mass on firearms in low g

.... how do people get all these guns on Earth to bring out, anyway, in the oppressive UW?

The place is thoroughly corrupt. Note the boss who enforces minimal air conditioning for subordinates and maximal for the boss....

So no doubt it's legal to make any sort of gun for export, with heavy fees attached, and all sorts of guns are available for heavy bribes to those who have connections. Big penalties for using them unless you have connections.

The usual thing.

Mass reduces felt recoil (at the expense of making it heaver, which I don't see as a problem on Ceres). Yes, inertia would be increased.

Of course, but that does not address my question. The DE already has a mass of nearly two kilos empty. Add a couple of hundred grams more, when fully loaded. Let's call it 2.2 kilos for simplicity sake. Whether the gun is on earth or Ceres is irrelevant. Mass is mass. You still have to lug 2.2 kilos of mass out of your holster, stop its motion when you get it to firing position and then wrestle it onto your target in a split second. And you want to add more mass? No thanks.

Might there be a latter day Gyro Jet?

That's my first preference.

Minimal recoil. Laser targeting.

You can pack more intelligence into the round than you know what to do with.

I was deeply impressed with a report I saw a long time ago. The army needed something like six kinds of mortar rounds. Flare, high burst, low burst, ground burst, delayed burst, etc. They cut it down to two kinds of mortar rounds by putting a dial on them so you just choose the kind you want. And that improved the logistics a whole lot. Instead of having to provide the right amount of six different items, they only had to provide the right amount of two items. A little extra cost for each mortar round was completely worth it.

Ideally you'd have a gyro-jet round that blows up soon after it hits something, using whatever remains of its propellant. Past a preset distance it retro-fires and uses as much as half its propellant to slow down. You keep them preset, but if you have time you can set them for what you want. So to hit a spacesuit it might be better to blow up or burn fast when it's about halfway through the skin. For flesh you might want to wait a little longer. Or there are times when you wouldn't want it to blow up at all.

You'd have it set to the most likely need because in an emergency you wouldn't have time even to press one button to change it. But if you *did* need something different when you had time to think, you could get extra flexibility.

The downside is that the rounds themselves would be more expensive, and also you would be betting your life on high-tech expendables. You can't test an individual round ahead of time, you have to trust that it will do what you need it to based on the reliability of the previously-shot rounds you know about.


When I think about the goals, it looks like the most important thing is to have a gun that looks intimidating. When the sort of fool who might pull a gun on you looks at it, he should think about getting shot with it and being dead. A gun that does not look threatening is a bad gun.

So the Desert Eagle is good on that score. People don't know what kind of ammo it has but it's big and shiny and it looks real real dangerous. Most fools won't think that they can get three shots before you can get two. They'll think that if it hits them in the chest they're dead, and if it hits them in the hand they'll lose a hand if it doesn't kill them. If your primary goal is to not have idiots pick fights with you then it fills the need. (Not so good if you're an idiot who picks fights with people....)

A little gun that shoots 50 flechettes has a disadvantage on that score unless enough good stories have gotten out. A few videos of people getting turned to hamburger with them would convince most of the fools -- but not all.

So if you want a little gun, it might make sense to have a great big gun too, as idiot repellant. Particularly if you're left-handed, you could have a big gun or a fake big gun on the right....

Of course, but that does not address my question. The DE already has a mass of nearly two kilos empty. Add a couple of hundred grams more, when fully loaded. Let's call it 2.2 kilos for simplicity sake. Whether the gun is on earth or Ceres is irrelevant. Mass is mass. You still have to lug 2.2 kilos of mass out of your holster, stop its motion when you get it to firing position and then wrestle it onto your target in a split second. And you want to add more mass? No thanks.

a weighted-added  DE of 3 Kg would weigh (if my math is correct) 3 ounces on Ceres[1] True, inertia is not effected.  

To get a feel for the inerta would be like, I just a moment ago went downstairs and got a 20# bag of goya rice that's still 1/3 full. I held my left hand outstretched, palm up and then dropped the bag of rice held from the other hand one inch above.

My goal was to catch the dropped bag, and return my weak hand back to level and flat. I didn't think it was too hard.

Comments on the validly of my experiment?  


[3] method: (total mass)/36 and then converted to ounces. So 1 KG (2.2 lbs) mass "feels like" roughly one ounce on Ceres. Good rule of thumb?

Might there be a latter day Gyro Jet?

That's my first preference.

Minimal recoil. Laser targeting.

You can pack more intelligence into the round than you know what to do with.

