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[Matthew]

no worries

[krakenten]

Today, to my horror, I discovered thst Dmith and Wesson is offering a virtual replica of my favorite gun,EVER!

It was an Astra Terminator in .41 Magnum-it shot flat as window glass, hit so hard that it made a gallon milk jug full of water go straight up about twenty feet and had a very manageable recoil. I carried it for years, but I shot it too much and the frame stretched from recoil.

The short barrel, about 2.5'' reduced the velocity just a bit and tamed the recoil, but it made a Hell of a bang.

I need another gun like a chicken needs a flag, but, oh!, the temptation!

[Brave Blue Mice]

Going back to an earlier post (I'm pretty sure it was Gren) that pointed out a recipe from the anarchist's cookbook that went something along the lines of tossing a broomstick down the muzzle of a boomstick (ha), and using it as a vampire harpoon.

Just sitting down with a calculator and a couple of dug up statistics (time to make me look good at maths), I can see that there's gonna be a helluva recoil on that.  1560 fps muzzle velocity on a 1oz slug, proportionally speaking to a broomstick handle which weighs nearly 20 times that.

Put it this way, in an 8 pound shotgun (home defense model, nothing in the 'zine), a Remington Slugger will feel like 12 lbs against your shoulder.

If you slide a two pound broomstick down the barrel of that same gun, You'll only get about a hundred feet per second of velocity, but it's going to feel like you have an angry swede standing on your shoulder, nearly 300 lbs of force.

IF the breech can take the pressures involved.  I'd want to put one in a bench vise on something REAL heavy and stand behind a truck when it was fired.

This is only gonna hurt once, but DAMN is it gonna hurt.

[Doug (Ancient) Wojtowicz]

Today, to my horror, I discovered thst Dmith and Wesson is offering a virtual replica of my favorite gun,EVER!

It was an Astra Terminator in .41 Magnum-it shot flat as window glass, hit so hard that it made a gallon milk jug full of water go straight up about twenty feet and had a very manageable recoil. I carried it for years, but I shot it too much and the frame stretched from recoil.

The short barrel, about 2.5'' reduced the velocity just a bit and tamed the recoil, but it made a Hell of a bang.

I need another gun like a chicken needs a flag, but, oh!, the temptation!

The 357 Nightguard... the irony being that the .357 Magnum N frame is actually called the 327 Nightguard, the 3 standing in for the Scanadium frame version of the Model 57 - the .41 Magnum. 

Oh the richness of irony. 

[Matthew]

Going back to an earlier post (I'm pretty sure it was Gren) that pointed out a recipe from the anarchist's cookbook that went something along the lines of tossing a broomstick down the muzzle of a boomstick (ha), and using it as a vampire harpoon.

Just sitting down with a calculator and a couple of dug up statistics (time to make me look good at maths), I can see that there's gonna be a helluva recoil on that.  1560 fps muzzle velocity on a 1oz slug, proportionally speaking to a broomstick handle which weighs nearly 20 times that.

Put it this way, in an 8 pound shotgun (home defense model, nothing in the 'zine), a Remington Slugger will feel like 12 lbs against your shoulder.

If you slide a two pound broomstick down the barrel of that same gun, You'll only get about a hundred feet per second of velocity, but it's going to feel like you have an angry swede standing on your shoulder, nearly 300 lbs of force.

IF the breech can take the pressures involved.  I'd want to put one in a bench vise on something REAL heavy and stand behind a truck when it was fired.

This is only gonna hurt once, but DAMN is it gonna hurt.

How do they deal with that issue with more conventional rifle-mounted grenade launchers? 

For that matter, why aren't those things used more?  I've seen pictures but, aside from the Marines in "Aliens" I don't remember ever seeing characters in a story use them.

[Lord Anubis]

How do they deal with that issue with more conventional rifle-mounted grenade launchers?

They don't need to.  It's all math again.  Size of the barrel, amount of force, mass of the round (whatever it is). 

Firearms are carefully-engineered things (well, most of the time), so these issues tend not to pop up when you're using them as intended.  It's when you start jamming broomsticks in the barrel or firing blank rounds that odd things start to happen you need to compensate for.  Use it as intended and all the compensation was worked out and accounted for a year before it ended up in your hands.

Usually. 

[krakenten]

Grenade launchers don't use blanks, they use special rounds calculated to give safe pressures. Blanks will damage the gun.

The Japanese were very fond of rifle grenades.  They even developed the Knee mortar to chuck hand grenades, and their launcher rounds used a wooden plug to drive the projectile. Some propaganda during the war said they were so short of supplies they had to use wooden bullets. Some of these rounds exist today.

Now, the knee mortar will break your leg-fire it ftom thr ground ONLY,

If you have some of this ammo, are troubled by vampires, load your Arisaka and pop ol'Dracula in the wheel house.

For vampires or zombies, I prefer the Westinghouse-Deforest Electrostatic Discombobulator,even over the Edison Combobulator or the Tesla Disruptor.

Imaginary guns for imaginary targets!

(anybody know how the Scandium frame holds up? Alloy frames shoot loose nd crack, in my experience, even steel suffers from heavy Magnum rounds. But that was some time ago,)
 

Grenade launchers are a complex subject-there are several systems, the French and the British still use them, the Energa anti-tank round is the poor man's RPG. US forces sometimes use them as illumination rounds. At least they did in Vietnam Check out the spigot mortar, too. Flare guns are not much used by ground forces, any more, but the Navy and civilian mariners still use them-so can you.

Can you say ''Burning Man''?

