Cool Guns for your Games

[freakboy6117]

I wonder if an air pistol would be a better weapon for space combat. no heat build up, easy to make recoil less by ejecting an equal amount of gas rearward, no release of toxic chemicals in a closed system and it's easy to tailor the payload to the job soft and squishy for non lethal use. small sharp buckshot (ideally hollow to allow the air out for vacuum combat to maximize suit damage. steel penetrators for anti vehicular work. I guess the downside would be a build up of dry ice etc in the bore and the cloud of ice crystals from firing.

[freakboy6117]

I'm also wondering about the physics of using something like a pitching machine in space without air resistance you'd get a very dangerous projectile but I wonder how the recoil and gyroscopic effects of two spinning flywheels would work in zero G.

 

Is now picturing a lunar technical moon buggy with an astronaut hanging off the back firing one of these loaded with rods of solar fused regolith

 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/11/28/home-made-m2-nerf-machine-gun/

[Old Man]

Lower receiver mod for your character (spoiled for language):

 

 

 

[Surrealone]

Lower receiver mod for your character (spoiled for language):

 

That made me laugh but, umm, I saw no hole for the pin that would hold the auto sear in place -- meaning it's either not real ... or if it's real, the auto position is not usable.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Projectiles like the gyrojet or more modern "steerable" bullets would be a better choice in space, I agree.  You would eventually still have some overheating issues, but it would take a lot longer.

 

Probably a dual-stage system for guns in space makes sense: a mechanical catapult to get the thing in motion toward your target, and a delayed firing that launches the rocket and steers it toward your target.

[freakboy6117]

If your doing dual stage anyway why not just chuck em. no moving parts easier to control your own motion you could even launch multiple projectiles at once. Something like mini javalins with chemical thrusters for terminal guidance. Heck you could even use them for melee, spikes are good for space suit combat as it's easier to puncture than slash.

[pinecone]

I don't know about the heating and cooling aspects of this weapon, but if we're talking about the recoil issues of firearms in space, perhaps it may be time to reconsider the Gyrojet.

With modern machining, and electronics, it might be a usable concept...but you'd need to purchase the patent first, then find funding....

 

 

I think I'd lean towards having a laser sight, and a seeker Gyrojet round...

[freakboy6117]

Yeah old man I feel like that lower needs a Tac-Sac.

 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/11/08/sack-tac-sac-picatinny-mountable-scrotum/

[Old Man]

Probably a dual-stage system for guns in space makes sense: a mechanical catapult to get the thing in motion toward your target, and a delayed firing that launches the rocket and steers it toward your target.

 

So, an RPG?

[Cancer]

Ok ... the 7.62 mm NATO cartridge seems to have 46 grains = 2.98 grams of ball propellant. That propellant has a variety of compositions, but for the sake of prgress (based on numbers I could find) I guessed that the total energy release is about 0.7 times that 3 grams times the heat of combustion of nitroglycerin, and that product is roughly 14,000 Joules for the discharge of one round.

 

For a 9.5 gram bullet at muzzle velocity of 800 meters per second, the KE of the bullet is a bit over 3000 J, which is a bigger fraction of the propellant energy than I would have guessed.

 

But assuming that most of the rest of the propellant energy is heat taken up by the mechanism, that'll be in the neighborhood of 10,000 J per shot.

 

The heat capacity of steel at room temperature is about 455 J per degree C per kilogram, and I could not find the mass of the steel parts in an M14 rifle (I found those for sale at several webplaces, but they didn't list the weight). Hopefully folks here can provide that information. Merely to make progress, though, if the working mechanism is 1 kg of steel, and all that heat stays in the steel and it equilibrates, then at the end of it, the steel is warmer by about 22 degrees C.

 

The heat capacity of steel goes up slowly with temperature; it's about 50% bigger at 1000 degrees C, which doesn't matter much for this exercise.

 

Put a different way: if this is in the right ball park, then firing 7.62mm NATO at the rate of one 20-round clip per minute means you've got roughly a 33 kilowatt heater in your hands as you fire. That tells you the magnitude of the coolant system you'd need to have in the weapon for sustained operation.

[Cancer]

BTW, that also lets you start estimating how fast an object warms up in sunlight. At Earth orbit, the solar irradiance is about 1360 watts per square meter; multiply that by the silhouette area of the weapon (or at least the mechanism) and 1minus its surface reflectivity. Assuming 20 square cm and 50%, then that's 1.36 watts of warming while the thing is in direct sunlight.

[Sundog]

Useful. That power level would be eminently doable as an accessory to an armoured spacesuit, making a gun modification for space quite workable.

As to recoil, the main problem would be spin, rather than build up of velocity. I suspect that spin could be mitigated by training, i.e. always ensuring the weapon is at centre of your mass before firing. That would make aiming difficult with traditional sights, but a camera sight feeding to a head-up display in the visor should work.

