In the ever pursuance of quick lock times and the lightest of trigger pull, why isn't there some sort of electronic, pneumatic, hydraulic or gas activated sear release sold commercially? The very old technology of locks are very dangerous, unreliable and very inefficient! Am I missing something here? Bench rest shooters as well as off hand hunters and snipers could benefit from modern mechanical/electronic/pneumatic developments. I envision large sear engagements with very short stroke heavy striker/hammer springs, safely used with shortest lock times without the usual detriments.
I am only wondering what the pros and cons are to this concept and want you all to express your opinions as applied to our practical world!
Also, am I too old to know of current developments? If so please enlighten me sirs.
Bob.... not the cat.
Widen your scope beyond individual weapons to crew-served and cannon.
Dunno if it is only a hundred and fifty years old. Or more, but electrical direct ignition is an old concept.
Some automatic weapons of modern times have used it in "smaller" conformations as well. Not just electrically driven impact. Electrically initiated primers where a pulse of current does the detonation. The 3.5" rocket launcher, AKA "Bazooka", fired off a squeeze-magneto. No batteries required. But still. Fine wires to the rocket where a worry.
Is it a gain, even if practical at all - once a power source has to be included - for handguns or shoulder-fired?
No. Not yet.
Because the lock-time is already short enough. The mechanical reliability is still far, far above that of electronics as well. Over a hundred years, no dead battery YET, many firearms.
Have one not so good? Sounds to me like a "personal problem".
My eldest is over 90 years old. Its double "set" trigger lockwork is as good as it was 1923.
The far greater factor is that our own eyes, hands, brain are not very fast.
We have to be able to asses what we sense, knowing intuitively that it is already old information, then predict where a moving target WILL be when our also-slow muscles have moved the firearm to engage where it will "meet the projectile".
IOW - it is all about prediction ability. See "deflection shooting" air combat.
Hence we've been able to hit moving targets with slow rocks, medium spears, bows and arrows, modest-velocity early muskets, shotguns, and rifles, or the fastest of modern projectiles.
Every one of those by simply by being "comfortable" enough to do expert work with the weapon we HAVE.
We adapt.
The weapon is the minor player. Not the major player.
Still a frustration?
Shared.
By the texpayers behind military forces with outrageous sums spent to MISS!
An estimated nine hundred rounds were left out of a
depot supply of TWENTY THOUSAND .45-Boxer-Henry cartridges, battle of Mission Station, Roark's Drift, Natal, South Africa (movie Zulu basis). There were between 1,500 and "maybe" as many as 3,500 Zulu casualties for all that storm of lead. Most died from a bayonet thrust at that.
Some 18,000 to 25,000 rounds were fired for each single hit, War Two.
Vietnam onward? Who could possibly count them? Most re-arrange rocks and dirt.
The answer is not faster lock time. It is better target identification and acquisition.
And dynamic projectiles.
Not just "smart" seeker-missiles that lock-on, cling-to, and
hunt down their evading targets.
Rounds for battle rifles as can do the same.
Someday.
Soon, too.
R&D has been ongoing for a while already.
