If I’m reading articles about the gyrojet (basically an ordinary scaled firearm that fires miniature rockets with kinetic penetrator heads instead of bullets), it’s main problem was a lack of effective ballistic velocities at close range. Contrasted with greater accuracy at range, and a slightly extended range.
Also, it seems that while gyrojet firearms were never really put into use (militarily), they did use the technology to produce highly effective flare guns for the USAF (for a time).
What I don’t understand is, if the gun’s ineffective at close range, but superior at a distance… well isn’t that exactly what a sharpshooter and/or sniper uses their weapon for? So how come it wasn’t adopted for such a use?
Does it leave a rocket exhaust trail to pinpoint the sniper’s location? Also, depending on how long the projectile is subsonic, the target may hear it coming in time to duck.
What does gyrojet ammo add that conventional sniper weapons lack? I would venture to say there are no gyrojet sniper weapons because they do not need them.
I’d guess if snipers really were the only market, they’re not a very big one. Lots of good technologies don’t get to mature just because the money doesn’t line up. And an unmature technology is almost worthless, despite its inherent strengths.
Superior long range accuracy and range, as said in the OP.
As for why it never took off, I suspect it was a matter of circumstances. Looking at the Wiki page, it seems that they had early manufactuing problems, and started by building pistols and carbines, instead of a long ranged rifle version; since normal bullets are better at shorter ranges that meant they were going for the wrong niche. Perhaps if they’d gone immediately for long ranged weapons the idea would have caught on more.
As you guess, not much. Just that rocket propelled projectiles typically have some sort of explosive warhead, so the terminology indicates that these don’t. Also, barrel erosion issues pretty well limit muzzle velocity to below 5000’/sec, and it goes downhill with range. Rockets don’t have that limit, and as kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity, they really can put bullets to shame kenetic energy wise.
Sorry, could’ve used less technical terminology. My knowlede of weapons technology is spotty at best (see my hedging by saying “If I’m reading the articles correctly”), and I wanted to make clear these didn’t have any kind of explosive or otherwise specialized tip. I figured it should be obvious given the size of the things, but I wasn’t sure what people might associate with a rocket.
As to the rest of the replies; I was kind of figuring it was a mix of economic concerns and a missed opportunity, but was wondering (since there’s plenty of gun enthusiasts on the board, and I’ve seen the gyrojet discussed before) if anyone knew of any specific reasons why it might not have been used.
From what I remember of reading test reports on the weapon, accuracy was poor. Unguided rockets are not noted for their accuracy. If you actually want to hit a specific target at a distance, you need some sort of guidance system.
According to what I’d read, they actually had pretty good accuracy. They use a specially designed projectile that is gyroscopically stabilized (hence the name). Of course, my sources could be innacurate (the wikipedia article’s the only one I have on hand, I couldn’t even tell you where I’d read about it before, besides the fact one was a book, and the other an old magazine I was skimming through in the public library). During the production, some showed poor accuracy due to a flaw in the manufacturing process, but that had nothing to do with the design itself.
Well, what do you want to call it? A non-explosive payload? A farting bullet?
Anyway, wikipedia says maximum velocity is achieved at 75 yards, which isn’t exactly sniper distance. This is still very useful, but at point-blank you could stop the little thing with your finger. However, after 75 yards it had 50% more energy and lost less altitude. I think the rockets weren’t so much “more accurate” as “easier to aim” because you had to do less compensation. The gyrojet had another advantage. There was no recoil, and the gun didn’t have to be a big, heavy chunk of metal.
In the end, though, the gyrojet couldn’t help being an immature tech in comparison to century-old bullets and war-tested guns. The gun designs had flaws and, arguably, did not tap the full potential of the vastly different design considerations. Also rockets could also surely been refined/redesigned to be more power, more accurate, etc. Worse, the original ammo wasn’t cheap. (I’m fearing a handles-and-razor blades scheme here too.)
But the bottom-line is, it seems despite the wild-sounding concept, it was all rather straightforward and worked fine. It was a good solution looking for a niche, which it failed to find.
In the modern day, however, I can imagine these things to be extremely useful for those super-portable unmanned air vehicles that are becoming all the rage. A .50 caliber round with no recoil and an impossibly short barel made of aluminum (ie the original handgun) would be an immense capability. There’s even no requirement for close range with a uav. Omg, who wants to start a company with me?
I think the basic reason that Gyrojets never became widespread is that not only did they not really offer any practical advantages over existing firearms (And no, appearing in You Only Live Twice doesn’t count), ammunition was insanely expensive. The equivalent of $5 a round is reasonable if you’re hunting Elephant in Kenya, but not for target shooting or even deer hunting.
The Dardick Tround is a contemporary firearms development that falls into the same category of “innovative but not economically practical”- it worked OK and there was nothing inherently wrong with the design, but it didn’t really do anything that existing firearms didn’t, and it was also very expensive.