[Cancer]

I'd be surprised if the angular momentum accumulation is of any real importance, but at the cost of a slightly more complex weapon and perhaps doubling the cooling needs, you can solve the issue completely by having a double-barreled weapon with riflings of opposite handedness firing either two rounds in tandem or single rounds from alternating barrels.

[Zeropoint]

 

The heat capacity of steel at room temperature is about 455 J per degree C per kilogram, and I could not find the mass of the steel parts in an M14 rifle

M14, you say? I just happen to have a SOCOM 16 here, and they come out of the stock really easily . . .

 

. . . about seven pounds, although that includes the handguard and also a scope.

[Old Man]

I'd be surprised if the angular momentum accumulation is of any real importance, but at the cost of a slightly more complex weapon and perhaps doubling the cooling needs, you can solve the issue completely by having a double-barreled weapon with riflings of opposite handedness firing either two rounds in tandem or single rounds from alternating barrels.

I think what is meant is torque caused by the axis of recoil not being in line with the firer's center of mass.

[Cancer]

Aah, ok. I misinterpreted the statement. "Never mind."

[Old Man]

However, your solution of MOAR GUNZ could still solve the problem.

[freakboy6117]

OK reading this thread is making me picture a nerfgun with teeth.

 

Something like a Nerf Masterdon

 

https://youtu.be/af91FUgY3WU

 

But firing something like the Darpa exacto .50 self guided bullet. https://youtu.be/TnluzkfPsrg

[Zeropoint]

I just want a Nerf blaster with a detachable box magazine that can match the ROF of a conventional firearm. Heck, I'd even settle for one that used a fore-end pump like a shotgun. Meanwhile, all ACTUAL Nerf blasters seem to either require moving your hands away from the firing position in some awkward way, or they're motorized but grossly underpowered.

 

Maybe I'll just have to create my own . . .

[Surrealone]

I just want a Nerf blaster with a detachable box magazine that can match the ROF of a conventional firearm. Heck, I'd even settle for one that used a fore-end pump like a shotgun. Meanwhile, all ACTUAL Nerf blasters seem to either require moving your hands away from the firing position in some awkward way, or they're motorized but grossly underpowered.

 

Maybe I'll just have to create my own . . .

'The HIRricane' would trump a box magazine and has ludicrous ROF after the mod work to the original Nerf Rival Zeus MXV 1200.  Might be right up your alley...

 

[Old Man]

I've come to the conclusion that the dissimilarity between Nerf actions and real firearms is deliberate. I'm not entirely sure why. But like you I've been looking for that kind of Nerf weapon and they're extremely rare for some reason.

[Surrealone]

It's probably done to avoid any potential for confusion between a Nerf gun and a real one ... in the event that someone were to paint the Nerf gun black and take it to school.

 

I also suspect that mechanically the lightweight Nerf darts and/or balls require different mechanisms and approaches to fire them efficiently and effectively ... compared to cartridges that leverage a primer and smokeless powder to expel bullets from a rifled barrel using expanding gasses.  After all, it's tough to create a blowback, blow forward, gas operated, or recoil operated Nerf gun when the Nerf darts/balls don't have cases or powder from which create blowback; don't have powder driving bullets to create blow forward; don't entail expanding gasses to allow for direct impingement or piston-driven gas operated systems; and don't create recoil energy, themselves, which can be leveraged for recoil-based autoloading.

 

Put another way, if the action is used to fire/launch a radically different type of ammunition -- then you should expect the action, itself, to be designed for that difference and, thus, be radically different, itself ... when compared with other actions.

[freakboy6117]

I have the Nerf Zombie Slingfire which is a lever action with a box mag that might suit you zero point. Thee downside is it only has a 6 round magg but now they're offering it with a 21 round drum.

 

http://nerf.hasbro.com/en-us/product/nerf-zombie-strike-slingfire-blaster:007573DF-5056-9047-F5EF-E3201C025036

[Old Man]

Put another way, if the action is used to fire/launch a radically different type of ammunition -- then you should expect the action, itself, to be designed for that difference and, thus, be radically different, itself ... when compared with other actions.

Yes and no. My airsoft arsenal is powered by hand-cocked spring piston, compressed green gas, or electric motor depending on the weapon. But in most cases the weapon actions still resemble those of the real steel firearms they are replicas of, to the point where they are used for military and LEO training in some instances. It would be pretty easy for Nerf weapons to have conventional pump- or bolt- actions rather than the top slide that so many seem to have, but they're not bothering.

 

My kids got one of those drums with their Rampage. It's not bad but it can jam; I'd recommend box mags if you're planning to go into "combat". The Rampage, incidentally, is a conventional pump action with a foregrip.

[gewing]

when a Monster (or Supervillian) really NEEDS to be shot...  

 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/12/06/truvelo-cms-20x42mm-anti-materiel-rifle/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheFirearmBlog+%28The+Firearm+Blog%29

 

 

great weapon for the low level brick...