That parts all good, but a downside of the Gyrojet was impact velocity started out very low and increased with range.  Not so good for shooting the guy that just jumped on you.  Addressing that could be tricky without cranking up the recoil or backblast significantly.  If microelectronics and fab were good enough, you could have regular 'smart' slugs that could upset their center of gravity or otherwise self-destruct either just after impact (ow!) or after some distance declared a "miss".  Heck, they could even have targeting smarts and directional jets.

As for the video-- I think anybody that gives a DE (or even a full-house 45  or 10mm) to an untrained newbie is absolutely stupid.  I'd put it in the 'clueless' category, but not really the shooter.

To get a feel for the inerta would be like, I just a moment ago went downstairs and got a 20# bag of goya rice that's still 1/3 full. I held my left hand outstretched, palm up and then dropped the bag of rice held from the other hand one inch above.

My goal was to catch the dropped bag, and return my weak hand back to level and flat. I didn't think it was too hard.

Comments on the validly of my experiment?  

The assumption here is a shootout where a tiny fraction of a second decides whether you are shot before you can aim.

I'm not at all sure this will happen often. I can imagine the word getting out even to newbies. "You shoot somebody here and all their creditors sue you for everything they owed. But you can't collect from anybody who owes them. It's hell, man."

But it's the assumption anyway. So maybe it would be better to do your experiment in a way where the gravity isn't as important as the mass.

Grab your 6.6 pound bag and hold it at shoulder height to your side. Then swing it to the front into firing position. You haven't lifted it at all, just kept it at about the same height and so gravity is a confounding variable we can't do much more about. Do you notice any slowness while you swing it and aim, compared to something lighter? If so, somebody as strong and fast as you but carrying a lighter gun would have a good chance to get the first shot.

On the other hand, if he can draw his gun and point it at you under a poker table without you noticing, he can definitely get the first shot.

It very much depends on what's going on.

Might there be a latter day Gyro Jet?

That's my first preference.

Minimal recoil. Laser targeting.

You can pack more intelligence into the round than you know what to do with.

That parts all good, but a downside of the Gyrojet was impact velocity started out very low and increased with range.  Not so good for shooting the guy that just jumped on you.  Addressing that could be tricky without cranking up the recoil or backblast significantly.

That's true. If it moves fast enough that it can get inside him, then it can burn its remaining propellant inside him, maybe explosively fast. I am assuming a propellant that can burn at variable speed, which might not be feasible. And whatever I think up to improve penetration, a needle-sharp nose etc, there's still going to be some distance where I do better to hit the guy with the Gyrojet gun than try to shoot at him. Though I suppose if it explodes well enough it could do some good even if it doesn't have enough speed to penetrate.

OK, the GyroJet is like a recoilless gun except it doesn't have a barrel. We depend on fins etc to get it to go straight instead of the barrel. If I can have variable speed propellant, it could go slow while it leaves the gun and then as fast as possible to build up speed. No recoil, just hot exhaust gases heading my way.

And it could even aim itself a little, if it can see the laser spot. But this is even more complexity and more things that can go wrong. The fewer moving parts the better, and this already has too many.

Say somebody has just jumped me instead of pulling his gun. He is grabbing me. I shoot at him blindly and the GyroJet gets a third of the way into his belt and stops. It shoots a very hot exhaust while it decides when to blow up. Depending on just where I am all of this could hurt me more than him.

I really like the idea, but in the worst case it might not be practical.

If microelectronics and fab were good enough, you could have regular 'smart' slugs that could upset their center of gravity or otherwise self-destruct either just after impact (ow!) or after some distance declared a "miss".  Heck, they could even have targeting smarts and directional jets.

Yes. If they spin, it would be enough to push a panel a little way out once per revolution to change direction in air or just after impact make it tumble. Ouch. Or even easier if they don't spin. Possibly simpler than directional jets. Not as flexible but simpler.

It's real good to have a lightweight recoilless handgun with a laser sight. I want it. Just, there might be too many problems. To me the gotcha is that it depends on a lot of technology inside disposable munitions. If you have an extra feature on a gun, it's more stuff to go wrong but you can do maintenance first and only carry the gun when it works. Put extra features on a munition and you can't do maintenance on them, you can only hope they work. If one batch has some problems when you test them then you throw away that batch and hope the next batch is better.

Once you get a hunk of lead flying through the air in the direction you pointed it, there aren't a lot of unexpected behaviors available to it....

Grab your 6.6 pound bag and hold it at shoulder height to your side. Then swing it to the front into firing position. You haven't lifted it at all, just kept it at about the same height and so gravity is a confounding variable we can't do much more about. Do you notice any slowness while you swing it and aim, compared to something lighter? If so, somebody as strong and fast as you but carrying a lighter gun would have a good chance to get the first shot.

