HOT new replacement for brass!! Wave of the future!!

[9-toes]

So found this cruising the web. Hope they don't think I'll be buying any of this. :evil:

http://www.guns.com/ploycase-ammunition-now-shipping-380-11521.html

Against nature I say!

[I'll Make Mine]

The latest iteration of the aluminum/steel case non-reloadable cheap ammo. Our brass cases aren't going anywhere (except up in price, but with the price of copper, that's unavoidable).

Meanwhile -- those have metal rims/heads, have to have either Boxer or Berdan primers, and folks have been reloading plastic shotshells (not to mention paper hulls) for a long, long time. Someone will find those aren't as non-reloadable as the article writer thinks...

[starmac]

Well they are greener than brass. geesh
They do come in pink, maybe they should advertise on this site. http://www.theliberalgunclub.com/

[jmorris]

Nothing new, they have been around since the '80s. Shotshells are plastic but from my experience the poly cases do not provide sufficient neck tension for semiautos. The last ones I had were .223 and worked ok in a Contender, if they weren't free I would have called them a waist of money.

[williamwaco]

Pioneers get arrows in their backs.

I will wait and see.

[TNsailorman]

The military looked into poly cased ammo years ago and I haven't heard of them issueing any as yet. Must be a reason for that.

[evan price]

They did this in 223 a while back, they worked, but when the chamber gets hot the case gets soft and you lose neck tension and accuracy goes to poo, or it jams or sets back in an autoloader.
They had 38 spl in plastic cases too, I had one or two. Same problem.

Then there was the USAC ammo which used heeled bullets and a plier-type reloader. Failed.

I have friends in the plastics industry who were actively working on polymer cased ammo for the military. One of the criteria is it had to actively decompose in sunlight so they didn't need to police up the ranges as well. Obviously only good for training or practice.

[I'll Make Mine]

They did this in 223 a while back, they worked, but when the chamber gets hot the case gets soft and you lose neck tension and accuracy goes to poo, or it jams or sets back in an autoloader.

This is all dependent on the polymer used. ABS and polycarbonate soften at elevated temperatures; nylon holds up a good bit higher (they used to sell nylon utensils for use in non-stick cookware, though most of that market has gone to polymer alloys and melamine now); aramid (generic for Kevlar) can stand up to chamber temps close to cook-off range without softening (but has other problems, else we'd all be shooting Kevlar ammo by now). Aramid reinforced phenolic would probably take anything aluminum cases would, though there could be issues with cracking under excessive mechanical force (i.e. the case might have to be made thicker, reducing ballistic performance, to take very rough handling or full-auto loading stresses) -- and that material wouldn't require resizing after firing; it would either return to original dimensions, or it would crack/break/shatter. Deprime, reprime, charge powder and seat a bullet, and ready to shoot again, and about half the case weight of aluminum.

Few if any of these will decompose in sunlight; there'd be empty cases on/in the ground in a combat zone longer than is now the case with brass, never mind steel case military ammo that rusts away in a few years. Add the "green" requirements, and plastic ammo that shoots well and stands up to conditions like hot chambers becomes a pretty difficult task.

[novalty]

These two comments got me:

From article:

The polymer can be recycled, so there's that angle as well.

Response from PolyCase Ammunition to question about rim separation:

1) The patent pending design of the case virtually ensures that the metal extraction rim will not separate from the remainder of the case. In fact, it is because of this characteristic that we do not consider PolyCase ammunition to be recyclable.

[zomby woof]

Bought these years ago.
http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/DSCN11481.JPG

[gandydancer]

anybody remember the Dardick pistol mfg 1949--1950 & the Tround? the round was made of polymer 38 cal tround.

[Awsar]

i got some .38 spl with the plastic case they were odd so i got a few --but ill stick to brass thks

[MtGun44]

Bought and shot 100 rds of the .223 poly and brass cases like in the pic above. Dismal accuracy,
but may have nothing to do with the cases, may be garbage bullets. Whatever, I'd never
buy it again - but the cases worked fine.

Bill

[warf73]

I was all for something new until I read this.
The polymer cases can't be reloaded, so there's no worry about who might have reloaded the ammunition, or how many times the brass has been reused. The polymer can be recycled, so there's that angle as well.
This very well could be the angle the anit gun people could use, scary thought.

[1Shirt]

At the least it is interesting!
1Shirt!

[nicholst55]

The Lightweight Small Arms Technology (LSAT) Light Machine Gun and rifle both use a polymer case (there's also a caseless ammo version). It's not a bottleneck design, though, it's a cylinder that 'telescopes' over the bullet. While it will probably be some time before this technology becomes mainstream, it **is** coming - whether we like it or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSAT_light_machine_gun

[pmer]

54869

The black powder guys have been on this for a while. :coffee:

[I'll Make Mine]

The black powder guys have been on this for a while. :coffee:

Yep, they were making combustible paper cartridges around 160 years ago, and non-combustibles a lot longer back than that -- I've read reports that paper cartridges go back to the first military units armed with "handgonnes", in the 15th century. If we didn't need the cartridge to obturate in modern firearms, I suspect we'd have combustible polymer cartridges (aka guncotton cases) that would act like caseless, except less prone to break down into propellant dust from handling.

