This might sound like a crazy deal but a friend of mine who I reload for was wondering if there was ever a time that some sort of liquid propellant had been used in rifle cartridges. I suppose it's possible with something like the new remington electronic ignition but I would also think some sort of liquid would be a volatile thing to be working with??
JUst a dumb question--maybe someone will respond. thanks kraky
Enough corn whisky or other suitable substitute injested during or shortly before reloading could also have the effect of turning the entire activity into a much more sporting proposition. There is also the added benefit to the gene pool to be considered, reference the Darwin Awards.
Posts: 400 | Location: Murfreesboro,TN,USA | Registered: 16 January 2002
I have a friend who has an 8x60 his uncle brought back from Germany after WWII, along with several factory rounds which have some kind of liquid propellant.
I recall reading about several substitutes for the current military rifle/cartridge system. One of the systems used water (though other liquids could have been used) in a case with a central electrode insulated from the exterior of the cartridge, with the other side of the circuit connected to the barrel to which the cartridge was grounded. In practice the cartridge was chambered in the rifle, and a ferocious electrical charge was applied when the trigger was pulled, which vaporized all the water and disassociated some of the water molecules. High velocities were achieved (can't remember how fast), but the project was thought to be not worth pursuing, owing to corrosion caused by the high temperature steam and oxygen, and the difficulty of maintaining the insulation of the central electrode. Actually, I'm waiting for the affordable, accurate, lightweight, recoilless, home railgun kit with the room-temperature superconducting electromagnets...
Posts: 264 | Location: Grand Prairie, TX, USA | Registered: 17 September 2001
The military has been playing around with liquid propelant in use in large artillery guns. The idea is to increase the rate of fire by cutting the requirment to load the heavy bags of powder into the breach.
Posts: 593 | Location: My computer. | Registered: 28 November 2001
Liquid propellant for small arms exist in labratory. There was a gun built for liquid propellant but the liquid do not react, it was subjected to very intense electromagnetic energy and heats up, expand very quickly inside the barrel. The projectile had a MV of 7000 fps IIRC.
The main base of chemical liquid propellants are either a mixture of oxidizing agent + fuel or a single compound like nitroesters. They both burn too fast without retardant, some will detonate. Most are toxic, will react with metal shells and leak whenever possible.
Posts: 638 | Location: O Canada! | Registered: 21 December 2001
Several years ago when the US Army was exploring options for its Objective Crew-Served Weapon and Anti-Materiel Rifle (new heavy sniper weapon) I approached Ronnie Barrett with the possibility of using a liquid propellant system in the OCSW for different projectile payloads. There are things you can do with combustion mechanics in that case that are more interesting than what is possible with a conventional case, such as wave shaping. I had some preliminary discussions with Olin about using the liquid propellants that they were developing, but in the end I decided that it was a logistics mess unless in a cartridge and if it were in a cartridge it is hard to see any advantage to a liquid propellant. Without mixing in an injector its difficult to get good interaction rates using a bi-propellant system and the electro-thermal approach described by Pyrotek requires a large external electrical energy source for ignition, so its not practical for small arms.
Back around 1898 there was a guy by the name of James DeWar, who experimented with "liquified and solidified hydrogen". He was also one of the Scotsmen that invented "Cordite". For doing that he was knighted and became "Sir James DeWar".
In the mid-1950s, the American Rifleman magazine had a short article mentioning some U.S. Army officers who were experimenting with loading the .30-06 cartridge with what the article called: "hydrazine," which was identified as a liquid rocket fuel.
For some reason, these officers were handling the loading of the rifle --a Springfield-- with uncommon care, including pushing the round into the chamber with a wooden stick --so a photo displayed occurring.
Apparently the fuel worked, but the questions it generated became such a proverbial "can of worms" that the effort was left to moulder.