You could probably try and market Gyrojet arms to the military, but you’d need civilian sales to keep the company afloat and the guns in production between orders for the armed forces. I think most places would probably classify a Gyrojet gun as a “Rocket Launcher”, which would put it on the “Not for Civilian Sale” list before the first rocket-rifle had even rolled off the assembly line. You might be able to sell half a dozen rifles a year to collectors or people in states/countries with liberal (or non-existent) arms laws, but that’s not nearly enough to keep you in business while you wait for the the US Army to decide whether or not they want 5,000 Gyrojet rifles for issue to the Airborne division…
I don’t know about today’s combat snipers, but military competition sharpshooting teams don’t use off the shelf ammo. The unit has armorers that make each round by hand.
Also, by the time the gyroscopic effect fully kicks in, the gyrojet round has already lost an inch or more of accuracy, which is really pushing the total acceptable error for a sniper.
A gyrojet may be dead on after (say) 100 yards or so, and beat a standard ballistic rifle/round at say 500-1000 yards, because every 100 yards for a rifle is less accurate than the one before., giving the gyrojet a chance to catch up with a flatter trojectory, but once the bullet deviates from the target slightly, it never really gets it back.
Or put more simple: gyrojets may be more accurate than standard rifles firing standard rounds, but today’s sniping systems are a hell of a lot more accurate than standard rifles
I’m not sure that gyrojet sniper “rifles” are even possible, because the “gun” is really just a launcher. it would be like trying to imporve rocket or torpedo accuracy by lengthening and improving the launch rails and torpedo tubes. There would simply be little potential improvement to be had at that end… A sniper grade round? Well, aside from the inherent problem of the big hit in accuracy before the gyroscopic action kicks fully in, it seems likely that that would take a significant redesign, not just incremental improvement.
A gyrojet round is a tiny crude rocket. Even with the advances of 50 years of tech and materials, if I wanted to improve it to (1957) sniper levels today, the tests I’d want to do would be far beyond the practice in 1957, and I might not find that much to improve within the existing round design. A complete ground up redesign seems likely.
Heh, I kind of figured this discussion was done, but you did add an interesting point.
Nevertheless, I’d like to respond to the above quoted portion. You seem to have misunderstood my point; I wasn’t saying they should make a long-rifle to fire them, I’m aware that wouldn’t really contribute anything. My point was that if you had a weapon that outperforms a standard bullet at long ranges (which is apparently only partly true), that it would seem obvious to develop a version for sharpshooting. Maybe the distinction’s subtle, but I wasn’t talking about lengthening any tube, I was talking about either using the as-is technology, or creating a longer-ranged rocket to utilize the inherent features of the design in an application that seemed like a natural fit. Furthermore, there were gyrojet rifles. Not ‘sniper’ rifles, but they did make a rifle model.
PS. Alex_Dubinsky’s idea about using it on UAV’s for the lightweight, low recoil, shorter barrels for a given effective range seems like another example of what I mean. I’m not trying to argue that gyrojet is some sort of superweapon or anything, but it seems like a technology that could perform well in certain well-established roles. However, economics seems to present a fairly insurmountable argument against the practicality of anyone trying to develop the concepts for such a use.
The gyroscopic action kicks in inside the barrel. In fact, the hammer that struck the round from the front also held in in place while it gained rotational momentum. Longer barrel might’ve helped.
I’ve been doing more research. Seems that the best accuracy ever claimed for the pistol was 30 inches at 100 yards. Seems pretty bad, actually, at least for sniping (but the barrel does make a big difference). And those claims weren’t even really met. It seems like the four-nozzle design wasn’t ideal because getting the nozzles perfectly symmetric (especially as the fuel ate away at them) was tricky and/or expensive. At least with 1960s tech and under the budget of a small company. Later designs tried to use fins and one nozzle (but those were an obvious problem for a traditional magazine) and eventually no fins, one nozzle, and a gun that would spray them as fast as it could.
With the basic concept fully patented by a small, inexperienced firm under financial trouble, the idea just wasn’t given a full chance. The results were mediocre overall (especially the horrible handgun design that could barely be reloaded), but relatively speaking I’d say pretty damn successful.
I’d love to participate in a new effort to rethink and redo the concept, but alas… Still, these would be the PERFECT weapon for a light UAV.
The enormous-spray-of-rounds concept actually makes sense.
I saw a similar thing using bullets on tv a few times. A guy packed several dozen bullets in a single barrel and stuck a bunch of barrels together with the end result being a supersonic wall of lead (for intersepting missiles, etc.). The problem was putting multiple bullets in one barrel. He tried solving it by having casings that expanded during detonation. Bullets would fire one at a time, and as they did the locked casing would prevent the explosion from traveling backward and setting off all the other bullets. Sounds like a pretty dubios solution, which is probably why we don’t hear about it anymore. Yet with microrockets, that fundamental problem wouldn’t exist.
