Polymer Casings?

[LVSteve]

wont last long or well in sustained fire..

somehow i see recollections of of the springfield trapdoor rifle, of how the cheeeaply made and low quality brass cartridges would swell up and stick inside the chamber after a few casings..

I remember lots of hate of vietnam veterans on this damned thing called athe m-16 because the cases liked to break off in the chamber or just stick in them.

I dont see that polymer **** being functional in something like the

mini gun

A properly engineered thermoset polymer would not suffer any heat issues in sustained fire.

 

[cd228]

Yes, elements of the DoD have been talking about polymer cased ammo and caseless ammo (different, but related) for a number of years. If you can find the NDIA Armaments conference slide decks (unclassified, but not necessarily easy to find), it'll have some info. As mentioned above, the intent is to make lighter and cheaper rounds. The NGSW was supposed to use a LSAT (light weight small arms technology) ammo, it started as a classless telescoped round eventually morphing into a brass/steel cased 6.8mm high pressure round. In a parallel effort another branch was looking at polymer cased .50 BMG ammo. Marine Systems command actually did a you tube video on it:[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbc8EJHClos[/ame]

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

IIRC the Dardick fired a "tround", a triangular shaped cartridge holder, not sure if it was a just a holder or an actual case. I had the Speer plastic cases and bullets years ago, they just used a primer to propel a plastic bullet.

 

[DWalt]

IIRC the Dardick fired a "tround", a triangular shaped cartridge holder, not sure if it was a just a holder or an actual case. I had the Speer plastic cases and bullets years ago, they just used a primer to propel a plastic bullet.

There were both loaded cartridges and holders for conventional cartridges. They were made of plastic, ABS I think. And then there was the Gyrojet which needed no cartridge case, at least not in the conventional sense. There were also trounds made for non-firearms uses such as rock drilling. Somewhere I have some of the latter, but I have not seen them for many years.