1.
Cartridge (firearms)
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Military and commercial producers continue to pursue the goal of caseless ammunition. A cartridge without a bullet is called a blank, One that is completely inert is called a dummy. Some artillery ammunition uses the same concept as found in small arms. In other cases, the shell is separate from the propellant charge. In popular use, the bullet is often misused to refer to a complete cartridge. The cartridge case seals a firing chamber in all directions excepting the bore, a firing pin strikes the primer and ignites it. The primer compound deflagrates, it does not detonate, a jet of burning gas from the primer ignites the propellant. Gases from the burning powder pressurize and expand the case to seal it against the chamber wall and these propellant gases push on the bullet base. In response to pressure, the bullet will move in the path of least resistance which is down the bore of the barrel. After the bullet leaves the barrel, the pressure drops to atmospheric pressure. The case, which had been expanded by chamber pressure. This eases removal of the case from the chamber, brass is a commonly used case material because it is resistant to corrosion. A brass case head can be work-hardened to withstand the pressures of cartridges. The neck and body portion of a case is easily annealed to make the case ductile enough to allow reforming so that it can be reloaded many times. Steel is used in some plinking ammunition, as well as in military ammunition. Steel is less expensive than brass, but it is not feasible to reload, Military forces typically consider small arms cartridge cases to be disposable, one-time-use devices. However, case weight affects how much ammunition a soldier can carry, conversely, steel is more susceptible to contamination and damage so all such cases are varnished or otherwise sealed against the elements. One downside caused by the strength of steel in the neck of these cases is that propellant gas can blow back past the neck
2.
.221 Fireball
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The.221 Remington Fireball is a centerfire cartridge created by Remington Arms Company in 1963 as a special round for use in their experimental single-shot bolt-action pistol, the XP-100. A shortened version of the.222 Remington, it is popular as a varmint and it has application as both a pistol round and as a rifle round. In the early 1960s Remington was working on an experimental bolt-action pistol based on their model 600 action, the goal was a highly accurate pistol that would be well suited for competition. After working with the.222 Remington they determined that it contained more powder capacity than was necessary to work efficiently in the barrels of pistols. While rifle barrels commonly range in length from 14.5 to 26 in, pistol barrels are typically much shorter, as a result, Remington decided to develop a shorter version of the.222 Remington cartridge, optimized for use in the XP-100. Rifles chambered for the.221 Fireball include the Remington 700, despite its smaller size, the.221 Fireball is capable of velocities nearly equal to that of the.222 Remington largely due to its higher SAAMI pressure. The maximum SAAMI pressure level for the.221 Fireball is 52,000 C. U. P. as compared to 46,000 C. U. P. for the.222 Remington. The purpose of the pressure was to allow it to perform more effectively in the shorter barrel of the XP-100. The.221 Fireball produces the highest velocity of any commercial pistol cartridge, the.221 Fireball has been used by wildcatters to create a small efficient.17 caliber cartridge. The most common is the.17 Mach IV which is essentially the.221 necked down to the smaller caliber and this cartridge is reported to have a very flat trajectory and to be relatively quiet with low recoil. It has been so popular as a wildcat that in 2007 Remington legitimized it by introducing their own version only slightly different from the Mach IV and calling it the.17 Remington Fireball. A.20 caliber version is also gaining popularity called the.20 VarTarg, vartarg being the combination of the words varmint and target. The.221 Fireball has also used as the base for the.300 Whisper. List of rifle cartridges Table of handgun and rifle cartridges 5 mm caliber
3.
.223 Remington
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The.223 Remington is a rifle cartridge. The name is pronounced either two-twenty-three or two-two-three Remington. It is commercially loaded with 0.224 inch diameter jacketed bullets, with weights ranging from 40 to 85 grains, a 90 gr Sierra Matchking bullet is available for reloaders. The.223 Rem was first offered to the sporting market in December 1963 in the Remington 760 rifle. In 1964 the.223 Rem cartridge was adopted for use in the Colt M16 rifle which became a standard rifle of the U. S. Army. The military version of the uses a 55 gr full metal jacket boattail design and was designated M193. In 1980 NATO modified the.223 Remington into a new design which is designated 5. 56×45mm NATO type SS109, the cartridge and rifle were developed as one unit by Fairchild Industries, Remington Arms, and several engineers working toward a goal developed by U. S. Early development work begins in 1957, a project to create a Small Caliber High Velocity firearm is created. Eugene Stoner of Armalite is invited to scale down the AR-10 design, Winchester is also invited to participate. It was then known as the.224 Springfield, concurrently with the SCHV project Springfield armory is developing a 7.62 mm rifle. Harvey is ordered to cease all work on the SCHV to avoid any competition of resources, eugene Stoner of Armalite had been advised to produce a scaled down version of the 7.62 mm AR-10 design. In May 1957 Stoner gives a live demonstration of the prototype of the AR-15 for General Wyman. As a result, CONARC orders rifles to test, Stoner and Sierra Bullets Frank Snow begin work on the.222 Remington cartridge. Using a ballistic calculator they determine that a 55 grain bullet would have to be fired at 3, robert Hutton starts development of a powder load to reach the 3,300 fps goal. He uses DuPont IMR4198, IMR3031 and an Olin Powder to work up loads, testing is done with a Remington 722 rifle with a 22 Apex Barrel. During a public demonstration the round penetrates the US steel helmet as required. But testing shows chamber pressures to be excessively high, Stoner contacts both Winchester and Remington about increasing the case capacity. Remington creates a larger cartridge which is called the.222 Special which is loaded with DuPont IMR4475 powder,1958, During parallel testing of the T44E4 and the AR-15 the T44E4 experiences 16 failures per 1,000 rounds fired compared to 6.1 for the AR-15
4.
