SMALL-BORE CARTRIDGE FIRED ELECTRICALLY

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 5

SMALL-BORE CARTRIDGE FIRED ELECTRICALLY

(Bv

ROBERT REINHOLD)

A major manufacturer of small firearms recently demonstrated an electrically fired caseless type of ammunition that eliminates the complicated firing pin and extraction mechanisms used in weapons for more than a century.

It was the latest entry into the broadening field of caseless cartridges, which is gaining considerable interest among military and commercial arms makers. The manufacturer, Smith and Wesson, Inc, said it expected to produce within three to six months a .22 calibre rifle based on the principle and using cartridges one-third cheaper and lighter than conventional ammunition. This would not be the first such rifle. The Daisy Manufacturing Company, makers of BB guns, recently demonstrated a weapon using caseless cartridges ignited by a jet of hot air. In addition, the United States Army’s Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia has developed experimental caseless cartridges that weigh 50 per cent less than ordinary ammunition and take up 37 per cent less space.

Smith and Wesson officials said that their cartridges and firing system had great military potential because they would save valuable brass, the metal usually used for casings, and lighten a soldier’s load.

Still Experimental A military expert said, however, that caseless cartridges were still very experimental and that it would be many years before they entered general military use. The new cartridge is closely related to the first bullet made by Smith and Wesson in the 1850’s and widely used by frontier settlers. It was a hollowed-out piece of lead filled with gunpowder and open at the back. This was not a reliable or convenient type of bullet,

however, and the development of a shell to hold the explosive neatly and tightly against the projectile was considered a major advance. In a conventional pistol or rifle, the trigger trips a hammer, which hits a firing pin with force. This pin, in turn, strikes the primer cap at the rear of the cartridge, igniting the powder and expelling the bullet through the barrel. The spent cartridge case, however, remains in the firing chamber and must be removed by an extraction and ejection mechanism.

All these moving parts are subject to malfunction, and arms experts have long sought a simpler firing mechanism. Smith and Wesson’s solution to the problem, demonstrated at a firing range in Lodi, New Jersey, consists of

a projectile moulded directly to a cylindrical plug of solid, waterproof propellant charge. No casing of any type shields the charge.

Austrian Expert The ammunition was fired from a specially adapted submachine gun by Hubert Usel, a 40-year-old Austrian gun expert who devised the technique for Smith and Wesson. The conventional firing pin mechanism had been removed from the weapon and replaced by a special electrical device connected to ordinary dry cell batteries clamped to the stock. The electrical device consists of two electrodes embedded in a bolt that presses the round into the firing chamber. When the trigger is squeezed, the circuit is closed, passing a tiny electric charge through the propellant. This ignites the explosive, burning it up and forcing the projectile through the barrel. Gun writers, allowed to test-fire the weapon, agreed with Smith and Wesson officials that the recoil and sound were much less pronounced than in ordinary comparable weapons. Company officials said that rate of fire, muzzle velocity and accuracy were equivalent to ordinary rifles. —Copyright, 1967 “New York Times” News Service.