Ok, I'm a nerd making a game and I want it to be logical that the cartridges used in the guns in my setting are oversized.
What can be used as a solid charge in ammunition that would function like black powder but need to be used in larger quantities?
I know magnesium burns too slowly to work as a propellant, so what do you suggest? It can be a fictional naturally-occuring element, but I need some properties outlined to make it at least believable, as I'm not a geologist or anything.
BMG is for rednecks with fat wives and small penises.
Parker Thompson
Smokeless powder.
Connor Edwards
Ok, maybe I should be more specific. This is a fictional world with limited manufacturing capabilities. I have some simple revolvers and everything else is basically bolt-action single-shot. What properties does a naturally-occuring material need to have to be used as an effective propellant?
This is not a debate about how much cooler one ammunition type is over another. It's about propelling ball-ammo cartridges from unrifled barrels hard enough to fuck up metal armour.
For once let Veeky Forums be useful. ;_;
Nicholas Thompson
There aren't any naturally occuring propellants. Just have a plant or animal that jizzes gunpowder or something to shoot its seeds
Jaxson Cook
It's worth noting that the limit of maximum energy of the cartridge is the detonation speed of the propellant. With modern smokeless powder, which has a detonation speed just under 6000 ft/s, it means that is the fastest a massless bullet can go, whether you put a few grains or a pound of powder behind it. Any compound that fits your criteria will have a significantly lower velocity and black powder or smokeless even if you stick it in a mile long barrel with kilotons s of propellant.
Charles Miller
So there's no way to justify having oversized ammo with similar power to modern ammo that is significantly smaller?
Jonathan James
Other than nostalgia, no. Modern 45-70 Gov't, for example, uses smokeless, but less smokeless to mimic the black powder loads.
Jackson Moore
Maybe instead of traditional ammo you have large bore gyroget style projectiles, but they use paraffin wax as a propellant so they have to be huge to be useful.
>I'm making a game >what's the lore reason for all this dumb shit
you're not making a game faggot, you're wasting your life being an ideasguy and should probably kill yourself
Adam Hall
You're in way over your head. You want to use jumbo cartridges for a reason you don't understand and you also want the impact of these rounds to be accurate to a level you also don't understand.
Make normal bullets and make them underpowered. Specify they're using a low quality gun powder and you're good to go.
You can have shit black powder and you can have good black powder. Black powder is the basic of the basic.
Jace Hughes
is that your game graphics?
>"impressive"
Parker Brooks
You sure nailed me, random Internet stranger who somehow knows everything about me based on me asking a question about justifying large bullets.
I was hoping for something more unique than this, but I guess it's the only idea that really makes sense.
Thanks you, those of you without sticks in thieir asses.
Daniel Howard
The Chinese invented gunpowder before manufacturing was even invented. The classic black powder is a mix of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. None of these materials is particularly rare. If you want to change the quality of the powder, just mess with the concentrations of the ingredients.
Leo Davis
You sound like a virgin.
Juan Bell
the fuck? why are some posts removed?
Dominic Moore
Gunpowder without sulfur is supposedly slightly weaker. It doesnt have less energy but releases it more slowly. Same for gunpowder that is not as finely ground. Gunpowder that is not corned burns much slower. Replacing charcoal with sawdust or similar plant matter or even sugar will make a weaker gunpowder too. The chinese initially used dried aristolochia (they originally tried to make some kind of medicine) and later replaced it with charcoal.
Asher Gutierrez
kek'd
Henry Hill
My wife is 5'7", and weighs 125 lbs. My penis is average(6.3inches). I own a single shot BMG rifle. Your current status: BTFO
Thomas Fisher
Because I defended myself?
I'm married with a kid, dude, I just couldn't find anything that really explained that the quantity of powder needed is dependent on the quality. Granted, I didn't spend a lot of time looking. I just figured the science board wasn't going to be hostile.
Go figure.
Thank you. That's all I wanted.
Just to be clear, since half of you think I'm retarded for some reason: I was looking for other solid propellants that function like black powder but need to be used in greater quantities. That was it. I figured Mg would work, but read that it reacts too slowly and is only good in flash powder.
Alexander Ortiz
>I'm married with a kid. Sandnigger?
Jeremiah Cooper
lol Why would you say that?
Kayden James
so you are going to make a huge cartridge with a tiny bullet? that looks awkward and bad.
Sebastian Perez
just use like potassium nitrate + sugar. Both easy to get, and if re-crystallized, then ground up into a thin powder it makes for a "meh" boom.
Charles King
Yeah, even the smaller handguns use bottleneck cartridges as thick around as your thumb with a spherical projectile. I know it will look strange, and that's sort of the point.
The military bolt-action rifles have ammo the size of something you'd use in an early anti-tank rifle.
These design aspects are already done, I just need a propellant. Hence the thread.
..
On a related note, can bombs made with low-explosive materials like gunpowder work decently as anything but shrapnel grenades?
Christopher Hall
Perhaps just switch up the reason for using so much propellant. Like the planet has slightly more gravity or armor is unusually prevalent and thick. "The propellant is shit" just seems like a bad reason for using a lot of it.
You could literally just used any compressed gas in your oversized cartridges if you've got no other reason for them to be oversized.
Or you could go the other way and have your rounds actually be tiny ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (solid fuel) rockets in a world where propellant science has vastly surpassed everything else.
'Once shot a man so hard he achieved low orbit. If you watch the western sky a few months from now, you may even see the brief streak of fire as he makes his re-entry.'
