New Poster...Cartridge Idea (I think)

[tcochr]

Folks,

Is is possible to create a Pistol Cartridge (brass) out of Cardboard. I have seen some rifles that use a paper bag rolled around a mandrel to build up thickness that gets a flash hole, powder and a bullet wedged into the paper cartridge. What is the risk of using the same technique to create a ...lets say .38 Short/LC/Spc/S&W cartridge? and just glue in a primer? One could use a heeled bullet from a LEE 90378 mold to get the bullet to size in the barrel (for a .36 BP/38LC barrel)

I don't know...just an idea. I know brass is cheap, but this might work...once.

LTC C-

[Jeffrey]

Sounds almost like the idea behind old paper shotshell hulls. Never heard of any that did not have at least a metal head.

[GhostHawk]

Military has been looking at caseless ammo for a while now.

Be cautious, that brass holds in most of the pressure, seals to the chamber walls under pressure.
Remove the brass and the chamber gets significantly more pressure and the bolt face/firing pin area could see a huge increase.

[dverna]

The old Activ shotshells were all plastic expect for an imbedded ring of steel for the extractor to work on. But shot shells are low pressure - under 12,000 psi in 12 ga.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

tcochr--Welcome to the forum! Caseless ammo is not a new idea. Both the US and Germans have periodically worked on the idea for a long time. The German company of H&K developed an operational system that was almost adopted. The caseless cartridge consists of an elongated pellet of fully combustible propellant pressed onto the base of the bullet and it's ignited electronically. But for some reason it's never achieved full acceptance, and long term storage of the ammunition and subsequent deterioration may be part of the problem, as well as moisture resistance. H&k's idea, as I recall, utilized completely sealed disposable plastic magazines. There would be a huge savings in both cost and weight if the brass case could be successfully eliminated, but it looks like we're not quite there yet. The idea really isn't a new one, as nitrated paper cartridges were used as far back as the Civil War where the paper was largely consumed by the firing, but in those designs gas leakage and fouling were problems.

[tcochr]

In BP chambers there is no metal cartridge. So I am not sure the logic that the cartridge contains most of the high pressure, and if that was a real issue, the brass would expand to fill up the cylinder and be hard to eject. That has never happened to my cartridge guns. ( but it could maybe).

In 94 I got to see those 7,62 caseless rounds. I think they were called 'consumable'. The gun was a bull pup design and it was at picatinny arsenal. Did not see it shoot though.


This is just a idea for cheaper, homemade cases. So, why not make (non consumable/ non nitrated) cartridges from thick cardboard ( that won't smolder). Like I said, it's just an idea. I wonder if anyone has ever tried it. If loaded very light, it may be an idea.

Or... Am I wayyyy off base.

Tim

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The old Activ shotshells were all plastic expect for an imbedded ring of steel for the extractor to work on. But shot shells are low pressure - under 12,000 psi in 12 ga.

There were also the Wanda shotshells of the 60s and 70s, which were translucent so that you could actually see the load. I don't know what use that would be, but it is interesting. They didn't include any metal except the primer, and I think they may even have preceded the plastic-and-metal cases we have today.

This is such an attractive proposition that like many others we have to ask why they aren't all doing it that way. The makers claimed they were reloadable forever, which wasn't quite true at the best of times, and I have seen pictures of old and possibly embrittled ones loaded in recent years which ruptured badly on the first firing. Only a press-in top wad needed to be replaced, and if they were reusable at all, they would have demanded less equipment than usual. They looked like they were thicker than modern plastic tubes, which would be good for anyone using shotgun slugs, who wants the bore and interior of the case to be as close as possible. If the things could plink out of a machine like plastic teaspoons, reloading at all mightn't be much of an issue. My guess is that there are plastics that would do it, but they would be more expensive than ordinary cases.

I don't believe there was a rim problem with the Wanda cases in conventional double or single guns, but I would guess that it came in with automatic or perhaps pump guns.

In the past paper cases would be either sealing or combustible. It can't be both at the same time, and with sealing ones the problem is getting them out in their entirety. You can make a pretty good large-bore revolver cartridge with approximately shotgun pressures, and a revolver with a throat accurately dimensioned to match the bullet would reduce the harmful effect on accuracy of a bullet not entering the rifling precisely concentrically.

You will find a lot that is interesting in soft but not combustible cases if you search for "Chassepot", the French rifle of their 1870 war which did indeed outclass the Prussian needle gun by a large margin. But in those days it was still assumed that mass units would fire volleys. It is honourable to let the other 99% carry you if your gun jams, but in other circumstances you can't get 1% killed.

[tcochr]

I'm gong to redeploy home next month. I'm going to take some leave and try to tinker with a brass-like thick paper cartridge (real thick). I'll keep you posted on what I learn. This should work. ( famous words before an emergency room visit).

[NavyVet1959]

This thread probably should have been in one of the other subforums, not the Testing Area.

[tcochr]

I want to test a new cartridge. If I was wrong. Sorry.

Damn new posters. Sheeez!

