| From: | Adam Getchell <acgetche@****.UCDAVIS.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Lone Star Ruger Thunderbolt (Re: 1500 rps) |
| Date: | Tue, 14 Jun 1994 17:08:35 -0700 |
a big issue of firing at 1500 rounds per second (and the entire 3 round
burst coming out in one two-thousandth of a second), let me propose how
to make it work.
First, you need a rapidly spinning flywheel (sort of like
gyrostabilization, in fact when I'm done I'll propose the Ruger has
Gyrostabiliztion-3 or -4). Next, you need a three-chambered rotary
cylinder, kinda like a revolver cylinder but with 3 holes instead of 6.
The flywheel spins at a constant 30,000 revolutions per minute,
and its attached to the rotary cylinder by a continuous differential that
goes from 1:1 to 1:150.
So basically, we have a two-step magazine. You've got your
old-fashioned spring-clip magazine feeding a three-place cylinder.
When the trigger is engaged, the cylinder is coupled to the
flywheel at the 1:150 differential, so the feeding rate from the magazine
to the cylinder is 200rpm, or 3.3 revolutions per second. Since each
rotation feeds 3 rounds, thats 10 rounds/sec, a quite practical number.
Once the rounds are fed into the cylinder, the differential slips up
until its at the 1:1 range. The cylinder becomes the firing chamber,
just like an old-style revolver, and the rotation rate lines up a chamber
and the barrel 90,000 times a minute, or 1500 times per second.
The next hurdle is designing a fast-burning propellant, but
that's not too much trouble. Synthetic fuel with Ammonium Nitrate
oxidizer and various plasticizers, binders and catalysts make this not
too hard (we can do it today), and it's smokeless to boot.
Of course there'll be some bugs with my basic design above, but
that's what Lone Star R&D will be busy working out. Personally I'd make
it a 6-chambered cylinder like a classic revolver, so that you could cut
the rotation rate in half but maybe there's too exorbitant a price in
increased Rotational Inertia from 6 rounds instead of 3. Also, flywheels
spinning at 30,000 rpm have a LOT of energy, and with a evacuated chamber
they'd only lose something like 1 rpm/day, so a battery recharge wouldn't
be necessary. There would be a lot of support and maintainence on this
one, which is why I suppose the Lone Star Cops grunt about this
"new-fangled" thing instead of their much simpler Manhunters.
Anyways, in the final analysis I'd say this thing was pretty much
recoilless, a bit heavier, and liable to buck around in your holster if
you broke into a run (angular momentum vectors crossing with linear
momentum and all). Also, it would start not working too good without
access to Lone Star and contant spin-up of the flywheel <nasty grin>, so
players couldn't use these for too long.
The point is, the future allows us to indulge our technical
imaginations, so if it's feasible then why not?
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|Adam Getchell|acgetche@****.engr.ucdavis.edu | ez000270@*******.ucdavis.edu |
| acgetchell |"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability is in the opponent"|
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
