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    Default U.S. Army Testing Plastic-Cased Ammo



    This LSAT LMG is one of two LSAT projects. There are two types of ammo being considered, in this case, telescoping polymer-cased ammunition, and down the road, fully-caseless ammunition. While caseless ammo has an obvious weight advantage like nothing else, it's a bit on the pricy side and is considered a tad on the unstable side. But polymer cased ammo still has an awesome advantage: 1,000 rounds of it weighs 10lbs less than traditional ammo.
    "Guns are just tools, the way they're used reflects the society they're apart of, if you don't like guns, blame it on society" ~Chris Kyle

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    Default Re: U.S. Army Testing Plastic-Cased Ammo

    I recall that H&K were testing this from the 60's through to the 80's in the G11, I think it was called? It had a horizontal mag & a rotary chamber with square bodied caseless ammo. I think they were also testing the theory of a 3 round burst with this weapon giving a higher hit probability than a single round, as it was supposed to have such a smooth & fast rate of fire?

    I cannot remember what came of it all though?

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    Default Re: U.S. Army Testing Plastic-Cased Ammo

    Quote Originally Posted by nkosi View Post
    I recall that H&K were testing this from the 60's through to the 80's in the G11, I think it was called? It had a horizontal mag & a rotary chamber with square bodied caseless ammo. I think they were also testing the theory of a 3 round burst with this weapon giving a higher hit probability than a single round, as it was supposed to have such a smooth & fast rate of fire?

    I cannot remember what came of it all though?
    Even today, caseless ammunition for military use is still not feasible for several reasons, not the least of which is the huge expense necessary to change shooting platforms (guns) to accomodate the ammo and how the ammo would react to long term field use. The research did, however, pay some dividends, and the explosive charges used with today's airbag technology in cars is one offshoot of it.
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    Default Re: U.S. Army Testing Plastic-Cased Ammo

    Lessons learned from the G11 project was incorporated into the G36 project. 3 round burst became flavour of the month for a while with a few manufacturers of subguns and assault rifles.
    The biggest problems with caseless and polymer cased ammo is heat. In metal cased ammo, a lot of heat is absorbed by the case which is then extracted (if you don't believe me then catch a ejected case down your shirt). On caseless ammo there is the distinct possibility of cook off. On polymer cased ammo there is the possibility of the case walls melting and sticking to the chaimber walls. This reportedly happens even with the laquer coated steel cased ammo from mother Russia when guns are shot hot and then allowed to cool with a round in the chaimber. Another problem with most polymers is embrittlement with age and UV light.

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    Default Re: U.S. Army Testing Plastic-Cased Ammo

    Plastic cases melting and round cookoffs do not happen in belt fed guns because they fire from open breeeches so plastic ammo may still be a viable posibility for these weapons.

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