I just spoke to a friend that does some consulting for the military, (computers) and said that one of the guys he talks to about military weapons there told him the guv is/has experimentin/ed with ammo that has no case.

Does anyone know if this is just BS or what. Would that even work somehow? I've been trying to figure how the priming would work, even if you could get the powder into somekind of durable form factor without a case.

I told my friend that I tended to call

but who knows what the guv will do,
but I would ask the experts I know of at AR.

What say you?

I remember reading about caseless ammo sometime ago but though it was dropped. I think Remington was experimenting with it. A quick search brought up this.

http://www.remtek.com/arms/hk/mil/g11/caseless.htm

Holding a partial box of caseless ammo as I type this. The brand is JagerSport. Lightning-Fire, Caseless Ammunition. Box says to use it only in Lightning-Bolt (Voere VEC 91) electronic rifles only. On the end of the box it says 223 caseless ammo, 55 gr soft point.

Interesting look to the cartridge. It has what appears to be a plastic case but what is actually the propellant. It is very hard and slick. There is an "extractor grove" where you would expect to find it on a brass case (to unload the rifle). The propellant case is .350" in dia and just over an inch in length. Bullet is seated into the propellant case. Total weight is 79 grains. Overall size of the round is just larger than a 5.7x28 FN round.

The primer is about the same size as a small rifle primer but made of a different compound than the case.

As the box says, it uses electronic ignition. The back of the box also says the propellant will burn if exposed to temps over 300 degrees. Also says not to expose the ammo to direct heat or sunlight before firing. Don't know if that makes pressures go up or the case soft.

The friend that gave me this ammo said he had a chance to handle and fire the sporting rifle. Said it was like shooting a 223. Also that the round was developed for military applications but the company (don't remember who) was trying to develop a commercial market also. I do know that he got this ammo 10+ years ago so it is not a new concept.

Very interesting guys, thanks for the intel, I knew someone here could provide some knowledge.

I knew I should be careful about calling BS on the guv, they have those aliens and everything at studio 54--or was that area 51--or both???

I hope I haven't purchased too much brass for some of my rigs!

I saw on Tv the other day were the Military have and are expermenting with a new weapon that fires multipul rounds per barrel. Future Weapons was the name of the show. Some of these weapons can fire thousands of rounds a second and use caseless charges. They wiped out a whole convoy of trucks and equipment in the blink of an eye and can be set up to fire by remote.

Iknowmyspellingsucks!

i think the weapon you are thinking of is called the Hellfire or Firestorm .

It's a battery of barrels , all loaded with multiple rounds of electronically detonated ammunition.

The rate of fire is in the 1,000 per min. and as it is self clearing( ie. if one of the rounds is duff, the one behind it , on firing , will clear the barrel)it is fool proof.

It has been developed to be dropped and controlled as a 'droid, in locations where troop or transport routes are expected.

As it also fires AP and Anti Personnel, it will kill anything that comes across it.

Have a nice day y'all ..........

They have been working on the caseless concept for years, but have never managed to overcome all the problems.
It's more expensive and more fragile than the "standard" brass cased stuff.



If you want to get technical, the origional Sharps Breachloading Rifles were designed to fire caseless ammo (closing the breach cut off the back of the paper wraped "cartridge", exposing the powder to the flash from the percussion cap).

The Germans 0played around with caseless ammo in WW2. The Army had a .308 sort of a thing in the 50's, Daisy sold a line of 22's for a while.
Nuttin new under the sun.
Take care!

I know H&K had a design for one, I have seen a vidieo clip of it on the net somewhere.
Back in my younger days (mid 1980s) I went to work in a machine shop and the owner had a patent on a caseless rifle round. Can't remember all the particulars of it.
There were pictures on the wall of all the military brass there out back watching it being tested.

Hey Don, I seem to remember that "Daisy"(of BB gun fame) also had some Caseless Cartridges on the market many years ago. The barrels were vented along the full length because it was basically a self-propelled small rocket and they did not want to deal with huge amounts of Pressure inside the barrel.

