Opinions Please - Are Assault Rifles Perfected?

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

Got to hold a 4.7MM caseless. You need a heat and rough handling resistant propellant. Also for long term storage it must be sealed. But I thought it was "neat". Also, it seems that one must "give and take" on desired features for now in regards to the weapons them selves.

Wasn't that round supposed to come in sealed 10 round packs and only opened when the magazine was being loaded? After those brief moments in the sun, the rounds are again protected this time by the magazine body.
Seems they had the potential fragility of the round fairly well covered.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Wasn't that round supposed to come in sealed 10 round packs and only opened when the magazine was being loaded? After those brief moments in the sun, the rounds are again protected this time by the magazine body.
Seems they had the potential fragility of the round fairly well covered.

In the cartridge collector world, one sees more singles, a bag of those would cost quite a bit. If I'd been able to see a bag, I would tell you more.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Wasn't that round supposed to come in sealed 10 round packs and only opened when the magazine was being loaded? After those brief moments in the sun, the rounds are again protected this time by the magazine body.
Seems they had the potential fragility of the round fairly well covered.

Put a carton of eggs in a steel box, then drop the steel box from 1.5m.I

If any egg cracks, your G11 has just malfunctioned.

[Legbreaker]

They aren't exactly eggs though are they. Anything that fragile wouldn't have even cycled and certainly wouldn't have made it into a service rifle like the G11.
Apples and oranges...

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

They aren't exactly eggs though are they. Anything that fragile wouldn't have even cycled and certainly wouldn't have made it into a service rifle like the G11.
Apples and oranges...

Since I don't know how RDX feels, it might have been coated.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

Since I don't know how RDX feels, it might have been coated.

Haven't touched the stuff myself since I got out of the army 20+ years ago. Haven't even seen a 4.7mm round in the flesh either, so can't really comment either way.
I can say though that it makes no sense whatsoever for the round to be left untreated in some way and subject to moisture or damage from normal handling and chambering. Yes, it's certain to be less hardy than brass or steel casings, but not to the point of being useless as a military round.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The 4.7mm round that was accepted for service used HMX rather than RDX (although HMX is closely related to RDX) and it was coated with a specialized lacquer to protect the round from moisture and minor damage during handling.

There's some good images at the following link (but no information): https://militarycartridges.com/categ...21mm-caseless/

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Just finished re-reading this thread and the notion that caseless ammo is a dead end made me laugh. There's a company in Austria called Voere that produced a hunting rifle using a caseless round. They started manufacture in 1991 and it was still selling well enough in Europe as of 2007.

Then there's the US Joint Services Small Arms Program project called LSAT (Lightweight Small Arms Technologies) that was investigating among other things, tech that makes ammo lower in weight. As far as they're concerned, the caseless ammo of the G11 is a proven technology and it formed one of the options they were pursuing in an effort to make both weapon and ammunition lighter overall. They were using a licensed 5.56mm variant of the ammo tech used for the G11.

https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovc...tl/Spiegel.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightw...s_Technologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSAT_caseless_ammunition
https://www.textronsystems.com/what-...r-systems/LSAT