Talk:Caseless ammunition

message: I have removed the info on the fictional caseless rifle in Ghost Recon. It does not seem very notable and documents a fictional rifle.PowderedToastMan 08:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed fictional info

message: I was expecting a link to some sort of multiple-barrelled, rapid-fire device when I clicked on Metal Storm.
What I got was a link to a rock band which appears to have "previous" for disputes with Wikipedia.
I don't feel immediately justified in deleting the link - I just wonder if a moderator might like to take a look...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by H-b-g (talk • contribs) 23:15, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  See Also 

message: I deleted the part on artillery shells because it can't be right as it was written. It said "some artillery shells have an obturation ring to provide a tight seal for the breech...". An "artillery shell" is the part that goes up the barrel when the gun fires. The propellant is between it and the breech. That's like saying that a "Bullet" provides obturation for the breech of a gun. No, a cartridge case provides obturation for the breech of the gun; the obturation of the bullet is to provide a tight fit in the bore, to keep the gases from leaking past the bullet and escaping down the barrel. Thus, you must have obturation on the breech end, as well as on the bullet end. An obturation ring on an "artillery shell" would be to tightly fit the shell in the barrel, and would have nothing to do with sealing the breech, so therefore nothing to do with the topic that was being discussed, which is how to provide breech sealing in an caseless firearm. A bullet fired from a caseless firearm obturates in the barrel just like one fired from a metallic cartidge; it's the sealing of the breech that provides the difficulty. I suspect what the author meant is some shell casings have an obturation ring to provide the obturation effect, rather than a full metallic case. There are two problems with that: does the lack of a metallic case make it a "caseless round" as defined here? It's really a "combustible-case" round, as far as I know. I don't know of any true "caseless" artillery rounds, like the ones fired by caseless rifles. The ones I know of have a metallic cartridge base, something like the base of a shotgun shell, only most of the case burns, leaving the base behind (I suspect this is what was meant by "obturation" ring, but I'm not sure). The only two I can think of are the shells fired by the M551 Sheridan tank, and those fired by the guns of the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisnau (which, like most large naval guns, loaded the shell separately from the propellant, which came in silk bags which were rammed in behind the shell; the difference with these German guns is that they had a stubby brass base loaded in behind the powder bags to hold the primer and provide obturation so they could use a sliding breechblock, rather than the usual interrupted screw breech. The fact that the ammunition was loaded in several parts argues against it being considered a "caseless cartridge"). The shells fired by the M551 Sheridan have metallic bases, so therefore are only "semi-caseless" rounds (you can see the base of the shell in the cutaway drawings halfway down this page: http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/cv/tank/M551.html).
Anyway, I would have just changed the text to correct "shell" to "shell casing", etc, but I'm not sure that that's what the author actually meant, and I'm not positive enough about the subject to be sure that I wouldn't just be changing an inaccurate statement to another inaccurate statement. And I don't have references handy to back it up my claims. I thought under the circumstances, it was best to just remove the whole paragraph altogether, because, as I said, an artillery shell cannot obturate a breech.AnnaGoFast (talk) 00:10, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Artillery shells 

message: It might be a good idea to point out that the "propellant block", the brass colored box that the bullet comes in, is actually not just a case for the bullet and propellant, but is itself an explosive. I just spent the last 20 minuted trying to figure out why caseless ammunition comes in a case before finally piecing together that the case itself is the propellant. Since this is the key point of the ammunition, it could be made more clear.
Wisnoskij (talk) 15:04, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  propellant block 

message: So i recently corrected the intro of the article to reflect classic caseless ammunition, classic caseless ammunition being similar in configuration to rocket projectiles. However while doing that i discovered that modern caseless ammunition follows a completely different style of configuration, were the propellant makes up the casing. Now from a technical point of view, these are two different types of ammunition and my question is, should these two types share the same article? If yes, then what layout is preferred? Should the article focus on the modern configuration or the classic configuration? What are peoples thoughts on the matter.--Blockhaj (talk) 20:43, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: So i did a preliminary rework of the article trying make it neutral for the moment.--Blockhaj (talk) 22:26, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classic caseless ammunition vs modern caseless ammunition 

message: The article says "Coilguns have the unique ability to use ferrous objects that are not intended to be fired from a weapon (Much like a Blunderbus)".
If it's much like a blunderbuss then it's not unique. However, the blunderbuss page only mentions this in passing, saying "While various old accounts often list the blunderbuss as being loaded with various scrap iron, rocks, or wood, resulting in damage to the bore of the gun, it was typically loaded with a number of lead balls smaller than the bore diameter." This seems to suggest it wasn't common or advisable.
Should the mention of blunderbuss be removed from this page? JonathanWakely (talk) 09:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe change it to something like "Coilguns have the unususl ability to use ferrous objects that are not intended to be fired from a weapon." (without mentioning blunderbuss at all). JonathanWakely (talk) 09:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It was an unsourced mess. I've removed it and moved the links to the "See also" section. (Hohum @) 17:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coilgun