Paladin, Hydazine is used as rocket fuel, yes, but it is an explosive. The powder that we load today is a cumbustible solid. Hydrazine is shock sensitive especially above a low temperature. A few drops in an upside down tuna can is enough to lift 200 pounds about five feet vertically so it would take a very small amount of it to fire a bullet from a weapon. Can you imagine a soldier carrying 100 cartridges loaded with this stuff in the jungles of Viet Nam and have to dive for cover? It might be possible to slow it down with some kind of retardant that could be used as a buffer for shock as well but I would rather use powders that are available to us now.
I heard about diesel powered factory "airguns". I belive if you spray WD-40 or so to cylinder of break open air rifle and fire quckly, it will detonate and "decompose" rifle
I belive it is possible to make proper functional "diesel" gun.
A couple of things, neither of which have much to do with small arms:
Umm, 'friends of mine' that used to play around with potato guns had good results with aerosol engine starter fluid. I believe the active ingredient is ether. Anyway, we got a whole lot more power out of that than the alcohol-based fuels more commonly used. For example, a potato can be made to shoot right through the plastic walls of a porta-crapper (honeyhut, what have you). We - whoops - they once wrapped a heavy steel bolt in masking tape to seal it to the bore and touched it off. As far as I know it is still in orbit.
Second, liquid propellant can do some really nifty stuff in artillery. For example, you can inject more propellant *while* the projo is accelerating down the barrel. Harald, I would be interested in learning more about your experience with LP.
Twenty or so years ago DAISY (who make air guns in the USofA) experimented with a SOLID-fuel gun which ignited the fuel via the Diesel method: Compressed air becomes hot and the heat ignites the fuel. This wasn't liquid, but the ignition was as you suggest.
BTW, the US authorities ruled that the air gun was a "normal rifle" and hence Daisy stopped producing it (too much "red tape" to do in order to get permission to sell it).___the_captn
Posts: 238 | Location: earth | Registered: 03 October 2001
I filled airgun pelelts with peroxoacxetone or HMTD and it work too. It work also with nitroelulose . . . Standard russian break open .177 airgun (standard about 150 m/s) capable to penetrate 1" pine wood
Hydrazine itself is not an explosive, but hydrazine nitrate is a very powerful explosive. A mixture of hydrazine and ammonium nitrate is named "astrolite", it is one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosive with far better property than nitroglycerin. Hydrazine causes cancer alone by itself.
Posts: 638 | Location: O Canada! | Registered: 21 December 2001
All this talk of hydrazine brings back some memories of the first job after college. We were using UDMH(unsymmetrical dymethylhrdrazine-RP1) and NTO (nitrogen tetroxide) as fuel for APU's and rocket motors. The mixture is hypergolic, it combusts upon mixing. This stuff was used in the Titan II and the Delta. When they would vent the tanks these ugly rust colored clouds would drift off to who knows where. As I recall we could only test when the wind was blowing toward Ventura County, as their air quality laws were less restrictive than those in Los Angeles County. I believe this stuff was also used in torpedoes. C.G.B.
Posts: 238 | Location: Colorado | Registered: 05 June 2001
on of the best of astrolites is RX-23-A type with detonatin velocity up to 8580 m/s - 1.421 g/cm3 density, explosive pressure 28.3GPa, but octogene 39.4 GPa
I would be also carefull to compare it to old good nitroglycerine or its mixtures (with nitrocelulose etc.)! There are other much far powerfull explosives :CL-20, octanitrocubane, NIBT, tetranitromethane mixtures etc.
[This message has been edited by Jiri (edited 01-22-2002).]
First, The reason astrolite being labelled "one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosive"(not "the most" but "one of the most") is for its cheap cost, you can easily get tons of it. hence high amount of payload per dollar spend.
Second, NTO, if referred to nitrogen tetraoxide, should be N2O4. The rust color cloud come from NO2 decomposed from N2O4, highly acidic, but not very dangerous.
Posts: 638 | Location: O Canada! | Registered: 21 December 2001
What about carbide/acetylene gun ? I mean acetylene generator, cylinder is for the first filled with air, then filled with acetylene and ignited by piezo lighter or so . Or cylinder filled with mixture (air/acetylene) and compressed ?
