Shooting guns in Space

[Leg Day]

I can't believe it. You can't shoot guns in space.

[Raven]

Skumboni님이 먼저 게시:

While the bullets would fire for all the reasons stated above, the problem would be the metal of the gun would be so cold that when the bullet fired the temperature difference would shatter the gun and then the problems really start if you had it in your hand.

What's to stop you wrapping the barrel in a heated/insulated jacket?

[sarcastic_godot]

Leg Day님이 먼저 게시:

I can't believe it. You can't shoot guns in space.

Of course you can... ...the nitrate compounds used in propellant do are self-contained.

Now, actually hitting stuff at range, however.... ....You should better adjust your sights to the specific situation - no atmosphere, no braking. Als, if in freefall, no drop. And if in orbit, coriolis forces. Also thermal issues - barrel being extremely cold in the shade, hot in the sun etc etc. might cause even more trouble. But per se firing the bullet from the cartridge isn't the issue.

@Leg Day, Riddle me this; How would an oxygen atmosphere access the inside of a cartridge and the barrel filled with the combustion gases???

[jonnin]

Mickk님이 먼저 게시:

jonnin님이 먼저 게시:

This too. I agree that other types of weapons would be developed, but at first, coming off earth in a hurry, its probably going to be modified earth guns for a while, with whatever adaptations needed to make them go. But I agree with you too, 100%.

The US Navy did spend some time with an Electromagnetic Railgun, I wonder if operating it in space might mean a hand held version is more feasible ( 0G, no air friction ) and we could end up with something handheld that can shoot any sort of metallic junk, a junk gun so to speak. (I know, I know, the projectile should be regular so as the barrel can also be regular)

jonnin님이 먼저 게시:

...snip...
Rifle barrels are straight. You are thinking rifle sighting, which on earth accounts for earth's gravity, so the rifle is sighted inches above the target point of impact to counter act gravity drop, ...snip...

Thanks, jonnin I do like your response and I freely admit I am not expert on rifles or firearms of any sort but it was my understanding that rifle barrels may look straight to the named eye but in fact are curved throughout the barrel with the far end pointing slightly up. like a jim rope being used to make waves or a whipping motion. Happy to be shown I am wrong on that too, no worries.
I did a little check and found a couple of gun forums with people chatting about rifle curvature and such, links below.
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/question-determining-the-curvature-of-the-bore.3936477/
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=591169

I have seen noise like this before as well. There have been experimental weapons with curved barrels, but I can still assure you that the barrels on standard guns are straight within tech limits of making anything 'perfect'. These guys are talking about imperfections and limitations of real equipment, something we can barely measure without million dollar equipment (the lathe thing.. the lathe itself has imperfections!). They are also often angled slightly up, but this is a straight line at an angle, not a bend in the barrel, and its done for the same reasons you fiddle with the sights: gravity. Barrels also get hot fast, which changes their point of impact; some precision shooters wait for the gun to cool between shots. And, esp on cheap guns, barrels can be moved a little within the gun's stock/frame by an improper grip or other external factors, which is also not the steel bending, its the whole thing moving as one piece, so the word flex is a little misleading. I stand by straight, as much as humans can make anything straight.

There are absolutely things I don't know, but I am at least a modest expert... Ive shot easily 200+ models of firearms, made ammo (off the shelf parts), looked into (made but didn't trust to use, in other words!) black powder, cast bullets (messy, hot, not a fan), remade cases (eg translated a 30-06 case to a 1909 arg, and 9mm to 9x18 mak, and so on), competed with shotgun, rifle, pistol, and once black powder (the smoke... so much smoke). So if I am wrong I will own it .... keep digging if you don't believe me, and if you find something more, please, let me know.

These machine/manufacturing errors that cause curvature are going to matter in space at insane ranges, like 10k yards, ok, yea that is going to be a big deal the farther out you go, just as a 1 degree angle from here to mars is a lot of delta. But at ranges people can see each other to fight, its imperceptible. Also, and take not of this, the kind of people that are talking about this stuff are also the ones that *count* the individual specs/bits of powder they put in each case. Yes, people do this. The top end shooters are as nuts as any other enthusiast.

on the powder, I was hoping to use it for a primer too, as smacking BP hard sets it off. But mine didn't do anything when hammered (think 1950s toy cap pistol amounts here!). In the end, I used it to fertilize a cactus. That it worked great for. I more or less very quickly decided that homemade explosives, even in tiny amounts, was not the best hobby.

