HE ammo propellant

>>32378984
What would be the point? You would have clunkier firearms due to having higher tolerances built in, for negligible increase in velocity. Furthermore, there is massive variety in the speed of different explosives: 'slow' explosives do so at around 3000m/s and are more for moving or shifting large masses, whereas 'fast' explosives at around 7-9000m/s are designed for piercing.

The only time this becomes cost effective and not an impediment to design is in large bore guns (i.e 120mm+), such as tank armaments, where you will have the projectile and propellant charge separate. Up until that point, gunpowder does just as well if not better, as it has a consistent and reliable combustion rate, doesnt require mahoosive tolerances by comparison and wont fuck with the internals of the firearm anywhere near as much.

Depends. You can't put too much propellant in a shell like you said because Newton's third law says it will dislocate your shoulder.

We use gunpowder because it burns as the bullet travels down the barrel. If we used something like c4 instead it would cause a pulse of force that would increase stress on the barrel and even further increase recoil.

>>32378984
I'm not retarded enough to understand this.

That's coming from an Infantry Marine. Well done. I guess.

>>32378984

Assuming unobtanium, sure, it'd work; velocity would go up to 20,000 FPS

EFP is a single shot variant where the materials can't handle the stress

>>32378984
High Explosives are already used as propellant. But they are ignited, not detonated. All smokeless powder is HE deflagrating.

>>32378984
some HE is already used for high-end missile propellants.

not sure if it scales downwards very well however.

File: 1421636641303.gif (3MB, 800x708px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 800x708px

>>32378984

The Imperium of Man does this already.

File: the future is so bright.png (463KB, 629x468px) Image search: [Google]

463KB, 629x468px

>>32378984
>>32379404

this basically.

high explosives across the board in general have only about 2 times the overall punch of smokeless powder anyway, its just the burn/disassociation rate is much higher

if you wanna get technical gasoline has a fuckton more actual energy than high explosives, its just the burn rate is below the speed of sound so that doesnt help you much

(10 pounds of high explosive has 15 million joules, 1 gallon of Gasoline has over 100 million)

technically if you wanna get into it a 3000 Calorie Birthday Cake (1 Calorie = 4100 joules) has over 12 Million joules to it, but it probably weighs no more than 2-4 pounds.
Technically if you wanna get into it a 3000 Calorie Birthday Cake (1 Calorie = 4100 joules)

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It might be worth it to have a long/hollow bullet with rocket fuel in it and a slow burning layer to keep it from igniting in the barrel. Shoot that out with standard smokeless powder and then the rocket fuel is going to push it even more, it has to be gyroscopically stabilized though.
> this is how 40K bolters work

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What we would need to take advantage of what you're saying, is a fuel or propellant that not only has alot of actual total power to it (like gasoline does) but can be made or conditioned to disassociate faster.

Eg, maybe it burns normally, but if you punch it with a tiny piece of primer cord or an intense electrical shock it detonates like fine grain smokeless powder.

These be chemistry mysteries though, thats for guys like DuPont to figure out.

Chemistry is kinda a funky science in that there's so many different ways to combine stuff, including nanotech, that there might be ways to do this crap that we just havent discovered because they're not straightforward.

Im sure if they could do that it might open the door for massively powerful Thermobarics that render nuke obsolete, and also possibly for space fuels that let us have better access to space

>>32379845
>HE is already used for high-end missile propellants.
>>32379842
>they are ignited, not detonated
example, C4 or SEMTEX being used as a firestarter

>>32378984
Gunpowder is cheap as fuck, stable as fuck
Need to come up with a non chemical reaction to impart energy

>>32379842
>All smokeless powder is HE deflagrating.
Handloaderfag here: Ahahahhahhh. No.

>>32379853
>might open the door for massively powerful Thermobarics that render nuke obsolete
Nahh. You'll never get enough energy out of breaking electical bonds compared to breaking strong force bonds

>>32379879
did not say all, you upper valley fudd

Didn't the British use cordite in WW2?

>>32379912
Actually you did.
You should have specified all double and triple base powders.

>>32378984
Powerful HE is too brisant. Would wear out a firearm faster than modern smokeless. Additionally, powerful HE's burn quick enough to generate large shockwaves when compared to modern smokeless (which is why grain size is a thing; larger grains means slower burn rate, which drops the size of the shockwave). Shockwaves jack entropy up, which in turn decreases burn efficiency. That's partially why you don't just load ammunition with FFFF. On the other hand, you need the explosion velocity to keep up with the accelerating bullet. Cartridge development is a fine balance between explosion velocity and ballistic efficiency.

>>32378984
Yes, it has been done using HMX, diluted to appropriate levels.

In fact, it's good enough that 5.56 can be reduced in width to a straight cartridge, roughly doubling mag capacity and reducing weight about 40% - equivalent to polymer CT using smokeless powder.

>>32379620
First off:
>You can't put too much propellant in a shell
Yes you can. KB from double charge is a thing.
Second:
>like you said because Newton's third law says it will dislocate your shoulder.
Fucking what? Over powered small arms cartridges will blow the gun up before breaking you.
>inb4 .950 JDJ

>>32380239
>I'm illiterate the post
Those weren't separate concepts you twit, statement A was a qualifier for statement B.

>>32380429
Here, let me redo it for you
>You can't put too much propellant in a shell like you said because Newton's third law says it will dislocate your shoulder.
No, it's because the gun will fucking explode.

>>32380488
The premise of the question is that the gun is made of material that can withstand the forces involved.

>>32380065
But if the gun were made of a theoretical material able to withstand the extreme wear and force?

>>32380518
If they had that kind of space magic material I'm sure they'd also figure out a way to reduce recoil impulse such as in this vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyAl9qK3Rlg

>>32378984
IIRC HK was using an RDX derivative as the propellant for the 4.6 caseless ammo for the G11 just before the program got the axe.