Friday, April 24, 2009

Thump

I got a coupla comments from my "Alternate History US Military Round Selection" post.

Tam said...
I need to get you and Dr. Strangegun together in the same room, just to watch y'all geek out. John Moses Browning would be proud. And, yes, that's a compliment. :)

Yay! Tam noticed me. I do need to add Dr Strangegun to my blog roll.




Noah said...
What if you had a bullet with a 1 inch diameter with a flatter trajectory than a .308, and the recoil of a 5.56mm, the penetration of .338 Lapua, but the cycle on the action was very long and therefore very slow?


I don't know if you could make such a beast. Big and fat doesn't lend it self to fast and flat. You'd never get both in the same cartridge, and still be shootable. To get it fast enough would give you a round like a .600 nitro, but BIGGER. And that would recoil a bit more than a 5.56. If you made a round and gun that could shoot that it would be very heavy. And the ammo you'd carry even in you were just lobbing 1 inch bullets would be heavy from the bullet alone.

It's be like a 25mm round. And cycling? Like machine gun? Yikes! I couldn't carry a battle load of 100 25mm in anything other than a wheelbarrow.

But that would be some kinda Thumper. On full auto it would be like grape shot.

Better design it like Metal Storm to save some weight, but with a slow cycle or semi-auto:





I can't think of some other way to make a thumper, but that doesn't mean there isn't some other way to do so.

1 comment:

Bunnyman said...

Sounds like Noah's talking about a "constant-recoil" system, like the Ultimax 100 light machinegun and the AA-12 automatic shotgun. Those spread the recoil impulse out over a longer period of time, so the 'jolt' becomes a 'push.' The jolt of a typical recoil impulse results in the muzzle being pushed off target, so the advantage here is controllability. The perceived recoil may be less violent, but it's still the same recoil force.