Bullet
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The word bullet is a firearm term. A bullet is a projectile expelled from the barrel of a firearm, the term is from Middle French and originated as the diminutive of the word boulle which means small ball. Bullets are made of a variety of materials and they are available singly as they would be used in muzzle loading and cap and ball firearms, as part of a paper cartridge, and much more commonly as a component of metallic cartridges. Bullets are made in a numbers of styles and constructions depending on how they will be used. Many bullets have specialized functions, such as hunting, target shooting, training, defense, a bullet is not a cartridge. In paper and metallic cartridges a bullet is one component of the cartridge, bullet sizes are expressed by their weight and diameter in both English and Metric measurement systems. For example.22 caliber 55 grain bullets or 5. 56mm 55 grain bullets are the same caliber, the word bullet is often used colloquially to refer to a cartridge, which is a combination of the bullet, paper or metallic case/shell, powder, and primer. This use of bullet, when cartridge is intended, leads to confusion when the components of a cartridge are discussed or intended, the bullets used in many cartridges are fired at a muzzle velocity faster than the speed of sound. Meaning they are supersonic and thus can travel a substantial distance, bullet speed through air depends on a number of factors such as barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature, and wind speed. Subsonic cartridges fire bullets slower than the speed of sound and so there is no sonic crack and this means that a subsonic cartridge such as.45 ACP can be effectively suppressed to be substantially quieter than a supersonic cartridge such as the.223 Remington. Bullets do not normally contain explosives, but damage the target by impact. The first use of gunpowder in Europe was recorded in 1247 and it had been used in China for hundreds of years. Later in 1364 hand cannon appeared, early projectiles were made of stone. Stone was used in cannon and hand cannon, in cannon it was eventually found that stone would not penetrate stone fortifications which gave rise to the use of heavier metals for the round projectiles. Hand cannon projectiles developed in a similar following the failure of stone from siege cannon. The first recorded instance of a ball from a hand cannon penetrating armor occurred in 1425. In this photograph of shot retrieved from the wreck of the Mary Rose which was sunk in 1545, the round shot are clearly of different sizes and some are stone while others are cast iron. The development of the hand culverin and matchlock arquebus brought about the use of cast lead balls as projectiles, bullet is derived from the French word boulette, which roughly means little ball
5.
Rifling
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In firearms, rifling consists of helical grooves in the internal surface of a guns barrel, which impart a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability. Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one revolution, such as 1 turn in 10 inches. A shorter distance indicates a faster twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will be rotating at a spin rate. Barrels intended for long, small-diameter bullets, such as the ultra-low-drag, 80-grain 0.223 inch bullets, extremely long projectiles such as flechettes may require high twist rates, these projectiles must be inherently stable, and are often fired from a smoothbore barrel. Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle. Consequently, on firing the ball bounced off the sides of the barrel when fired, barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany in 1498. In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, Germany improved upon this work, though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century. The most successful weapons using rifling with black powder were breech loaders such as the Queen Anne pistol, the grooves most commonly used in modern rifling have fairly sharp edges. More recently, polygonal rifling, a throwback to the earliest types of rifling, has become popular, polygonal barrels tend to have longer service lives because the reduction of the sharp edges of the land reduces erosion of the barrel. Supporters of polygonal rifling also claim higher velocities and greater accuracy, polygonal rifling is currently seen on pistols from CZ, Heckler & Koch, Glock, Tanfoglio, and Kahr Arms, as well as the Desert Eagle. Such guns have achieved significant increases in velocity and range. Examples include the South African G5 and the German PzH2000, gain-twist rifling begins with very little change in the projectiles angular momentum during the first few inches of bullet travel after ignition during the transition from chamber to throat. This enables the bullet to remain undisturbed and trued to the case mouth. After engaging the rifling the bullet is progressively subjected to accelerated angular momentum as burning powder propels it down the barrel. By only gradually increasing the rate, torque is spread along a much longer section of barrel. Gain-twist rifling was used as early as the American Civil War, colt Army and Navy revolvers both employed gain-twist rifling
6.
