On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 4:58 PM, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

Regular slugthrower rounds don't carry their propellant - and consequently it's casing - along with them as they head down range. So if you are going to end up with the same or higher end velocity - particularly if you don't have a barrel to help focus thrust dead aft - the mass being propelled is probably lighter.

Eh.  You could shave a little weight off the bullet to compensate for the case weight.  Total impact mass remains the same.  

OTOH, case weight can probably be lighter than a CPR equivalent, since the case is not being subjected to the same pressure as it is in a CPR gun, where all the powder burns in the barrel.

You're probably not going to get 950m/sec (M-16 speeds) but that's the wrong model.  a .45 only gets up to about 260 m/sec (at the muzzle) (maybe 290-320 for really hot loads, but the basic load is about 260.)

Which is going to be about as much fun as a hammer to the face.

 
And unless you can drop the empty propellant casing (which would be very hard to do without inducing wobble), the round will be an unbalanced mass at impact.

Head heavy.  Should be OK.  And if it's designed for zero g, that should not be a huge issue.
 
As to spin stabilizing, this would require a rifled barrel (thus imposing recoil . . . so why not just use a regular slugthrower?), vectored thrust (VERY hard to reliably balance on such a small scale) or gyroscope/fins (both of which would take up a goodly chunk of interior space).

Two exhaust nozzles, set at a slight angle, should be all you need for spin.  Challenging with 1960s manufacturing, but it should be pretty easy to do now.

I'd suggest fins, but if we're planning to use then in zero g space combat, that would seem to imply vacuum is also likely, so fins are probably not gonna help.







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