Can't remember if it was Daisy or someone else that also had a Handgun designed for a similar Caseless Cartridge.

I see Hawkins remembered it too.
---

There was once a fellow named Bull(can't remember his first name) who was running Government Experiments with HUGE, very long barrelled Canons. Mr. Bull experimented with both Liquid and Gaseous propellants. The interesting thing to me was it had "Injectors" which inserted more Fuel as the Projectile went past a series of ports along the length of the barrel. That allowed continuous acceleration at less Pressure than if a single amount of Fuel was used.

I seem to remember Mr. Bull was killed by a Spy.

HK worked with it. To date cook off is still a problem. The cyclic rate of fire can be made so high (no extraction) that a 3 round burst is in effect 3 rounds in the barrel at the same time.

I read about this many years ago. The case is the propellant and is consumed. The primer is actually a small contact point. The only mechanical movement when pulling the trigger is engaging a micro switch which sends a small amount of current to the mentioned contact point. It would only respond to a very small variance in electricy so that random sparks,static etc would not set it off. It was touted as being very accurate--the absence of mechanical movement in the trigger. Couldn't reload it though--that tiny contact was all that was left.

Interesting stuff guys--Thanks

I feel like I'll be OK for a while with the calibers I've laid in a decent supply of brass for....Maybe I should stock up on some more 'conventional' powder and primers though--I better not tell my wife I'm thinking that--have actually been stockpiling a bit due to what I call the 'Hillary' factor.

Caseless reloading--that would be something--I guess you'd need new dies--or "molds'?

quote:

Hey Don, I seem to remember that "Daisy"(of BB gun fame) also had some Caseless Cartridges on the market many years ago. The barrels were vented along the full length because it was basically a self-propelled small rocket and they did not want to deal with huge amounts of Pressure inside the barrel.

Can't remember if it was Daisy or someone else that also had a Handgun designed for a similar Caseless Cartridge

HC
I believe you are thinking of the Gyro-Jet pistol from back in the late 1960s. I remember seeing them in the old Shooters Bible and reading about them in the gun rags of the day. I believe they were 10/12 mm in caliber and had the powder charge in the base of the projectile. The gas vented out small angled holes in the bullet base imparting spin and driveing the bullet out the bore.

I was part of the Air Force R&D team that looked at this stuff years ago. Yeah, the cook-off problem was a part of it's problem, as was storage. Needed temperature and humidity control. For sporting use it wasn't bad, but for combat troops, not so hot. The cartridges we had the most success with were a triangular shape when viewed from front or rear. The ignition portion of the cartridge just dropped out the bottom of the rifle. No need to worry about where brass went, weight of shipping, etc.
The Gyro-jet was tested also. Problem was, like any jet or rocket, it took time to reach maximum velocity. At point-blank range, you could have done better with a slingshot.

quote:

Originally posted by Ol` Joe:
...I believe you are thinking of the Gyro-Jet pistol from back in the late 1960s. ...had the powder charge in the base of the projectile. The gas vented out small angled holes in the bullet base imparting spin and driveing the bullet out the bore.

Hey Ol` Joe, You might just be right. Been too long ago for me to remember, but Gyro-Jet does sound familiar.

The German ministry of Defense (formerly of War)spend a lot of money on this development. As stated, HK was involved regarding the rifle and RWS - Dynamit Nobel (who else?) developed the .17 caliber ammunition.

The objective was to develop a round that shot flat at up to 300 meters without a need for sight adjustment and, at the same time so light that the soldier could easily carry more rounds and use a larger magazin. Apparently, up to 3 mags with 45 rounds each could be carried on that rifle.

A good article on the G11 is in German Wikipedia. Another, very detailed article was on the DWJ magazin some years ago. As already mentioned, the main problem was that the ammo started to cock off after the first several rounds fired, because there was no brass to insulate the propellant from the hot barrel.

Here is another interesting link in English..

With the breakdown of the Communist Block the project was skipped, the German Army uses now a HK rifle for regular 5.56 mm ammo.