I’m not from the 'states so I don’t know that much about guns, but wouldn’t this cause the powder detonation to stress the casing in uneven ways, and thus be much harder to manufacture safely? As opposed to a cylindrical design where the force would be distributed evenly on the cross section?
Now I’m just a simple country physics 101 student, but this here mathematical hypothesis seems plausible to me.
I assume that this could work but has literally no advantages over just making it round and therefore there is no reason to do it
You can put round ammo in at any angle, these would need to be square on and if they deformed during ejection you’d have a nasty jam.
Also much easier to turn a round punch than mill a square one.
Not as much. Rifles have spiral grooves on the inside of the barrel, which impart a spin to the fired bullet to improve its stability and accuracy. Without a spin a fired bullet would not be nearly as accurate.
That has nothing to do with the shape of the casing, which never travels through the barrel. The bullet itself is still round in this picture.
I probably should have looked at the picture more closely huh
Also, you could totally rifle a barrel to impart a spin on a square (or any polygon) prism bullet, just needs slightly more precise helical indents. Possibly you might be able to impart spin on the bullet more effectively than a round one.
It might spin more but it would bleed velocity much faster
Plausibly, but I wouldn’t take it as fact. I suspect the real answer is pretty complicated.
I’m gonna take it as fact
You shouldn’t. Making up assumptions about fluid dynamics based on intuition is a notorious way to be wrong
That’s interesting. I don’t have any kind of engineering background and not sure what to Google. Are there examples of this?
SmarterEveryDay has an old video about cannons firing precise hexagonal (!!) projectiles. It’s called “how to measure a millionth of an inch (the dawn of precision)”.
Note that Destin is a very prejudiced patriot and sinophobic individual who’s gone on a series of videos to try and manufacture things outside China out of racism. This old video is still very watchable though
Well sure but the bullet isn’t square just the shell. The shell stays in the chamber
THE SQUARE BULLET HOLE MURDERS
ACKSHUALLY
It’s the casing that’s square, the bullet itself is still round…
It’s a reference to Disco Elysium
Movie? I’ll check it out
Video game, but still well worth it
I’ve heard of triangular ammo used in a mag fed revolver.
Basically the cons of weird ammo shapes are cost of manufacturing vs very little advantages.
Only advantage I can see here is it would pack up a little neater in a box/ammo can.
Isn’t the ideal packing shape a cylinder? Specifically for rigidity and use of space.
I’m not a Geometrist but I think hexagons beat cylinders space-wise by just a bit, but again you hit the cost effectiveness curve and cylinders win.
hexagons leave less empty space between objects because they have extra material sticking out, but that extra material also means they have to sit further away from the sides of the container
circles already pack in a hexagonal pattern anyway so you’re not gaining any stability either
Rigidity is the big thing anyways, anything with corners has failure points. Plus the small amount of space around cylinders can be used for packing material.
During the age of sail some navies experimented with square shot because they thought it might be easier to manage them on a rolling ship. But it turned out that making the bore for the cannon square was way harder than just stacking round shot carefully the way they had always done
Regardless of their shape, the issue is that bullets are being used to perpetuate white genocide in South Africa, along with depleted uranium, crossbows, deepfakes, hot sauce, and anything else that can be used to murder or humiliate white people. By debating the shape lf the bullets, not only are you putting the spotlight on only one of these weapons, but you are ignoring their use in white genocide. This will not stand.
Interesting, draw me naked and with big milkers
Cartridge alignment is one less concern when you’re stuffing the cylinder into the round hole?
The G11 (successful project that it was lol) had square ammo and its performance issues don’t seem to have come from square ammo.
Notes on other people in this thread:
- The casing during firing acts as a seal for the chamber, which can very safely contain the detonation of the round (which is more of a slow burn, no worries of material damaging unpredictable shockwaves).
- Alignment might be an issue, but it would be coming out of a magazine in a predictable manner. There aren’t really mechanical forces imparting spin on the round until it is fired.
Idle thoughts:
- In order to have the same structural integrity, the case would have to be thicker, though not much more so given a round has plenty of strength for supporting itself in a magazine.
- It might reduce friction in a magazine, allowing magazines to be longer. Stacked round bullets impart quite a lot of the magazine spring’s force off into the side of the magazine.
- It might allow a greater volume of the magazine to be propellant, allowing for either a shorter magazine for the same ammo count or a larger magazine.
- It would be more difficult to manufacture. Circles are where its at for manufacturing.
- It would be specialist ammunition for one make of firearm. Not insurmountable, but does make it cost a lot for not much benefit.
I propose hexagonal telescoping casings for double stacking tiny magazines.
“We have the best gun nerds, don’t we folks”
they don’t know bout my hex ammo
because the rifling is what makes well, rifles so powerful and accurate. bullets come out of the muzzle with a stabilizing spin.
This picture still shows a round bullet. Only the case is square.
Well you could have a square barrel twisted all the way round