Yes, a better test, and it was harder to control. Ideally though we would support the weight from above using a string. Also, we would want to simulate drawing and holding on target, or switching from target to target, rather than swinging a bag of rice from one 90deg to dead ahead.

Hiro used a "redneck katana" (big chunk of rebar), and swing and stopped before the "katana" hit it's target as practice. While Snow Crash is fiction, I can assure you that this is good exercise. I do something close with a matched weight pair of baby sledge hammers [1].

Might the savvy of Ceres use "blue guns" made of lead for drawing and dry fire practice?


[1] more practical than kettle-bells

As to the mass of everyday objects, silverware might be real silver all the better to stay put.

The original gyrojet did start out too slow but a latter day one, maybe a 22 scale accelerator then a ramjet. Hit them with a cookie cutter.

Of course, but that does not address my question. The DE already has a mass of nearly two kilos empty. Add a couple of hundred grams more, when fully loaded. Let's call it 2.2 kilos for simplicity sake. Whether the gun is on earth or Ceres is irrelevant. Mass is mass. You still have to lug 2.2 kilos of mass out of your holster, stop its motion when you get it to firing position and then wrestle it onto your target in a split second. And you want to add more mass? No thanks.

a weighted-added  DE of 3 Kg would weigh (if my math is correct) 3 ounces on Ceres[1] True, inertia is not effected.

The weight is irrelevant to my point. The inertia (i.e., mass) is relevant. Here is a thought experiment that actually addresses my point. Take your 2.2 kilo DE (or other object) and lay it on the ice in an ice rink. It is now "weightless." Give it a shove across the ice and measure how much effort it takes to accelerate it. Its resistance to acceleration is a function of its mass. Now, double the mass to 4.4 kilos and repeat. It takes twice the energy to achieve the same result.

In other words, it is harder to get 4.4 kilos moving than it is to get 2.2 kilos moving, irrespective of weight. In my mind, increasing a weapons mass on Ceres necessarily makes it more difficult to aim and fire accurately.

If this is still not clear, imagine drawing and firing a 22 kilo DE on Ceres. At ten times the mass, it will take ten times the energy or the motion will be ten times as slow or some combination. thereof.

So once again, what is the advantage of increasing the mass a weapon on Ceres other than less recoil? The reductio ad absurdum, of course, is that you are simply making an argument for increasing a weapon's mass in any gravity regime.

At the marina, people like their little orange plastic 12 gauge flare pistols for PC personal defence within the letter of any law. Hell the Coast Guard requires them even.

True they may not penetrate flesh but it might and they will go several feet under water and burn there. A friend of mine used one to frighten the critter in a Caddyshack sort of relationship with an otter that kept crapping right in the middle of his neatlly coiled dock line. Push that button and stand back, but that's another story.

Model our low G pistol on that flare gun, it masses and recoils little, points fast and shoots a relatively slow clever if not smart projectile. Ceres being a free world, replace the otter scaring flare with a shaped charge, a plasma jet like they use on tanks. Have a nice day.

That parts all good, but a downside of the Gyrojet was impact velocity started out very low and increased with range. 

I wonder if it would be possible to create a hybrid Gyrojet. The cartridge would be made up of a rocket stage on top of an explosive base. When fired, the base would fire within a short (3 inches?), closed, rifled barrel segment. The rocket stage would then ignite and continue out the longer. perforated rocket tube section of the barrel. I'm not sure where the spent base would go. Maybe it would be retained in the gun and be ejected or maybe it would stay with the rocket portion. The rocket ports need not be in the base of the rocket portion. They could be in the sides but canted backwards, I guess.

Shaped charges.

Back in my days as a foolish and horrible child, we once pounded a finishing nail into the end of a broom stick or such, taped a found 12 gauge shell to it and threw it like a javelin. It went straight somehow, hit a wood fence, went off and made a nice hole. Got the idea out of a Kurt Saxon book only he suggested putting it in a finned paper tube and tossing it into a crowd like a lawn dart.

Ah, to be utterly stupid and immortal again.

Good idea Sandy and it keeps the rocket blast just that much farther away from our face.

Model our low G pistol on that flare gun, it masses and recoils little, points fast and shoots a relatively slow clever if not smart projectile. Ceres being a free world, replace the otter scaring flare with a shaped charge, a plasma jet like they use on tanks. Have a nice day.

Uh, no. Not a shaped charge.

We're looking for something that will quickly stop the guy who's about to kill you, but will have minimal other effects.

Something that will burn through a steel bulkhead if it misses the target, is not ideal.

If he's wearing armor that nothing else will get through then OK, it's something like that or else run away (where?) or try to grapple him. But when your target is a lot more like a water balloon than like a steel plate, let's leave those steel plates alone.