[krakenten]

Oh, yes, the 40 mm grenade.......The blooper gun.

This one uses the hi/low system. Main propellant charge fires, the gas fills the casing(easing the pressure) than the projectile goes flying.

The actual grenade is quite complex, and gave rise to a new branch of surgical procedure. Icky biz, that. Live bomb in the body, neither doctor nor patient best pleased.

This system was also used in the Dynamite Gun, an infernal contraption only used in anger once-to good effect, too.

It launched a dynamite charge, the hi/low eased the shock of the firing, which was good, otherwise, the shock would have set off the dynamite, much to the chagrin of the gun crew.

In the Phillipines, the Moro rebeldes took shelter in mud forts, immune to rifle and machine gun fire,. Black Jack Pershing had a few, and used one to blow a Datu's fort to Hell and gone. Once was enough, the Moros booked,

Picric acid shells arrived soon after, and the dynamite gun was history. But so were the Moro forts.

Tear gas guns, flare launchers and other things work this way-why not a vampire stake shooter?

[Lord Anubis]

Grenade launchers don't use blanks, they use special rounds calculated to give safe pressures.

Yes, that pretty much just what I said.  Thanks.   

Blanks will damage the gun.

Actually, no they won't.  Not unless you've got a complete idiot packing your blanks who uses far too much powder, and I've never once seen or heard of that happening.

A standard blank uses the exact same size powder load as the weapon would normally use to fire a round.  That's why there are 9mm blank rounds, .45 blank rounds, 12 gauge rounds, and so on.  I even used 10 gauge rounds for one show.  Actual elephant gun.

The problem with blanks is that--as Greg and several others have brought up--a firearm is a carefully balanced machine.  By taking the actual bullet/ projectile out of the equation, you've messed up that balance.  It's the flipside of the broomstick problem--in that case there's too much pressure for it to work correctly, with blanks there isn't enough.

So blanks will cause a weapon to malfunction, yes.  But they won't actually damage it.

[krakenten]

Blank rounds are used to make noise-they often carry a serious powder charge, and if used with a projectile, well, depends on the gun. Blank powder is a different sort, it burns very fast to make more gas and more bang,

Once I read an article by an instructor who tried to  blow up a Rossi shotgun fpr demonstration purposes.  He tried everything, a twenty gague shell in a 12 bore, mud, in the muzzle.......He managed to make a bulge in one barrel, bit no explosion.

That said, rofle grenade launchers, practice grenades and such are sometimes sold. It tempts.

Modern firearms are quite robust, and military rifles are designed to fail safe if they burst,but using blanks is not wise-if you have launching rounds well, go ahead, but I think it's hazardous.  And there is that heavy grenade going down range, quite rapidly.

Blanks are dangerous. The wadding and the muzzle blast alone can injure,rarely kill. Even a casing with no powder, just the primer makes a loud bang, but stuff does come out.

If you want a big ol' bang, get hold of a carbide cannon. Lawdamassey! 

[Matthew]

That said, rofle grenade launchers, practice grenades and such are sometimes sold. It tempts.

Normally I leave typos alone but . . .

I want an ROFL grenade launcher!  That sounds amazing!!!

[Lord Anubis]

Blank rounds are used to make noise-they often carry a serious powder charge, and if used with a projectile, well, depends on the gun. Blank powder is a different sort, it burns very fast to make more gas and more bang,

And again, sorry, no it's not.  Exact same size load, exact same powder.  The only exception to this is several Hollywood armories (ISS, Gibbons, etc) offered smaller blanks-- 1/2 loads, 1/4 loads, and every now and then 3/4 loads, but they weren't that common.  The downside is that if you're using a semi-automatic or fully automatic weapon, it needs a special conversion to work with these smaller loads.  So armorers and prop masters had to be very clear on which weapons were plugged for which size load. 

Anyway, films would use these smaller loads on location because less powder made less noise, which meant more filming before some neighbor called the police to complain or chose to cause problems.  It doesn't make a difference to the crew because--sorry again, krakenten-- the noise isn't what blanks are used for.  They're used to make the weapon operate correctly and for the muzzle flash.  Believable sound is ridiculously easy to add into film, believable lighting effects are not--or weren't for a very long time.

Not sure what you mean by using blanks with projectiles.  By definition, well, those wouldn't be blanks... 

I want an ROFL grenade launcher!  That sounds amazing!!!

Didn't the Joker have one of those back in the '80s...? 

[frank]

This would seem to cover the topic of blanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_(cartridge)

Turns out I've been using a power actuated nail driver for years, but never thought about it in terms of being another use of blank cartridge.  It comes with an assortment of .22 cartridges with loads for different jobs.  My favorite is driving two inch nails most of the way through  1 1/2 inch boards into cured concrete as a quick way of anchoring new walls to concrete slabs when doing, say, a basement remodel.

You load a charge in one end, insert the nail in the other, press down to release the safety, and hit the thing with a hammer.  Bang!  The nail is where you want it.  (Mostly)  Well, some of the time.

Yes, you could use this as a weapon, but it would be easier to use the hammer, instead.

[Doug (Ancient) Wojtowicz]

That said, rofle grenade launchers, practice grenades and such are sometimes sold. It tempts.

Normally I leave typos alone but . . .

I want an ROFL grenade launcher!  That sounds amazing!!!

I have a couple mounted on ROFLCOPTERS in my fleet.

[Lord Anubis]

I bow to Frank's knowledge and mediation skills.   

I have a couple mounted on ROFLCOPTERS in my fleet.

Did you just make this whole thing up or was this already floating around somewhere...?