Talk:Caseless ammunition

Removed fictional info
I have removed the info on the fictional caseless rifle in Ghost Recon. It does not seem very notable and documents a fictional rifle.PowderedToastMan 08:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

There are four items in the photo. It would be nice if someone could spell out in the caption what they are.

i have added a paragraph about the rocket ball ammo developed by walter hunt, and the volcanic rifle that used similar rounds. these are some of the first caseless ammunition ever developed. -156.110.35.114 (talk) 23:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Caseless vs. "Holo-mobile" ammunition, plus a 2012 article relevant for citation
The GP-25 grenade launcher and its descendants are currently listed here as "caseless" firearms. I would argue that these don't count as "caseless" because it would be more precise to say that "caseless" firearms are ones that have their cases or containing structures for the ammunition replaced with propellant. Likewise, the "caseless" moniker wouldn't apply to inert projectiles launched from Magnetic Acceleration Guns (a term that covers both coilguns and railguns), since those projectiles never had "cases" to begin with!

The GP-25's grenades (and, by extension, the Gyrojet's ammunition) are what I would term "holo-mobile." The "holo" (or whole) bit comes from how the ammunition as a whole moves toward the target when fired, unlike cased ammunition where the case has to be extracted and goes somewhere other than the direction the projectile was fired (current caseless-ammunition-using designs still have to eject certain structural elements like the cap holding the propellant and the projectile together until fired). Both Gyrojets and GP-25 ammunition have cases that have not been replaced with propellant; the cases just move in lockstep with the projectile or warhead when fired. Besides, the Gyrojet operates on the rocket principle, essentially being a single-stage rocket that moves as a whole towards where it was fired--we don't normally call weaponized rockets "caseless" either.

Also, there's an article from 2012 posted up to the dtic.mil website that I believe would be useful for adding citations to this article concerning the problems with caseless ammunition. One thing the author mentioned that isn't currently covered in the article is how broken bits of propellant from caseless ammunition can cause troublesome or dangerous malfunctions (since they are easier to break into pieces than casings are).--Mazryonh (talk) 04:02, 11 February 2014 (UTC)


 * "You" call them "holo-mobile" ammunition? As in you made the word up? In that case, where are we supposed to write about this sort of ammo? We can't make a page called "holo-mobile ammunition", because the word isn't attested. So since you insist we can't write about it in "ceaseless ammunition", where do we put it? It can't go in Cartridge (firearms), unless you consider the projectile itself to be a cartridge (which has some merit). Ammunition seems too broad a subject; there ought to be a more specialized section. I don't see why it can't be put in Caseless ammunition, provided clear distinction is made. It's also odd that the GP-25 and Volcanic Repeater were removed, but the Ho-301 is still here. It functions on "holo-mobile" principles (although some say it's more like a rocket). Anyway, the lack of a cartridge case is an important characteristic of such ammunition, and it's frequently referred to as "caseless" ammo. For lack of a better place, I vote for including it here.


 * As an aside, doesn't a muzzleloader technically fire "caseless" ammunition too? ;) AnnaGoFast (talk) 21:19, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * It doesn't fire caseless rounds, because a round is a single device containing the propellant, primer and projectile. Usually it also includes a cartridge case, hence "caseless round." Herr Gruber (talk) 03:26, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

New terminology has to start somewhere, like grok. Anyway, I did come up with the term "holo-mobile" because as yet, the term "caseless ammunition" doesn't distinguish between the two types I mentioned. I don't know if that counts as original research because the types already exist in real life; they just haven't been given "official terminology" yet, but I would still like to see it mentioned on the caseless ammunition page. One other thing; "holo-mobile" firearm ammunition does not leave behind a casing in the gun used to launch it, but it's still not caseless in my view because the case just left the gun together along with the fired ammunition in travelling towards your target. --Mazryonh (talk) 04:39, 24 April 2016 (UTC)


 * New terms have to start somewhere, but Wikipedia rules require they start somewhere other than here. Herr Gruber (talk) 19:06, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Then I can't find any previous mention of the distinction between the two types of ammunition commonly referred to as "caseless." The DTIC article I linked to posits "self-propelled" as a term for the kind whose case moves towards the target when fired, but I don't think that's a very apt or descriptive term. I believe Metal Storm used somewhat similar technology as well, since it certainly didn't use a conventional case-extraction mechanism given how it fired.

