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Post by wordweaver3 on Apr 11, 2016 9:30:33 GMT
So I was thinking while I was driving, something I'm prone to do. Would a triangular cartridge have any benefits? Has anyone ever tried it? I know Dardick made the tround, but that was a normal cartridge in a triangular spacer. I mean a completely triangular case and bullet.
It seems like it would have some benefits. Least of all it wouldn't roll off the table when you set it down. They would stack tighter in magazines and more could be stacked in a given space compared to similarly weighted cylindrical cartridges. Also revolvers could have a smaller cylinder diameter with the same amount of rounds. Would the shape improve or harm the burn of the powder? Would the bullets fly true or tend to wobble and tumble? Would the shape generate larger wound channels? That seems kinda likely. Would any of the benefits be worth the time and expense of developing such a round? Would the shooting community accept such an odd concept even if it were proven to be better? Given the colossal failure of the Dardick it seems kinda unlikely.
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Post by Horsie on Apr 11, 2016 14:38:16 GMT
I know there was an early machine gun that used either a barrel with a round bore or one with a square bore, the idea was that the square projectiles would cause worse wounds. The weapon was a failure, so I don't know how well the square bullet worked.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Apr 11, 2016 21:40:26 GMT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puckle_gunIt talks about a square bullet for use against Muslims, but I think it just swadged a square bullet into a round barrel. There's also nothing saying that it was ineffective or citing the square bullet for the failure of the weapon. I think it was just an all around bad design that only has historical significance as the first time the term "machine-gun" was used. I'm thinking of a gun that is specifically designed to fire triangular bullets with a triangular barrel. Has anybody even tested the possibility of a square or triangle projectile anyway? It seems like something someone would have done at some point but I can't find anything about it. Seems real world testing could be done easy enough with saboted bullets in a rifled shotgun.
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Post by Horsie on Apr 12, 2016 7:56:38 GMT
I don't know how well the bullets would perform, do you think the triangular shape would provide stability in flight? If that wouldn't do it alone, would putting a spin on the bullet, like a traditional bullet, provide stability? If that's the case you be looking at some expensive barrels, because having a triangular bore with a slight twist in it would probably be tricky to machine compared to a traditional bore, and I suspect it might suffer from more wear too.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Apr 12, 2016 9:27:20 GMT
I imagine you could rifle the barrel similar to polygonal rifling, only with just three points. It would be easier to impart a spin to a triangular bullet so the rifling wouldn't have to be as steep. If you had a heavy 1:7 twist for a triangular bullet I'd imagine the friction would destroy the projectile by the time it made it to the end of the barrel. I'd think that a triangular bullet might have a more difficult time maintaining it's rotation in flight compared to a traditional bullet since the weight of the bullet would be slightly further out from the axis (like a spinning ice skater putting his arms out). On the other hand, the force of the propellant pushing it through the triangle rifling would impress the curve of the rifling onto the bullet, so it may maintain it's spin similar to an arrow with angled fletching. The slightly greater outward force of the triangle bullet's spin might also make it more resistant to crosswinds and give it a more predictable flight path over long distances.
That's all just speculation. Some real world testing of different projectile shapes would be interesting. I find it hard to believe that the military never did any of that. They're always testing weird crap.
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Post by Horsie on Apr 16, 2016 13:40:58 GMT
Bought a 12guage Greener GP and a bayonet for my M1917 rifle, I'll upload some photos later. The bayonet is ridiculously long.
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Post by Horsie on Apr 16, 2016 19:43:30 GMT
Here's the M1917 rifle with an M1917 bayonet; It's not quite as impressive in a photo, but in person it's a little ridiculous. The blade is 16" long, and the overall length is 21-3/4", the one I have is pretty damned sharp too. Here's the Greener GP I bought; Again, photos don't quite do it justice, it's pretty long. I'm not actually sure how I'm going to fit it in my safes; it won't fit under the shelf I keep my pistols on in the big safe, and it's just too damned tall to fit in the smaller safe, it's probably about 52"-53" long (4'4"-4'5"). It has most of the original bluing, lockup seems good, and it's actually quite light. That big switch on the side of the receiver is actually a safety, right now it's in the fire position, you pull it back to put it in the safe position. It automatically engages when you fire the gun and open the action, so you have to disengage it every time you load the gun.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Apr 17, 2016 8:14:07 GMT
You could drill a big hole in your top shelf to stick the barrel up through.