[Chicken Thief]

Yep, they were making combustible paper cartridges around 160 years ago, and non-combustibles a lot longer back than that -- I've read reports that paper cartridges go back to the first military units armed with "handgonnes", in the 15th century. If we didn't need the cartridge to obturate in modern firearms, I suspect we'd have combustible polymer cartridges (aka guncotton cases) that would act like caseless, except less prone to break down into propellant dust from handling.

Then you would miss the "gasket" effect of the brass, and suffer blow back as the old ones had.

[I'll Make Mine]

Then you would miss the "gasket" effect of the brass, and suffer blow back as the old ones had.

Hence my qualification:
If we didn't need the cartridge to obturate in modern firearms

I do note that most military guns bigger than around four inch bore use component loading, aka loose ammunition, rather than fixed ammunition -- howitzers and naval rifles. They avoid blowby at the breech somehow; seems to me I recall the sixteen inch naval rifles from WWII having something built into the breech that seals under pressure like our cartridges do -- but it's part of the gun, not part of the ammunition.

[pmer]

54891

Sorry about getting off the path but I couldn't help but find a picture of a howitzer breech. Looks like a quarter turn to lock and seal this one. A M109 from wikipedia.

I fun to read about these inovations. Wasn't there a machine gun that kept its ammo in a barrel like column and it fired them out electrically?

[swheeler]

Bought these years ago.
http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/DSCN11481.JPG

Had something similar 15 years ago, shot like crappola. Grey not yellow polymer

[3006guns]

Anyone remember the Daisy VL caseless ammo in the 1970's? The material was anchored to the bullet base if I recall, and was ignited by the compressed air from a BB gun....very much like a diesel engine. That seemed to actually have some potential and I always regretted not getting some to play with.

I still have some of the USAC components....cases, bullets and the little press.....but kept them more as curiosities more than anything else.

[I'll Make Mine]

Wasn't there a machine gun that kept its ammo in a barrel like column and it fired them out electrically?

Nice howitzer pic -- looks like they're just mashing a cone into a taper and using the interrupted thread to compress it for a seal; that might require more tolerance than we can afford in a .20 to .45 bore size (but the caseless rifles had to have done something similar).

You're thinking of Metalstorm -- the 21st century version of the superposed loads that were used in some of the oldest repeating arms (flintlocks with sliding locks and up to six loads per barrel were used as far back as the 17th century -- with generally poor results). These are now being built in blocks containing up to a couple hundred barrels and up to twenty or so loads per bore; they're capable of firing at up to a million rounds per second cyclic rate (the only moving part is the bullet, else that'd be beyond even a Gatling system), or individual shots, from the same barrel block. The down side is, they're effectively a throw-away weapon, they're heavier than a similar amount of rounds and the gun for conventional guns, and the weight and recoil at high fire rates mean they're useful only on hard mounts (though I've seen designs for four- or six-barrel pistols that would fire a single round per trigger pull -- too expensive for civilians, unless you can reload the barrels, at least in my opinion).

[200swc]

I was all for something new until I read this.
This very well could be the angle the anit gun people could use, scary thought.

Save all your brass.

They'll probably tweek the gun's calibers just enough where the brass cases won't fit and be useless.

Nice way to start gun control - start with the ammunition.

[Kent Fowler]

Save all your brass.

They'll probably tweek the gun's calibers just enough where the brass cases won't fit and be useless.

Nice way to start gun control - start with the ammunition.

Amen to that, brother. First thing I thought of when I saw this thread.

[noylj]

To use a truly decent polymer, the polymer would cost as much as copper.
Any common plastic is a waste of time. Then, there is the cost of tooling up and re-making the whole reloading line to handle the cases. Might as well go back to caseless ammo. Every 10 years, the same idea gets trotted out.

[I'll Make Mine]

To use a truly decent polymer, the polymer would cost as much as copper.
Any common plastic is a waste of time. Then, there is the cost of tooling up and re-making the whole reloading line to handle the cases. Might as well go back to caseless ammo. Every 10 years, the same idea gets trotted out.

The primary advantage cited this time around is ammo weight and degradability of the spent cases, not cost, as well as the ability to use the new ammo in existing weapons rather than redesigning the guns as well as the production system, as is required for caseless. However, given the cost of copper (to make brass), this is bound to happen sooner or later, though; redesign production once, and save on metal for the life of the chambering (9 mm Parabellum has been around for, what, 110 years, and still going strong). Next cycle (i.e. another ten years) and they'll be able to orient the reinforcing fibers to keep the case mouth tight in a hot chamber etc. and have ammo that really will work well with a plastic case.

[daddyseal]

The next thing is, what will replace lead.

[I'll Make Mine]

The next thing is, what will replace lead.

