Gun Oddities

[Kormath]

previous post of our firearms got me back into the history of various guns, and that sidelined into research on the progression of ammunition, and that led to some of the oddest guns created.  Makes me curious on what you've seen, or if you are lucky enough to own one of these oddities.

I don't have a home computer anymore so my research is limited to down time at work, which lately has been kinda scarce.  Here's one of hte weird ones i've found.

Gyrojet. 

A handgun or carbine with unique ammo.  A special designed bullet, similar to the rocketball from the 1850s.  The bullet is a solid case, with solid rocket fuel instead of gun powder, and the ports on the bottom of the case were specially drilled to create the spiral that makes bullets accurate.  

 

The way this gun fired is as weird as it's ammo.  That notch and tab above the trigger is the hammer.  It slams the bullet back into the firing pin. then as the bullet leaves the gun it's supposed to reset the hammer in the down position for the next shot.  That section above the grip slides back, and you push the shells one by one down into the handle.  You can use the tab at the top front corner of the grip to pull the spring down to make loading easier.

 

gun had a few problems though.  with normal firearms the explosion from the powder shoots them out the barrel, and from there on they're slowing down and affected by gravity.  THese gyrojet bullets have solid rocket fuel in each bullet (which also extremely increased the cost per shot) so instead of losing speed as they exit the barrel, they continue to gain speed, and on top of that the ports in the back that make the bullet spiral, were never drilled consistently and accurately, so you could never reliably tell where the shot would hit.  Not to mention the fps was exremely low, like 250 fps out of the barrel, compared to a 45 acp (similar size) at about 850 fps from a 1911 pistol.

 

The bullets above are the first edition, with 4 ports for spin, later bullets were made with 2 holes to speed up the process.  To drill they were put in a special press and drilled at a specific angle.  Then rotated 90 deg. and drilled again, etc.  The angle hole would constantly break the drill bits, and the tedious task of drilling was....  tedious, and the drillers, like all people doing tedious tasks, would get complacent and not be as aware as they should, often causing the holes to be angled wrong, which screwed up the spiraling, and made the bullets even less accurate.

[Kean_1]

I remember seeing that on an episode of forgotten weapons. Ian not only did the usual review of the gun but was able to fire it. Neat stuff.

[Parzival]

Experimental bullpup Springfield M1903 for the Marines.

Whoever thought this up should be slapped.

[Kormath]

12 hours ago, Parzival said:

Experimental bullpup Springfield M1903 for the Marines.

Whoever thought this up should be slapped.

Definitely not made for left hand shooters lol.

[Kormath]

13 hours ago, Kean_1 said:

I remember seeing that on an episode of forgotten weapons. Ian not only did the usual review of the gun but was able to fire it. Neat stuff.

Never seen that, i'll have to see if it's on one of my streaming feeds.  sounds like a show right down my alley

2nd weird gun i found in my recent escape from actual work lol

Dardick 1500.  Looks like the ray guns the kids in the 50s and 60 played with.

 Image from wikipedia

 

I think this is the weirdest of the weird.  Not only is it ugly, the construction was very poor.  The gun shot 'Trounds' a specially designed ammo just for it.  Triangular Rounds = Trounds.  On the side is the feed gate, once opened there's a tab that is supposed to stick out to keep the trounds in the magazine inside the grip.  Didn't work very well from the few videos i watched on this gun.  The gun also came with interchangeable barrels.  You turn a screw below the barrel to release it, then insert hte new barrel and rotate that screw back to lock it in place.  The locking mechanism for the barrel was 2 groves on the bottom that 2 ridges on the screw would turn into to keep it in the gun.  But the barrel had some play in it, it could be slightly twisted left or right, throwing the sights off.

 

It's a big handgun also.  It shoots .38 (not .38 special) or .22 with the optional barrel.  Compare it to a Beretta 92F and it's about 3 or 4 inches taller, and about half again as wide as it's a revolver/pistol mix.  3 chamber cylinder would pick up the bullets as they're fed up from inside the grip, the top frame of the gun acts as the 3rd wall of the chamber.  Opposite side of the gun shown above has an ejector, if you can call it that.  The trounds would fall out of the open side of the cylinder as it rotated.

 

Only a few hundred of these were made, the concept never caught on and the gun itself is shoddy workmanship.  Also came in an 1100 model holding 11 trounds, 1500 held 15, and a prototype 2000 model holding 20 rounds.  2000 was supposed to feed from both sides of the cylinder, not just the left, but I don't think they ever figured out how to make that actually work.

 

Other cons of the gun include:

a selector switch to shoot the .38 or .22 trounds, but many of the guns didn't have the component inside the gun to make that work.  There was supposed to be a groove that would allow the selector screw, when turned, to move the firing pin down to hit the rim of the rimfire bullets.  For this to work the firing pin groove had to be expanded so it could move when the hammer struck.  The guns i read about and watched didn't have this expanded groove, or even the component behind the screw to redirect the firing pin, but they had the screw on the outside of the gun.

 

The hammer stuck.  the gun is supposed to be double action, but commonly had to have the hammer pulled all the way back as it wouldn't always return to firing position. 

 

Rear sights were a joke, they were loose and would fall down on every shot. 

 

Jams were common with the tround shape as they were pushed up into the cylinder.

 

[Kean_1]

5 minutes ago, Kormath said:

Never seen that, i'll have to see if it's on one of my streaming feeds.  sounds like a show right down my alley

 

Really?  It would say it's definitely deep down your alley.  It's real "gun nerd" stuff.   

I think most might find it a little too dry but he's got a big following.  He collaborated on an AK47 book / guide with Larry Vickers and his written his own as well.  He does other book reviews and critiques them on historical / technical accuracy but most of all, he showcases special, odd and historical weapons where he goes into fine detail regarding the inner workings, etc.  He takes the weapons apart to show how they work.

He also does ammunition reviews and tests.  He sometimes will also fire some of those weapons he reviews but it's all done in a mostly objective fashion.  

Here are just a couple of the videos he's done on the Gyrojet weapons.  .....I wish I could find the video where he test fires one but there are others out there:

 

[Parzival]

2 hours ago, Kormath said:

Definitely not made for left hand shooters lol.

At least bore a thumbhole through the stock so one can get a proper grip with their trigger hand, sheesh!