Still available, at around $200+ per thousand.
That's funny. Just the other night I dug out a Remington catalage from 03 and saw the Etronix in there. I had forgotton all about it and was wondering if owners could still find ammo or primers.
Still available, at around $200+ per thousand.
I'm still waiting for my phased plasma rifle.
Ok, time for my plan B: How about a rifle that propels small iron bullets at great velocities using nothing but electricity? Sort of like the new high-speed German trains that can travel at great speeds, yet they're only being propelled by a series of tiny electro-magnets that fire in sequence? The trains in question actually hover above the track and therefore there's absolutely no surface contact, but achieve speeds of 500+ km/h. I guess that production costs would also be very high on this type of a firearm (or should it be called electroarm?)...
ht tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid
I bet y'all that Remy hasn't thought of that system yet! (it's been a long week, lol!)![]()
If you made the trigger system into some sort of mechanical peizoelectric, it might be able to solve the battery problem, but it's doing the same job as a pure mechanical system (with virtually the same lock time), so it's not really a practical thing to develop.An electric primer would require a power source, batteries tend to die at the least inopportune time.
Murphy's law in effect, Big Buck/Bear/Caribou/etc....or....Last round of a heavy Competition (timed)...is this when you want to find out your new fangled electric primer doesn't have the juice to ignite?
It's been done and failed in the past.
That being said, I have seen rifles with an electronic trigger system. Very slick but again.....Murphy and his posse.
Ok, time for my plan B: How about a rifle that propels iron bullets at great velocities using nothing but electricity?
Suffers from the same basic problem of gasoline vs. electric cars - a kilogram of a chemical fuel (gasoline, nitrocellulose) has *way* more energy than a kilogram of battery (on the order of one hundred times more). So 50 grains of powder (about 3 grams) carries about about the same amount of energy as 300 grams of a high performance battery. So your battery pack would weigh half a pound or so for each shot's worth of stored energy.
(Whoever figures out how to make batteries about ten times more energy-dense than they are today, will get very rich....)
There still is a certain elegance to burning chemicals, eh...?
"On January 31, 2008 the US Navy tested a railgun that fired a shell at 10.64 MJ with a muzzle velocity of 2,520 m/s.[15] Its expected performance is a muzzle velocity over 5,800 m/s, accurate enough to hit a 5 meter target over 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) away while firing at 10 shots per minute. "
100 rounds per second, thats a theoretical cyclic rate of 6000 RPM, isnt enough?
(This is for the 20x102mm Vulcan cannon, not refering to a genuine antique hand cranked Gatling)
People would still find a way to miss.You guys are thinking too small. I want a mind controlled electronic firing mechanism. You pull the trigger when you are ready, then when your brain signals perfect sight alignment the gun instantly fires itself. Missing would be nearly impossible.
One of the limiting factors in rate of fire for Gatlings etc is the inertia of the ammunition. Fire a couple rounds and the whole belt has to instantly move in the feed tray; stop firing and the ammunition (now moving at high speed) has to stop almost instantly.
I am trying to find a way to have the ammunition rotating continuously so you could have super high RoF by just diverting the whirling ammunion into the feed pawl when you pull the trigger.
For some years Giat Industries of France and Royal Ordnance of the UK, together with their associated research and development establishments, have been working on the Case Telescoped Weapon System (CTWS).
Details of this and the Giat Industries 45 mm Case Telescoped Ammunition (CTA) Cannon M911 were given in Jane's Armour and Artillery Upgrades 1995-96 pages 14 and 15. The 45 mm M911 is the basis for current CTA International CTWS programme.