Ammo reloading

[Rupert Willies]

As a side note, FMDeCorba actually built, and routinely shoots a black powder cannon. He uses it for art projects, firing paint filled projectiles. Check out his signature for pictures.

And he once shot a half litre bottle full of paint through the wall of his atelier and into the next office, where it exploded and covered the unlucky fellow sitting there in red paint. A glorious moment in time for performance art! I wish I could have been there to see it.

[kalos72]

Bringing up an older topic here...

What makes black powder a poor choice for automatic weapon reloading? I seem to recall some one saying its because the charge may sometimes not have enough energy to eject the case from the last round. Is that correct?

Would it work better in a bolt action rifle for example? What other kinds of weapons?

And does anyone have any sources for game stats on the old school black powder cannons/mortars that I can see?

[Targan]

Black powder burns real dirty. It would foul up the works in an auto/semi auto action pretty fast. Whether or not it would eject a spent case would depend a lot on the action (blowback or gas piston etc).

[jester]

Yeah, Blackpowder would not be a good option in weapons like the M16 series due to its high carbon and corosive characteristics.

I remember accounts of the American Civil War where soldiers at Little Round Top could no longer fire their muzzle loading rifles due to them being so badly fouled with carbon from their firing. Something to think about. If a uzzle loader gets so clogged with blackpowder after probably 40 or 50 rounds what would it be like with a closed system auto or semi auto weapon?

I would guess that it could work in simple blowback and recoil weapons as most of the powder residue goes out the muzzle and there is no system to get clogged.

Bolt action and lever action weapons were originaly fired using blackpowder.

And I would venture to guess that a system as robust with large gas ports and used to firing corosive ammo like the SKS would still function for a few magazines before the carbon build up caused the weapon to jam.

Also, keep this in mind, the cartridges

30-30 Winchester was the type of cartridge loading it meant a 30 caliber bullet with 30 grains of blackpowder.

30-40 Krag, 30 caliber projectile with 40 grains of blackpowder <this caliber was modernized with a rimless casing and modern smokeless powder into the 30-06 round>

Those are some examples and the Mosin Nagants, Mausers and Enfields all were originaly designed to fire using blackpowder or cordite. So, I hope that gives you some ideas.

Oh yeah and also the old gatling guns would work a bit better as their tolerances weren't as tight as modern machineguns, more open so more carbon escaped, they fired slower, and the multiple barrels would allow you fire longer than a modern machinegun.

I would also venture to guess that many of the earlier machineguns would be able to fire using blackpowder, the Russian Maxims since Russian stuff is always crube but reliable, and the old Colt M1898 machinegun aka "the potato digger" since it was orignaly chambered for the 30-40 Krag a blackpowder round.

Of course finding such weapons and the ammo to fire them could pose a problem.

[WallShadow]

What about reloading 40mm grenades? Obviously the spin-activated fuse is going to be a real pain to try to replicate, but buckshot, flechette, flare, chem (CS) and a crude HE-with-impact-fuse grenade might be accomplished, if Wojo hasn't blown up his factory again this week.
There is also another little curiosity called a 40mm beehive round, in which a steel cartridge-shaped block is machined for 10 to 18 .22 caliber rounds, all of which are triggered at once (not sure how that's managed, though).

On a completely different topic, I would love to see an old-fashioned Gatling gun of new manufacture chambered for 12 gauge shotgun shells, reloaded with Slug-and-ball, or buck-and ball for simplicity's sake. Take 6-12 heavy duty shotgun barrels, mount them in a cylinder with the breaches attached, machine the gearing, mount it on a tripod/small cart with an armored shield and extra ammo storage boxes. Not a whole lot of range, but lots of output. Imagine that beast opening up on a swarm of attackers assaulting your rubble-wall strongpoint, or fools trying to board the Wisla Krolova or the Constitution!
And for the zombie holocaust, just add an electric motor.... who needs an assault shotgun? BRRROOONNNNNNNNKKKKKKKK!

I wonder what loading it with bird shot rounds would do?

BTW, speaking of a gatling's sound, I once heard A-10s doing night firing runs with their 30mm Gatlings at Fort Indiantown Gap' firing range whiie I was there doing reenactor Military Police watch duty during a Battle of the Bulge reenactment. It sounded to my fertile imagination like dragons' love calls, kinda eerie coming out of night sky and echoing off the hills.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The biggest problem I can think of for the US type 40mm grenades is the primer set up. The grenades rely on a two-stage system whereby a small charge in a chamber of the shell burns and then escapes into a larger chamber (the main body of the shell casing).
You can't tap the primer out like you can for civilian smallarms ammo, I think it would have to be drilled out.

[WallShadow]

Checking out the online military surplus marketplace, I found this little bit of happiness:
http://www.govliquidation.com/auctio...tionId=7615799
That's about 1 1/2 tons of spent brass that's not demilled. Needs to be decapped, cleaned, sized, recapped, and loaded. I wonder how many reloaded rounds that would bring from Wojo's factory?
2900lbs (allow some lost weight for packaging)/10 =290lbs of finished 5.56N rounds.

And there were at least 4 more sites with other calibers besides 5.56N: 7.62N, .50BMG, and 9mmP.