Gyrojet

What was made with the vacuum of Space in mind.

it's a hilarious meme but it made slugs go fast with very limited recoil so it did in fact work

>Was this thing useful at all?
Not really. More a proof of concept than anything else
>Was it good in any domain or did it excel at some specific purpose?
No. I mean, at top speed it was comparable to a modern 10mm auto (though with less force because by that point the projectile, while larger than a 10mm, was largely hollow) but because for the first ~30 ft of travel the projectile would travel at BB gun speeds, meaning the end accuracy of the round on target was wildly variable. Something like 15 MOA IIRC.
>Was it entirely a meme?
At the time, totally.
>Could a better modern one be made?
Probably not as a normal pistol, but I think it could have merit if the projectile had a payload. The whole design is basically a mini-RPG, so having a ten round pocket rocket launcher that fires EFP tipped rockets could have use for CP teams or stopping light armored vehicles at roadblocks.

>>33932173
>15 MOA
holy shit I can piss a better group that that

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>>33932079
It was a FUCKING piece of shit:
>builds up speed over travel, meaning muzzle velocity is basically nothing, the slightest puff of wind could, and would radically alter the trajectory of the rocket, thus you would be *extremely* lucky to be shooting below 10MOA
>because of the initially low muzzle velocity, it was basically harmless at point blank (this was a bit less the case with the rifles)
>magazine is fixed, and has no feed lips, trying to top off the magazine or deal with a dud cartridge means you have to press down on the cartridges in the magazine at the same time so they don't all scatter out, because if you pull back the feeding cover, nothing is holding those cartridges back
>ammunition was expensive and difficult to make, duds and rockets with imprecisely machined nozzles (meaning even worse accuracy than usual) were not rare
>there's no reloading or handloading of any kind
>body of the guns were pressed zinc with some wood furnishings and an unrifled steel tube for a barrel
>they're really light but they're also huge

>>33932117
Would have been shit there too.

>>33932173
>More a proof of concept than anything else
They sure tried to sell the thing though.

>I mean, at top speed it was comparable to a modern 10mm auto
Somewhere in the region of a .45ACP or 10mm (in lukewarm loads), but that's once it's traveled enough to build speed.
I often like to think that everything the pistol tries to do, a basic 1911A1 already does but way better and cheaper (and I don't even like the 1911 all that much).

>Probably not as a normal pistol, but I think it could have merit if the projectile had a payload
Now we're basically looking at something like out of a videogame. Did you ever play Duke Nukem 3D?

Anyway that strikes me as being a better idea for a vehicle mount. I guess that way you could have a long barrel to help give it less pitiful muzzle velocity.

>>33932259
Yeah, tackdrivers they are not.

>>33932173
That matches what I've read about these things. Despite the innacuracy of the produced model, I am curious about whether or not you could use projectiles like this to provide a very flat trajectory over much of the weapon's range. That could make it useful without needing an explosive payload.

>>33932173
>>33932270

180 gr at 1,250 fps so about 625 ft.lbf.

Definitely not up to 10mm full capabilities, but I'm not sure I'd call it lukewarm either. Outperforms most .45 ACP +P, definitely not comparable to .45 itself.

>>33932117
The benefit it provides for space is that it doesn't heat up much. That's why it could use the light as fuck zinc frame. In space you also don't have to worry about the low velocity at first, as with no wind you won't get the insane accuracy problems.

However the gun still has the ridiculous effective lock time. There's a long time between pulling the trigger and the round actually coming out of the barrel. That is not good for accurate shooting.

Maybe with a quicker burning engine, an initial propellant kick and half decent quality control for ammo production the concept could be relevant, but guns will still work ok in space as they are.

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>>33932079
>excel at some specific purpose

Gyrojet flares are quite useful. It was a failure as a firearm, but decent as a signalling device.

>>33934244
There was a thread yesterday about built in micro-jet engines (ram or scramjet) into bullets, maybe something like that could work for a Gyrojet redesign if they could miniaturize the design enough.

>>33934406
No it really couldn't.

Sc/Ramjets are airbreathing and Air doesn't scale down when you scale down the engine. You couldn't even get air into the intake at that size.