Primer (firearms)
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In firearm ballistics, the primer is a component of pistol, rifle, and shotgun rounds. Early primers were simply the same black powder used to fire the weapon and this external powder was connected though a tube in the barrel that led to the main charge. As powder wont burn when wet, this led to difficulty, or even the inability, modern primers are shock sensitive chemicals. In smaller weapons the primer is usually integrated into the rear of a cartridge, in larger weapons like cannon the primer is a separate component placed inside the barrel to the rear of the main propellant charge. The first step to firing a firearm of any sort is igniting the propellant, the earliest firearms were cannons, which were simple closed tubes. There was an aperture, the touchhole, drilled in the closed end of the tube. This hole was filled with finely ground powder, which was ignited with a hot ember or torch. With the advent of firearms, this became an undesirable way of firing a gun. The first attempt to make the process of firing a small arm easier was the matchlock, the matchlock incorporated a lock that was actuated by a trigger, originally called a tricker. The lock was a lever which pivoted when pulled. The match was a burning fuse made of plant fibers that were soaked in a solution of nitrates, charcoal, and sulfur. This slow-match was ignited before the gun was needed, and it would slowly burn, after the gun was loaded and the touchhole primed with powder, the burning tip of the match was positioned so that the lock would bring it into contact with the touchhole. To fire the gun, it was aimed and the trigger pulled and this brought the match down to the touchhole, igniting the powder. With careful attention the slow-burning match could be burning for long periods of time. The next revolution in technology was the wheel-lock. It used a spring-loaded, serrated steel wheel which rubbed against a piece of iron pyrite, a key was used to wind the wheel and put the spring under tension. Once tensioned, the wheel was held in place by a trigger, when the trigger was pulled, the serrated edge of the steel rubbed against the pyrite, generating sparks. These sparks were directed into a pan, called the flash pan, the flashpan usually was protected by a spring-loaded cover that would slide out of the way when the trigger was pulled, exposing the powder to the sparks
7.
Supersonic speed
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Supersonic travel is a rate of travel of an object that exceeds the speed of sound. For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C at sea level, speeds greater than five times the speed of sound are often referred to as hypersonic. Flights during which some parts of the air surrounding an object, such as the ends of rotor blades. This occurs typically somewhere between Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.23, sounds are traveling vibrations in the form of pressure waves in an elastic medium. In gases, sound travels longitudinally at different speeds, mostly depending on the mass and temperature of the gas. Since air temperature and composition varies significantly with altitude, Mach numbers for aircraft may change despite a constant travel speed, in water at room temperature supersonic speed can be considered as any speed greater than 1,440 m/s. In solids, sound waves can be polarized longitudinally or transversely and have higher velocities. Supersonic fracture is crack motion faster than the speed of sound in a brittle material, at the beginning of the 20th century, the term supersonic was used as an adjective to describe sound whose frequency is above the range of normal human hearing. The modern term for this meaning is ultrasonic, the tip of a bullwhip is thought to be the first man-made object to break the sound barrier, resulting in the telltale crack. The wave motion traveling through the bullwhip is what makes it capable of achieving supersonic speeds, most modern fighter aircraft are supersonic aircraft, but there have been supersonic passenger aircraft, namely Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144. Both these passenger aircraft and some modern fighters are also capable of supercruise, since Concordes final retirement flight on November 26,2003, there are no supersonic passenger aircraft left in service. Some large bombers, such as the Tupolev Tu-160 and Rockwell B-1 Lancer are also supersonic-capable, most modern firearm bullets are supersonic, with rifle projectiles often travelling at speeds approaching and in some cases well exceeding Mach 3. Most spacecraft, most notably the Space Shuttle are supersonic at least during portions of their reentry, during ascent, launch vehicles generally avoid going supersonic below 30 km to reduce air drag. Note that the speed of sound decreases somewhat with altitude, due to lower temperatures found there, at even higher altitudes the temperature starts increasing, with the corresponding increase in the speed of sound. When an inflated balloon is burst, the pieces of latex contracts at a supersonic speed. Supersonic aerodynamics is simpler than subsonic aerodynamics because the airsheets at different points along the plane often cant affect each other, Supersonic jets and rocket vehicles require several times greater thrust to push through the extra aerodynamic drag experienced within the transonic region. Designers use the Supersonic area rule and the Whitcomb area rule to minimize changes in size. However, in applications, a supersonic aircraft will have to operate stably in both subsonic and supersonic profiles, hence aerodynamic design is more complex