[NavyVet1959]

If a firearm is designed for it, sure, it could work. For that matter, the 16" guns on the Iowa class battleships used six 110 lb silk bags of powder for their charge and there wasn't a brass casing. On a side note, the powder kernel size for those guns was 2" long and 1" in diameter. Yeah, let's see how well that meters with our powder measures...

[NavyVet1959]

I want to test a new cartridge. If I was wrong. Sorry.

Damn new posters. Sheeez!

No big deal... Maybe one of the admins will be around and move it to a more appropriate location. The Testing Area is for testing things like whether you can post or how to post photos -- that sort of stuff. Posts here don't count in your total post count either -- that's why even though you've made a couple of posts, your post count is still zero.

[tcochr]

getting it in the right forum would be nice. Thank you moderator ( if you see this).

Tim

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Say, tcochr, notice that--I guess--because this is the testing area for posts you haven't gotten any credit for the posts you've made, and still have a 0 count. Just a curiosity worth mentioning. Of course, you don't want to get too many posts because you'll be considered a veteran poster and perhaps your appearance will change to be similar to that of NavyVet1959's as shown in his avatar.

Now, getting back to the subject, you gave an example of black powder guns not having a cartridge case.
True, but in that case the combustion area of the barrel base and sides acts as a case to contain the combustion. And since it's a blind hole with no way out except up the barrel and out the muzzle, that works. But what I was trying to get across in my original answer to your question is that Gun Design will have to precede the fruition of your idea. I can't off the top of my head think of any common design in which a purely paper/cardboard case would suffice to prevent rearward exit of the pressure and gasses as is the case with a black powder arm. So I think that will be a requirement of your test gun, a completely sealed breech. Be careful in your experimentation, but good luck as well--you may be the next John Browning. Oh--an afterthought--Smith and Wesson was one of the early caseless cartridge experiments. They had a submachine gun that used the compressed pellet approach, but didn't work out.

[NavyVet1959]

Even if you came up with a design that replaced the brass with something that was completely consumed, you would still need to eject the spent primer unless you designed a completely new system that used an electrical spark to ignite the powder. The electrical portion has been done before on certain military large guns (e.g. cannons).

[mozeppa]

tcochr--Welcome to the forum! Caseless ammo is not a new idea. Both the US and Germans have periodically worked on the idea for a long time. The German company of H&K developed an operational system that was almost adopted. The caseless cartridge consists of an elongated pellet of fully combustible propellant pressed onto the base of the bullet and it's ignited electronically. But for some reason it's never achieved full acceptance, and long term storage of the ammunition and subsequent deterioration may be part of the problem, as well as moisture resistance. H&k's idea, as I recall, utilized completely sealed disposable plastic magazines. There would be a huge savings in both cost and weight if the brass case could be successfully eliminated, but it looks like we're not quite there yet. The idea really isn't a new one, as nitrated paper cartridges were used as far back as the Civil War where the paper was largely consumed by the firing, but in those designs gas leakage and fouling were problems.

i think the problem with the propellant on the back of the projectile was one of accuracy.
same as the gyrojet of the 60's

in common cased ammo today, the bullet leaves the barrel at maximum speed and slows from there.

in the case-less ammo the propellant is electrically ignited and the bullet leaves the barrel at a much slower speed then accelerates to a faster speed ....thus , worse accuracy.

[mozeppa]

p.s.

black powder does not compare to smokeless
if you use smokeless powder in a bare cylinder like it was a cap & ball gun ....you may just end up dead.
pressures are way different...and rates of speed at which they burn are equally different.

be safe!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Even if you came up with a design that replaced the brass with something that was completely consumed, you would still need to eject the spent primer unless you designed a completely new system that used an electrical spark to ignite the powder. The electrical portion has been done before on certain military large guns (e.g. cannons).

Electrical ignition and ignition by a jet of compression-heated air (the latter, I think, only likely to work with black powder) were both done well back in the nineteenth century. I've seen a drawing of a gun with a Leyden jar in the butt.Electricity, in particular, offers the chance of a peculiarly good trigger-pull, but that was never enough to overcome the advantages. I forget which major manufacturer tried to reintroduce it a few years back, but despite modern electronics it never caught on.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

This thread probably should have been in one of the other subforums, not the Testing Area.

I moved this to "case forming"

[17nut]

In BP chambers there is no metal cartridge. So I am not sure the logic that the cartridge contains most of the high pressure, and if that was a real issue, the brass would expand to fill up the cylinder and be hard to eject. That has never happened to my cartridge guns. ( but it could maybe).

In 94 I got to see those 7,62 caseless rounds. I think they were called 'consumable'. The gun was a bull pup design and it was at picatinny arsenal. Did not see it shoot though.


This is just a idea for cheaper, homemade cases. So, why not make (non consumable/ non nitrated) cartridges from thick cardboard ( that won't smolder). Like I said, it's just an idea. I wonder if anyone has ever tried it. If loaded very light, it may be an idea.

Or... Am I wayyyy off base.

Tim

Lets see:
A 38SPL case will set you back @14 cents a pop and they will last at least 30-40 reloadings so thats under ½ a cent for every firing. Tell me how you can make paper cases cheaper than that and please take into account that you could pull an extra hour of work to pay for that brass instead of fiddling with cardboard and Elmers glue.