That's a much harder question. To be an effective bullet, it needs to be dense; to work in existing barrels it can't be too hard, and by preference it should be cheap (even the military cares about this; if the cost of the new high-tech bullet is doubling their ammunition cost without increasing their shooting, they have to explain to Congress why they need more money just to maintain the same level of proficiency).

Best guess is we'll see a lot of zinc or zinc/tin bullets in the future; it's fairly dense, not too hard, and fairly inexpensive. Of course, existing military rounds don't have much lead in them anyway; the surplus I have for my Mosin Nagant (Bulgarian and Russian) has a steel core, steel jacket clad with copper, and just enough lead in between to take rifling. A solid zinc bullet would be about the same size for weight, but wouldn't penetrate as well as steel cores and would be harder to design to tumble on impact the way the modern small bore stuff does.

For those of us making our own bullets, it's pretty much lead alloys or zinc alloys; we can cast zinc with our existing equipment (except aluminum molds), very minor modification to mold design (thinning driving bands a bit) will make zinc bullets work at the same pressures as modern cast lead designs -- the only real problem is that the softest zinc bullets are near the upper end of common cast bullet hardness (like casting 50/50 linotype and clip on wheel weights, water dropped or over hardened), so penetration would overtake expansion in terms of terminal performance.

Honestly, I don't see lead vanishing from handloading any time soon; as long as we can get reloadable cases, replacement primers, and powder, someone will be resizing fired cases and stuffing new components into them -- and on a scale smaller than the military/industrial complex, lead is the only sensible choice for bullets.

[MtGun44]

The other fundamental problem that crops up in military applications without
metal cases is that a large amount of the heat is still in the case when it is
ejected. This is by far the most efficient way to dump heat from the gun.
Caseless submachineguns overheated very quickly when tested.
Fundamentally bad idea.

Doesn't mean that folks that haven't thought it through won't keep trying
it every decade or two.

Bill

[willy3]

Ah, the Tround. Supposed to replace the standard cartridge. Anyone seen them on the shelf at your local gun store??

[Got-R-Did]

Trounds were also designed to replace the .50 BMG as well. Collector prices on individual cartridges has prevented me from acquiring one. I do have a .38 Spl equivilant as mentioned earlier.
Got-R-Did.

[200swc]

The next thing is, what will replace lead.

Plastic coated with teflon.

[200swc]

Best guess is we'll see a lot of zinc or zinc/tin bullets in the future; it's fairly dense, not too hard, and fairly inexpensive.

Zinc won't do then. In order to make it more difficult, they need to acquire a material that will be outrageous in price in order to keep everyone from purchase large supplies of the ammunition.

[I'll Make Mine]

Zinc won't do then. In order to make it more difficult, they need to acquire a material that will be outrageous in price in order to keep everyone from purchase large supplies of the ammunition.

Market forces (inexpensive bullet material) vs. (potentially imagined) attempts to eliminate all civilian gun use -- not a discussion I really want to get into. Your way, they could suspend tungsten powder in a zinc or tin matrix and get a bullet not much harder than the matrix material, but with the density of lead (and cost near that of tungsten, which last I checked was not cheap).

I don't think we'll see lead get too expensive for handloaders to cast bullets from it, and the only way the gun controllers could change that would be to somehow outlaw private possession of lead, which would meet with considerable resistance from fishermen, model airplane and model rocket fliers, stained glass workers, mobile art builders, and anyone who solders stuff that isn't potable water plumbing -- and I'm sure I missed other users of lead alloys. Not to mention making driving a bunch more expensive by requiring all automobile owners switch their cars over from lead-acid to nickel-metal hydride or lithium starting batteries (certainly nickel-cadmium would be out by then, since cadmium is more toxic than lead and toxicity is the only reasonable route to banning lead). One could probably make a case that the cost of transitioning car batteries from lead to something else, by itself, would put the American economy into a recession that would make 2008 look like a bad month in a good year.

[WRideout]

Anyone remember the Daisy VL caseless ammo in the 1970's? The material was anchored to the bullet base if I recall, and was ignited by the compressed air from a BB gun....very much like a diesel engine. That seemed to actually have some potential and I always regretted not getting some to play with.

I still have some of the USAC components....cases, bullets and the little press.....but kept them more as curiosities more than anything else.
IIRC the problem with those was that the ammo was quite fragile, and easily damaged. Other than that, it could work.
Wayne

[Boris]

depending on what the plastic is, they can tune it to whatever parameters, still it would never be able to absorb heat as brass and be malleable and resistant to various things like heat, UV, age etc. Unless it's dramatically cheaper than brass I just don't see it happening. With price of brass going up, it's not exactly a rare metal and better ways to reclaim copper and brass would keep the price from going infinitely high.

Unfortunately, common sense and practicality may have little to do with acceptance, as this company may put more money into hiring the right lobbyists vs. spending more on R&D.

[o6Patient]

I'll stay with brass unless polymers/plastics become more stable than what I've seen in other things.
You can pick up a hundred year old piece of brass and reload it...with minimal recycling costs...
When it can't be reloaded any more; brass can be recycled too I believe.