In the interest of Science! What next for firearms?

[Tower75]

Afternon, FB-UK. How’re you all today?

I’m afraid it’s one of those days where the mind wonders, and I feel the need to engage in some kind of shooty-shooty discussions with fellow shooty-shooty persons. So, here we go.

It can generally be assumed that we have reached the top of firearm development, yes?
For the last 60+ years nothing much has changed so drastically that it turned the firearm world on its head. The Civilian market are still using bolt-action, scoped, or floating barrel target rifles for sport and target– the same thing you could of picked up in the 1950/60s. (Ok, some countries use SLRs)
The military are using things that have gotten lighter and smaller, ammunition has shrunk and the rifles are “high-capacity”, select-fire beasties, but that type of tech was coming into play in the mid 1940s

I grant you, tolerances may have changed and improved, and one may be able to argue that an AI rifle built yesterday will be more accurate then an Enfield No4T built in WWII, but as I mentioned, it’s still the same basic tech; a magazine-fed, bolt-action rifle.

No ground breaking developments on par with the invention of rifling or breech-loading has happened, and it’s doubtful that anything is on the horizon.

So, my fellow shooty-shooty persons, what do you think is next for the firearm world? Where can we go from here? What can be invented now that will change everything, or is there anything that can do that now?

Should we seriously look into caseless ammunition maybe? Or direct-energy weaponry (I doubt Bisley would allow a plasma rifle, though), rail technology? Should we look at fletchette ammo again? Or multi-projectile cartridges?

It seems we're in the same era as the musket. From 1400-1840+ nothing changed in firearms, other the the ignition method, then suddenly, from about 1840 onwards things went nuts.

In 1600 we had a muzzle-loading, smooth-bore musket. In 1800 we had the same thing. But by 1899, we had a Maxim machine-gun!

I don’t just mean for the military market, but what can you think of? What next people?

Thoughts:

[tackb]

I think rail guns if a compact enough power source can be developed?

[majordisorder]

I had a conversation with a guy in Vegas last week about Rail guns. He worked on one of the early projects in the 80's or 90's in the US and given what it could apparently do then you might need to rethink backstops and danger areas He also mentioned it was rather large.....

Could there ever be a personal rail gun? Don't know, but pretty sure what my FEO would say if I asked for one

[Tower75]

Good choices, guys. I like it. Keep 'em coming.

However, you know need to defend your choice. 'Cos it's my thread.

Currently rail-guns are HUGE! and expensive and if we ever get one working that is field-grade it'll probably be mounted in an AC-130 plane and used to take out cities, or something. Americans, stop reading this and getting ideas... I'm watching you tongueout

Assuming we get a personal, shoulder-fired rail-gun - what would be the advantages?

Using standard 19th/20th/21st Century technology we can already put rounds on targets out to 1.5-2 miles away. firearms today are reliable and robust enough for field use. Plus, as above, over-penetration would be an issue.

One thing that might be "in the books" is the systems that let you have a'lotta boolits to shoot.

Like the Metal Storm system where bullets and propellant are stacked one on top of each other in the barrel(s), or the solid-block, shaver idea; whereby you have a sold block of material, and a "shaver" shaves off a slice off of the block and fires that - sort of a "ninja star" sort of deal. A block would give you thousands of rounds to shoot off.

Or maybe we'll look art caseless, again. I mean, a helical magazine loaded with 4mm caseless rounds, you'd get hundreds in a mag.

[tackb]

when the technology is available i think we will have personel rail guns firing small projectiles at mega velocity and as they have no contact between the weapon and projectile then they can vary the size and make up of said projectile allowing the use of guided projectiles etc?

[Blackstuff]

I don't think there'll be any major changes to firearms themselves in the forseeable future. Most of the radical ammo/feed mechanism stuff was looked into in the 80's/90's and dropped. I think the development will focus on improving bullet design - accuracy for the civilian market and lethality for military, and optics - range finder/windage/digital display integration scopes which are in their infancy with the likes of Burris's Eliminator and the Barratt BORS, and better/more affordable night vision/thermal.

[Individual]

Different ways to propel a lump of metal at high velocity will no doubt be developed.
Rail Guns - may be. But aren't they variations on a theme? The energy efficiency / convenience of chemical reactions is hard to beat.

There is some interesting stuff happening in the world of smarter projectiles -

Fr' instance have you seen this aboout the US Army xm25?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/01/xm25_contract/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE

[dromia]

They had rail guns in the American Civil War.

[Mr_Logic]

It's a good talking point. Where can the rifle really go? Civilian - nowhere. New enhancements will be concerned with lethality. Things like guided bullets will not be allowed because you might use them in anguish - it's 'accepted' that we don't get anything fun now.

The military is another matter - rail guns, guided bullets, miniaturisation of exploding bullets. PLenty of things to consider. Utimately the rifled barrel works so well that without doing rail guns and/or lasers there's not much else you can do with it.

Which is the credit to those in the 1800s who went from the Brown Bess to the Lee Enfield in a hundred years.

Two main inventions made it all possible - one, the switch to breech loading, and two, the metallic cartridge. Because once all you have to do is eject the old, add a new and pull the trigger, you're pretty much sorted! It's a short trip to machine guns from breech loading. That was the big shift, and with that floodgate open the pace thereafter was inevitable.

[Tower75]

I'm thinking the same, tbh. I'd like to think that in a few years NATO will be running around with shoulder-fired plasma guns, but I doubt it'll happen

Smart ammo is the only thing left to develop. The firearm itself is near-perfect, or as perfect as it's gonna get, so the pointy bits of lead* they shoot has to be the next thing we perfect.

*How long before they're not lead anymore (Okay, the French in WWI were using solid brass bullets, but you know what I mean)