[ebolaconundrum]

vonbleak님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah you can - In fact with little to no resistance a gun in space would be more lethal than on earth lol

You'd have to feed oxygen into the gun for the gun powder to combust.

[A. Silvermane]

ebolaconundrum님이 먼저 게시:

vonbleak님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah you can - In fact with little to no resistance a gun in space would be more lethal than on earth lol

You'd have to feed oxygen into the gun for the gun powder to combust.

Gun powder would ignite in a vacuum as most gunpowders have their own oxidiser

[Ihateeverybody]

Leg Day님이 먼저 게시:

Sistermatic™님이 먼저 게시:

Since when? It has propellant.

Do it then. Shoot a gun in space. :cozyskyrimvr:

Its LITERALLY ROCKET SCIENCE.

<blank> me.

[tredention]

technically its already been done, the soviets actually fired a gun in space, look it up.

[ebolaconundrum]

Yes there aren't many details of how it was mounted but they must have had oxygen supplied to the firing chamber as you can't have oxidation without oxygen.

[jonnin]

ebolaconundrum님이 먼저 게시:

Yes there aren't many details of how it was mounted but they must have had oxygen supplied to the firing chamber as you can't have oxidation without oxygen.

We are trying to explain this, and failing somewhere.
the ingredient in black powder called potassium nitrate (saltpeter) is this: KNO3. Looky what it has right there in it: O2. The oxygen attached to the powder in this compound is used, no external source required. Its just as good as hooking it up to an O2 tank. Modern powder is similar but there are many formulae for it. You can look this up, even see videos of guns working under water without extra o2 provided (they don't work well, but the powder burns just fine).

[I Denizen I]

ebolaconundrum님이 먼저 게시:

Yes there aren't many details of how it was mounted but they must have had oxygen supplied to the firing chamber as you can't have oxidation without oxygen.

If they were using muskets sure.

Modern bullets are a sealed unit, with an oxidiser containing enough oxygen molecules to explode and propel the bullet out of its housing in the round and down the barrel of the gun.

A modern bullet/round does not pull oxygen inside to explode.

[I Denizen I]

And what's actually really interesting their is no atmospherics to drag on the bullet, nor gravity.

So all the things you know about shooting rifles on earth would be totally useless in Space.

[Sistermatic™]

louissamuelboutin님이 먼저 게시:

Sistermatic™님이 먼저 게시:

Without answers to a heap of questions first, this can't be answered.

If held, are you locked/strapped in, using counter thrust/rotation? And so on.

If in a turret/stand/vice, locked in position, without the human element, it would fire as per its direction, projectile potentially travelling for infinity.

Yeah in the game there is 'thrust' applied to shooting larger calibers in 0 g and the is a skill you can improve to resist it.

But what they are debating are things like what is the chemical propellant reacting against and how did it ignite the primer with no o2?

Yeah, I know, I had already answered that in #4. This answer was to a further question about its efficacy.

[sarcastic_godot]

ebolaconundrum님이 먼저 게시:

vonbleak님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah you can - In fact with little to no resistance a gun in space would be more lethal than on earth lol

You'd have to feed oxygen into the gun for the gun powder to combust.

Gunpowder is a monopropellant.... ...this is not a combustion engine. No aspiration phase.

How would the oxygen / air get into the barrel when firing in an atmosphere? The generation of high pressure is what propels the bullet, and thus you'd never ever have gases getting into the chamber from the outside...

[Bubblegum Flavour]

I Denizen I님이 먼저 게시:

ebolaconundrum님이 먼저 게시:

Yes there aren't many details of how it was mounted but they must have had oxygen supplied to the firing chamber as you can't have oxidation without oxygen.

If they were using muskets sure.

Modern bullets are a sealed unit, with an oxidiser containing enough oxygen molecules to explode and propel the bullet out of its housing in the round and down the barrel of the gun.

A modern bullet/round does not pull oxygen inside to explode.

So how far back does a sealed cartridge go ? Would confederate war lever action rifles have them ?

[White Rabbit Alice]

Relax. We got you musket users covered...

*Pulls out a Laser Musket from Fallout 4*

You crank this, like 3-5 times, then Shoot.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Laser_musket_(Fallout_4)
*Wonders why the laser musket didint make it into Starfield....*