The next big firearm innovation?

[JoeC]

I've been thinking about this a lot. These are just my observations and thoughts and I'm not throwing them out here as fact or anything.

We've come a long ways as far as firearm innovation goes but seem to have stagnated.

As far as firearm design goes we've gone from single shot muzzle loaders to full auto rifles and the same with hanguns, from muzzle to semi/full auto.

Lately all the newer firearm designs I see are all based on the same functionality; bolt action, or gas impingement/piston of some sort. The only distinguishing difference is how these functions are laid out on the rifle, for example the FN p90 and its top loading design, or the FN2000 and how it ejects spent casings.

The same with cartridge design. We went from loading each component individually with a flint ignition system, to having everything contained in brass with a primer ignition system.

I've been seeing numbers here and there as to how many cartridges are made and spent and its in the millions per day, probably billions per day world wide. Thats a lot of powder and primer chemicals. Will it ever run out? Someday, but probably not soon. If it does start running out something new will need to be made. But thats another topic I guess.

The only really big innovation in the area of cartridges is the self igniting "metal storm" stuff. But that seems more a novelty and suited to the military and fire suppression than any civilian use.

These are just my observations. I'm hardly an expert and I'm also not privy to everything thats going on. However looking at the overall picture, mainly in the civilian market, nothing really new has been made.

I'm talking about a major innovation like going from muzzle loading to breach loading, or smokeless powder, or full auto systems.

I've been thinking about what possible new innovations can be achieved but sadly I'm no engineer. They say that necessity is the mother of innovation. I guess there is no necessity anymore? The firearm system is about as perfected as its going to get based on how it currently functions IE how the cartridge is fed and fired?

I guess the next step is lasers and nuclear death rays.

Thoughts?

[audihenry]

The next step is to make guns an extension of ourselves with more ergonomics, less recoil, and make them much easier to use and therefore more effective. Isn't that what it's all about anyway?

As we've seen over the last 30 years, the trend of using smaller but more effective ammunition will continue.

Perhaps electronic target acquisition and user assistance with aiming? Eventually, using a scope will become as ancient as using iron sights.

My two cents.

[bohoki]

i would love to have some type of type of smart gun like smart bombs where you paint the target with a laser maybe glasses mounted and have the gun kind of aim at that point when you have the gun pointed within a few degrees of it like a shell around the gun you hold and the gun floats inside it also have it also compensate for any recoil

or more simply have the gun have an autofire trigger(not multifire just you press a button and the gun automatically fires on the painted target the moment you have it alligned you paint the target with a laser on your glasses or hat and hold a button down kind of swirl the gun on target and it fires the moment it is aimed

[SCMA-1]

Caseless ammunition.

[rabagley]

Caseless ammunition has severe heat problems. Basically the cartridge casing retains and removes most of the heat of ignition from the firearm. Caseless ammunition lacks any equivalent and very quickly runs into rate of fire issues limited by the thermal capabilities of the metal.

Active refrigeration and post-firing coolant injection are a few ways of dealing with the heat, but both add complexity, additional parts and additional supplies to operating the gun, so are unlikely to be adopted by a military unless there is a significant advantage.

[Rob454]

i think theire gonna move to either magnetically launching bullet system or eventually to some sort of plasma or kinetic energy weapon. Most likely for military use. your average civilian will still be using the same stuff were using now.
Rob

[dwa]

case less electrically fired ammunition.


near term google lsat, its not electrically fired but there is a case less and a telescoped cased version.

[dwa]

i think theire gonna move to either magnetically launching bullet system or eventually to some sort of plasma or kinetic energy weapon. Most likely for military use. your average civilian will still be using the same stuff were using now.
Rob

those arent exactly firearms are they?

[Colt]

I'm hoping the next big firearm innovation is a newly elected/appointed bunch of enlightened public officials - but somehow I think the death ray will be operational first...

[olhunter]

Phasers...NOT set to 'stun'

[SJgunguy24]

I'm hoping the next big firearm innovation is a newly elected/appointed bunch of enlightened public officials - but somehow I think the death ray will be operational first...

The problem is we already have "enlightened public officials".
What we need is some down home country common sense.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Don't blame the car for the drunk driver, blame the damn drunk.
A good man lets his actions speak for themselves.

[Requiem]

i think theire gonna move to either magnetically launching bullet system or eventually to some sort of plasma or kinetic energy weapon. Most likely for military use. your average civilian will still be using the same stuff were using now.
Rob

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun

or the cooler version...

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/M72_Gauss_Rifle

[Hayashi Killian]

Caseless ammunition.

Beat me to it. Along with electric ignition. Enables weapons to be fully ambidextrous without having to worry about ejection, also eliminates some moving parts of the rifles.

i think theire gonna move to either magnetically launching bullet system or eventually to some sort of plasma or kinetic energy weapon.

Not for a long, long time unless we can make some kind of cold-fusion battery cell. Even a small, "man-portable" railgun (which is just a magnetic gun in a really simple sense) requires over 5 kJ of power per shot. That means you'll need several car batteries to keep it going reliably. And since we currently have only strong magnetic fields to contain and control plasma, those are an even more distant liklihood. Even with equipment that can superheat gas to a plasma state, there's far too much power needed to make it man-portable (at this stage, it's not even vehicle-portable).

[Colt]

The problem is we already have "enlightened public officials".
What we need is some down home country common sense.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Don't blame the car for the drunk driver, blame the damn drunk.
A good man lets his actions speak for themselves.

Uh, I meant those that are as you described, not the nitwits we have now who claim to be "enlightened" - we have enough of the bozos.