fuel injected firearm

[Trei, Peter]

While I'm not a shootingpunk, here a couple points.

1. The space behind the slug of a man-usable firearm isn't that
big. To get a decent velocity you have to pack it with a propellant
with a high energy content. Gas or vapor phase systems are 
generally too low in energy/volume  (consider: you can run a
car on cylinders with <100cc of space above the cylinder at
max compression. If you filled the same space with cordite
you'd blow the engine apart instantly).

Using a larger combustion chamber feeding into the space
behind the slug might work (search on gas guns). The whole 
thing gets complex and heavy, since you have to mix the 
fuel and oxidizer, and feed in the slug.

2. Liquid propellant guns (search on that term) are well
developed for artillary, but I don't know of any light 
weapons which use this. LPGs are kind of neat in 
howitzer type applications because (1) A tank of
propellant & a rack of projectiles takes less space
than cased solid propellant shells, so you can carry
more ammo, and (2) you can vary the propellant
from shot to shot based on emergent conditions. One
neat hack is 'time on target' in which a series of rounds
are fired in quick succession, at different elevations and
propellant load so they all arrive at the target simultaneously.
(the LPG liquid propellant does not need an added oxidizer).

Peter Trei

> ----------
> From: 	keyser-soze at hushmail.com[SMTP:keyser-soze at hushmail.com]
> Sent: 	Thursday, November 29, 2001 7:32 PM
> To: 	cypherpunks at lne.com
> Subject: 	fuel injected firearm
> 
> Have any of the shootingpunks on the list heard of constructing a firearm
> from something akin to a internal combustion chamber?