in what sort of gains could be gained if we just started making hand built firearms to the highest possible standards.
Because someone always tends to go straight there performance increases can be completely anything and are subjective. We don't get to do the same on our bodies so any sort of gains have to work for them as well. So yeah we can probably make something that will shoot a .50 500 grain slug super sonic out of a handgun but unless we do a powered recoil compensation device on it it's probably useless and faster might not be the goal. Increasing efficiency and utility at least for a specific application really seem like an interesting subject to me. Low hanging fruit seem like using gain twist rifling so sabots could be used to shoot different calibers out of the same gun with enough twist to stabilize longer bullets but still get gains from the much larger piston area of a large bore, higher pressure minimizing pressure, sabots and fin stabilized rounds. I have read other threads were people have done some interesting research and maybe someone can finally explain to me why traveling charges have never gone anywhere.
The research I have done over the past few years it certainly seems that a ground up take on a new firearm built for top performance would make use of a high strength complex cartridge and might even have multiple chambers where a rearward chamber might simply go through a nozzle designed to provide supersonic gas flow although I don't know if it would be possible to make that flow through a starter charge as well. Ideally it seems like a traveling charge would be what really changes our current velocity levels radically and it would seem as if it should be pretty easily within our current technology level. If it isn't what makes it so hard? By switching to a smooth bore we get rid of a major problem with very high speed and the damage done to rifling. I don't know if ceramic barrel liners can take that sort of shock or not but if the entire barrel is turned into a burn chamber metals might begin to struggle under the much longer heating times even if we can get away from a metal on metal friction path. It also seems important to try to limit the loss of heat. In fact our current firearms that have the burn at the start with the internal volume rapidly growing are basically completely backwards from ideal if we want to accelerate an object.
Kinda getting into something a bit further out there but really where I see a bottle neck. I have read that guns in the 150kpsi range are possible and if it was possible to hold that for long at all with a traveling charge energy levels far to high to handle start becoming very easy to hit. Yes it's probably well outside of something I'm building in the shop but if you can get all the weights down how do you deal with the recoil? It should totally be possible to power against that. Granted you gotta contain that energy but it's interesting to think about and maybe it's fun for SciFi anyway.
Hopefully someone else just thinks it's fun crap to think about. I'm dealing with an injury and got to much time on my hands. Please keep it fun and avoid buzz killing terms like cheap cost of ammo. I'm not doing any of it to be practical. Just fun in the shop.
My first thought is that rifles seem like a dead end but maybe I'm wrong. With 3D printers offering very tight tolerances are we at a point where we can start making use of custom sabots for fin rounds? It would seem that if a copper or other monolithic bullet was used as a head it could be attached by (friction) welding to a finned shaft or could be drilled and pressed.
Since it's now possible to get relatively economical pressure testers I think testing could actually be done safely. I believe that they max at around 80kpsi but that would still be a substantial increase in pressure compared to production cartridges. I think there could be some substantial real world gains to be had from ultralight mountain guns with very short barrels to heavy barrel ultra long long range guns. I don't know if software is good enough after that point to continue going up in pressure and don't know where the pressure limit is that detonation becomes a problem with modern powders. My thought was to actually start tinkering more at the low side of pressure and begin with something like a single shot shotgun for economy. The large piston size of both 12 and 20 gauge shotgun bores seems ideal for what I am wanting to try anyway and by adding inserts like long choke tubes experimenting with ways to alter the internal volume would be relatively easy.
After working to get the best out of knives it really has stuck out to me how low the expectations for material performance is for firearms and probably my biggest interest is in what sort of gains could be gained if we just started making hand built firearms to the highest possible standards.
Because someone always tends to go straight there performance increases can be completely anything and are subjective. We don't get to do the same on our bodies so any sort of gains have to work for them as well. So yeah we can probably make something that will shoot a .50 500 grain slug super sonic out of a handgun but unless we do a powered recoil compensation device on it it's probably useless and faster might not be the goal. Increasing efficiency and utility at least for a specific application really seem like an interesting subject to me. Low hanging fruit seem like using gain twist rifling so sabots could be used to shoot different calibers out of the same gun with enough twist to stabilize longer bullets but still get gains from the much larger piston area of a large bore, higher pressure minimizing pressure, sabots and fin stabilized rounds. I have read other threads were people have done some interesting research and maybe someone can finally explain to me why traveling charges have never gone anywhere.
The research I have done over the past few years it certainly seems that a ground up take on a new firearm built for top performance would make use of a high strength complex cartridge and might even have multiple chambers where a rearward chamber might simply go through a nozzle designed to provide supersonic gas flow although I don't know if it would be possible to make that flow through a starter charge as well. Ideally it seems like a traveling charge would be what really changes our current velocity levels radically and it would seem as if it should be pretty easily within our current technology level. If it isn't what makes it so hard? By switching to a smooth bore we get rid of a major problem with very high speed and the damage done to rifling. I don't know if ceramic barrel liners can take that sort of shock or not but if the entire barrel is turned into a burn chamber metals might begin to struggle under the much longer heating times even if we can get away from a metal on metal friction path. It also seems important to try to limit the loss of heat. In fact our current firearms that have the burn at the start with the internal volume rapidly growing are basically completely backwards from ideal if we want to accelerate an object.
Kinda getting into something a bit further out there but really where I see a bottle neck. I have read that guns in the 150kpsi range are possible and if it was possible to hold that for long at all with a traveling charge energy levels far to high to handle start becoming very easy to hit. Yes it's probably well outside of something I'm building in the shop but if you can get all the weights down how do you deal with the recoil? It should totally be possible to power against that. Granted you gotta contain that energy but it's interesting to think about and maybe it's fun for SciFi anyway.
Hopefully someone else just thinks it's fun crap to think about. I'm dealing with an injury and got to much time on my hands. Please keep it fun and avoid buzz killing terms like cheap cost of ammo. I'm not doing any of it to be practical. Just fun in the shop.