In any case, the article can certainly mention weapons like the GP-25, GP-30, Gyrojet, etc., as firearms commonly referred to as using caseless ammunition, just of a different type than the kind used by the G11 rifle. --Mazryonh (talk) 02:03, 26 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Metal Storm is a superposed-load gun, it's not caseless rounds since it doesn't cycle rounds of ammunition, rather the barrel has loads which it fires sequentially. We already have a term for what the Gyrojet is, it's a rocket, if you call that a caseless round you might as well say the RPG-7 fires caseless rounds. Herr Gruber (talk) 22:28, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I think we can at least definitely say that Gyrojets and similar ammunition are mistaken for caseless ammunition (of the kind where the case has been replaced with propellant). People might get confused by the Gyrojet because its guns' layouts resemble conventional firearms, don't possess warheads like most military rockets/missiles (a trait shared by variants of Metal Storm that fired inert bullets), and don't have openings at the back to achieve its "recoilless" nature. The DTIC article also proposed the term "semi-caseless" for the Rocket Ball ammunition, but I don't think that's a very descriptive term either. --Mazryonh (talk) 02:22, 27 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Mistaken by who? We can't just say things, we need sources to show that other people have said those things. That's kind of how wikipedia functions. Herr Gruber (talk) 09:27, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Artillery shells
I deleted the part on artillery shells because it can't be right as it was written. It said "some artillery shells have an obturation ring to provide a tight seal for the breech...". An "artillery shell" is the part that goes up the barrel when the gun fires. The propellant is between it and the breech. That's like saying that a "Bullet" provides obturation for the breech of a gun. No, a cartridge case provides obturation for the breech of the gun; the obturation of the bullet is to provide a tight fit in the bore, to keep the gases from leaking past the bullet and escaping down the barrel. Thus, you must have obturation on the breech end, as well as on the bullet end. An obturation ring on an "artillery shell" would be to tightly fit the shell in the barrel, and would have nothing to do with sealing the breech, so therefore nothing to do with the topic that was being discussed, which is how to provide breech sealing in an caseless firearm. A bullet fired from a caseless firearm obturates in the barrel just like one fired from a metallic cartidge; it's the sealing of the breech that provides the difficulty. I suspect what the author meant is some shell casings have an obturation ring to provide the obturation effect, rather than a full metallic case. There are two problems with that: does the lack of a metallic case make it a "caseless round" as defined here? It's really a "combustible-case" round, as far as I know. I don't know of any true "caseless" artillery rounds, like the ones fired by caseless rifles. The ones I know of have a metallic cartridge base, something like the base of a shotgun shell, only most of the case burns, leaving the base behind (I suspect this is what was meant by "obturation" ring, but I'm not sure). The only two I can think of are the shells fired by the M551 Sheridan tank, and those fired by the guns of the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisnau (which, like most large naval guns, loaded the shell separately from the propellant, which came in silk bags which were rammed in behind the shell; the difference with these German guns is that they had a stubby brass base loaded in behind the powder bags to hold the primer and provide obturation so they could use a sliding breechblock, rather than the usual interrupted screw breech. The fact that the ammunition was loaded in several parts argues against it being considered a "caseless cartridge"). The shells fired by the M551 Sheridan have metallic bases, so therefore are only "semi-caseless" rounds (you can see the base of the shell in the cutaway drawings halfway down this page: http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/cv/tank/M551.html). Anyway, I would have just changed the text to correct "shell" to "shell casing", etc, but I'm not sure that that's what the author actually meant, and I'm not positive enough about the subject to be sure that I wouldn't just be changing an inaccurate statement to another inaccurate statement. And I don't have references handy to back it up my claims. I thought under the circumstances, it was best to just remove the whole paragraph altogether, because, as I said, an artillery shell cannot obturate a breech.AnnaGoFast (talk) 00:10, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

propellant block
It might be a good idea to point out that the "propellant block", the brass colored box that the bullet comes in, is actually not just a case for the bullet and propellant, but is itself an explosive. I just spent the last 20 minuted trying to figure out why caseless ammunition comes in a case before finally piecing together that the case itself is the propellant. Since this is the key point of the ammunition, it could be made more clear. Wisnoskij (talk) 15:04, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Classic caseless ammunition vs modern caseless ammunition
So i recently corrected the intro of the article to reflect classic caseless ammunition, classic caseless ammunition being similar in configuration to rocket projectiles. However while doing that i discovered that modern caseless ammunition follows a completely different style of configuration, were the propellant makes up the casing. Now from a technical point of view, these are two different types of ammunition and my question is, should these two types share the same article? If yes, then what layout is preferred? Should the article focus on the modern configuration or the classic configuration? What are peoples thoughts on the matter.--Blockhaj (talk) 20:43, 22 October 2021 (UTC)


 * So i did a preliminary rework of the article trying make it neutral for the moment.--Blockhaj (talk) 22:26, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Coilgun
The article says "Coilguns have the unique ability to use ferrous objects that are not intended to be fired from a weapon (Much like a Blunderbus)". If it's much like a blunderbuss then it's not unique. However, the blunderbuss page only mentions this in passing, saying "While various old accounts often list the blunderbuss as being loaded with various scrap iron, rocks, or wood, resulting in damage to the bore of the gun, it was typically loaded with a number of lead balls smaller than the bore diameter." This seems to suggest it wasn't common or advisable. Should the mention of blunderbuss be removed from this page? JonathanWakely (talk) 09:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Maybe change it to something like "Coilguns have the unususl ability to use ferrous objects that are not intended to be fired from a weapon." (without mentioning blunderbuss at all). JonathanWakely (talk) 09:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It was an unsourced mess. I've removed it and moved the links to the "See also" section. (Hohum @ ) 17:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)