You have to be careful with those GPs, they were insanely popular in the late 19th century and there were a ton of knock-offs. Though from what I can tell it has the hallmarks of the real deal. It's a pretty gun but it looks suspiciously like someone redid the stock at one point. The butt looks somewhat different from the fore in terms of grain and color. Hard to say from photos though.
That bayonet is totally bad-ass and I'd like to have one even though I don't have a 1917.
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Post by Horsie on Apr 17, 2016 10:03:10 GMT
I'll probably get another safe, I need the extra room anyway, I don't know if I'll be able to fit anything else in the two I have.
The one point I'm a little unsure of is the serial number; I've read in some places that Greeners absolutely never had a letter prefix, in other places I've read that they do. Mine does. I know there were knockoffs of Greener SxS guns, but did people really make copies of a Martini-action shotgun? Seems a bit complicated to me, but then again there are Khyber Pass Martinis out there, and those were made by hand.
I figure it's just the light, the stock seems to match, it looks pretty good too.
I like bayonets, I like sword bayonets even more. What I'd like to find is a saw-back Mauser bayonet for my Kar98K.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Apr 17, 2016 11:28:33 GMT
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Post by Horsie on Apr 17, 2016 21:28:33 GMT
Took the Greener out today, it handles nicely, recoil isn't noticeably heavier than other guns I've handled despite it being so light, the balance is very nice too.
On closer inspection there is a bit of pitting in the bore, but I'm too worried about that given that it's a shotgun, it's not like it's a high-pressure firearm, it's not likely to see anything other than birdshot while I own it, and it's not like it has rifling to worry about.
I checked the proof stamp on it, and it indicates that it was proof tested in 1956, so it was almost certainly made in that year.
That's a little too rich for my blood, maybe I'll look for a reproduction bayonet at some point.
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Post by Horsie on Apr 18, 2016 0:49:55 GMT
So over half of the firearms I own are at least 60 years old. Seven are 100.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Apr 18, 2016 3:59:42 GMT
The only really old guns I have are the Flobert and the pre war Mosin. My SKS is a Norinco, so that puts it in the 80s. My Iver Johnson is 50s ish. My Remington 742 is 60s ish. The rest of my collection are 90s on up.
Really wish I had bought that fuckin Gyrojet. Woulda been the crown of my collection.
That bayonet was so pricey cuz it had a bit of a pedigree and it was pre WWI. I looked around the IMA site and found they had a WWI issue one for 350. That's a little easier price to swallow.
Speaking of old guns and IMA. You know about the giant cache of antique firearms and weapons that they managed to acquire from Nepal? I've considered purchasing one of the untouched Martini Henry from that horde that you can get for pretty damn cheap. I've heard about a number of people who did that and managed (with a ton of elbow grease and parts searching) to get them back into working order.
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Post by Horsie on Apr 18, 2016 4:10:37 GMT
I love my old guns, I especially love old British ones You'd be hard-pressed to find ammunition for it though, I don't think I could ever own something that I wouldn't be able to use, it'd be even worse if the firearm itself was in working order but I couldn't use it for lack of ammunition. Yeah, that's better. Still, after the conversion and paying for shipping (not counting customs, because I'm never sure what they're going to charge) I'd be looking at over 500. No, I didn't hear about that, but I vaguely remember seeing photos of a bunch of Martini-Henry rifles being dug up in a Nepali field. Not the same ones I hope, are they old stock the Nepalis are finally getting rid of? I'd love a Martini-Henry, but I'd have to do a bit more research first; I'd need to locate some dies for loading the ammunition and reforming brass shot shells into .577/450 casings, find a good supply of 16guage brass, and find someone who can cast the bullets for me (I know a number of people at the club I go to cast bullets, it's just a case of finding one with a .577/450 die). The other day I could have bought a Martini-Enfield like I've been looking for, but it was in kind of rough shape, seemed that some of the hardware had been modified at some point, and the guy was asking too much for what it was.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Apr 18, 2016 4:27:25 GMT
Turns out that the Napalese military never threw anything away. So for two hundred years they simply threw all their outdated weaponry into an old palace called Lagan Silekhana and forgot about them. Christian Cranmer, one of the founders of International Military Antiques, found out about the stockpile and spent 25 years trying to get the funding and rights to purchase the whole pile. In 2003, he finally did. The storage of these weapons wasn't exactly ideal. But there was a whole palace full of them.
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