best rifle for the moon

Since no combustion is involved, the lack of oxygen does not matter.

I will say it again, gunpowder does not burn.
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No, neither smokeless powder not explosives burn in the conventional sense of using oxygen.
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I respectfully disagree. I think the term "deflagration" is being misunderstood.

All it means is "to burn with a velocity slower than the speed of sound". It isn't a replacement for combustion, but a definition of a specific type of combustion. In reality using the right definition probably 90% of combustion, or burning is in fact deflagration!

Combustion faster than the speed of sound is "detonation", but that is still burning, just at a vastly different rate & with different effects caused by the shock waves generated by supersonic combustion.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflagration

http://www.imrpowder.com/safeinfo.html
 
Crossbow,,,

Pohl Anderson wrote a truly hokey Sci-Fi book where medieval warriors took over an alien starship,,,
Their longbows were the perfect outer-space weaponry.

Just a thought,,,

Aarond

P.S. Wasn't the Gyrojet originally designed for zero-gravity environments?

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The Russian gun was to be used to fend off wolves and such after landing from what I've read.

Another consideration is how far will the bullet fly? Given little / no atmosphere to reduce velocity and low gravity pulling it down, could a bullet make it's way around the moon?
 
AaronD, I think you are talking about The High Crusade. Entertaining book; IIRC, the advantage to the bows and crossbows was they didn't have to worry about ricochets aboard ship. For zero-G, I'd think an archer (who is used to aiming above his target to lesser or greater extent, depending on range) would require some time to adjust to truly straight arrow flight.

While the story was hokey, I thought it made one great point: The aliens had the medieval Englishmen cowed, when they first exited their ship; the humans didn't attempt to fight until the aliens killed one of the humans. If the aliens had simply maintained the edge they'd started with, they might have done much better, but once they started a fight, they forced the Englishmen to fight back. A combination of "nothing to lose at this point," and "we understand kill or be killed." Moral of that part of the story: 1) Don't overplay an otherwise winning hand; and 2) Beware forcing a subdued opponent into having no choice but to fight.

As far as zero-G combat goes, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game has an interesting take on how that might work, with regard to both weapons and tactics.

With regard to a bullet going around the moon, not likely. The same lack of atmosphere that would allow the bullet to encounter almost no drag, allowing velocity to remain near-constant, would also mean there's virtually no drag to resist the acceleration imparted by gravity (IE, no "terminal velocity"). Even at 1/6G, the downward acceleration would be 5.3ft per second*squared; after 10 minutes, the acceleration moonward would be around 3200fps, which would mean a 45deg slant angle downward for even the upper tier of rifle velocity rounds.

So, the bullet would carry a lot further on the moon, but it wouldn't circumnavigate.
 
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So many geeky answers...;) The only weapon needed is a revolver chambered in 45ACP (no rifle needed). Can anyone tell me why?:cool:
 
escape velocity is 7700 or so feet per second, so a typical rifle is not going to get you there. Orbital velocity is about 5200 ft per second, 60 miles above surface, so still a bit higher than a rifle is going to get you.

Lubrication and sights properly adjusted for lunar conditions, dusty vacuum, is going to be most important.
 
Yeah, some of the good old boys hereabouts put a blasting cap in one of the old cubical Bullseye (40% NG) cans as it sat on a stump and it went high order.
Bye bye stump, hello nice little crater.

I still say smokeless powder does not burn in the dictionary sense of oxidation, but admit to using the conventional term. Kind of like calling my Caspian Castings flying in formation a "1911."
 
There was a sci-fi story about this. The Russians established a moon base across from where we had planted out flag, so we built a moon base. Then tensions escalated and both sides opened up on each other. The bases were basically made of aluminum and plastic so they were easily perforated. Both sides declared a cease fire and began to patch up their moon bases.

The bullets have enough energy to make several thousand low-level orbits around the moon, so, every few hours they have to re-patch where the bullets re-puncture the structures, and the bullets just keep going round and round the moon.

But as we know - that wouldn't happen in real life. :)
 
Wow- I got a Headache reading all that. I will bring a crossbow chambered in a 200LB pull. That will fire oxegen or not. :D:D Any how i was told Moon Deer are very slow and don't fear humans from lack of seeing them. You can get real close to them:p
 
Without air to travel through, ballistic coeficents would be moot. A round ball would retain the same velocity after traveling 1000 yards as the best target bullet available.
Might as well shoot roundballs out of a smoothbore. Aluminum roundballs even. Even a cardboard wad would still be going as fast after 1000 yards as it did coming out of the muzzle. And the smoke would speed downrange at bullet speeds too.
Also, without air for sound to travel through, the gun would be utterly silent to bystanders.
 
Conventional arrows are designed to use air to stabilize their flight. So, while you indians are plaing with your bows and arrows, I'll stick to a good old bolt action carbine. Minimal springs, lube to freeze and other non-essential moving parts.
 
Guns - need to find an all nitrocellulose based propellant, or use a pressurized cartridge to keep the nitroglycerin from evaporating
Lubricant - use teflon based solid
Bows of any kind won't work in the shade, they go brittle and crack
What you really want is a trebuchet.
 
You cap smokeless powder its gonna go high order.
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As a matter of fact t will not.

One of the shipping tests to pass as a 'flammable solid' is to stack cartons of powder and insert a cap in a middle carton, middle container and set it off.

The material is NOT allowed to have any portion of the powder exhibit higher order effects or even ignite.

If any ignitiomn occurs it must be shipped as an explosive instead of a flammable solid.

A blasting cap does not produce a long enough flame to ignite smokeless powder, and the shock component is of no value in starting ignition.

Even small quantities of black powder ship as explosives, and this is one of the things that drove the invention of Pyrodex.

Pyrodex ships as a flammable solid.

You will recall that even the over-ramming incident on the Iowa never went higher order, despite the large quantity of smokeless powder and the 'kicker' charges of black powder in the pile.
It caused a flash fire at low pressures, but burned those exposed to death.
 
Ok, I can see how there would almost certainly be confusion regarding such an ambiguously worded question, and that was part of the reason why I phrased it that way. (in case people came up with something I hadn't thought of) In any case, I was specifically thinking about Newtonian physics and equal and opposite reactions. Obviously on the moon recoil force will affect the user much more strongly than on earth, because although the mass of objects has not changed, the weight has.

Therefore, I supposed that the ideal firearm for the moon would be something that uses low mass projectiles accelerated to high velocities over a relatively period of time. This would take maximum advantage of the user's significantly higher mass over that of the projectile.

Conversely, you could use lower velocity rounds with greater mass that had some type of impact fuse. I dismissed this though because the ratio of mass to velocity seemed skewed the other way, such that the velocity would have to be reduced significantly relative to the mass. Or, the period of acceleration would have to be expanded significantly.

Now that I have clarified, hopefully people can make more informed suggestions. :D


Just as a humorous aside, if you had to shoot down the moon from the earth what gun would you choose? :p
 
ftom, mass is important not weight. The force imparted upon the person firing the gun would be the practically the same whether on earth the moon, mars or planet X. F=MA not F=WeightA.
 
Contact your local Bomb Squad or EOD and ask them.
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Like they all have commercial licensees, certifications, and experience with every kind of explosive.

The shipping test is NO ignition.

If you think it will ignite (and go high order) i suggest you contact DOT and tell them their test is wrong.

When was the last time EOD even encountered bulk smokeless powder?

There are reasons real high explosives are used.

The EOD guys I have worked with over the years all had extensive experience in common high explosives, but there are plenty of others they had never even seen or heard of.
 
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