Plastic Cased Ammunition

[vmastro87 0]

PCP is a new company making plastic cased ammunition, i wonder if it will be significantly cheaper than brass. If you read the guns america article the pro's of a plastic case make a lot of sense.

 

 

http://www.pcpammo.com/

http://www.gunsameri...-from-pcp-ammo/

 

[greatgunstatenj 32]

From the text on their website it seems more like they are positioning this ammo as premium performance and competition ammo. In that case it may not be significantly cheaper than brass, heck maybe even more expensive due to their claim of "delivering superior accuracy and reducing weight".

[Malsua 1,422]

It certainly won't dissipate heat as good as brass. That's not a big deal if you're target shooting but becomes an issue for military personnel. The weight savings is nice of course.

[Old School 611]

It certainly won't dissipate heat as good as brass. That's not a big deal if you're target shooting but becomes an issue for military personnel. The weight savings is nice of course.

 

Mark - The brass base/case head may be enough of a heatsink.

I'm waiting for some of the munitions engineers that we have on the forum to chime in.

Yep we have some professionals on this forum that get paid for developing this stuff.

[vmastro87 0]

From the text on their website it seems more like they are positioning this ammo as premium performance and competition ammo. In that case it may not be significantly cheaper than brass, heck maybe even more expensive due to their claim of "delivering superior accuracy and reducing weight".

 

good point

[blksheep 466]

I want 1000 rounds of it as soon as it comes out. I'll test it.

[DevsAdvocate 112]

Picatinny is developing cased telescoped plastic ammunition for squad machine gunners. They're using modified M249s to test. It's not so much about saving money for the DoD, but reducing weight for the SAW gunners... or just making them carry the same weight with more ammo.

 

http://kitup.military.com/2011/07/revolutionary-ammo-set-for-troop-test.html

[SpacemanFry 51]

Personally I'd like to see more research into caseless ammo.

[DevsAdvocate 112]

Personally I'd like to see more research into caseless ammo.

 

It's tough to go for true 'caseless' ammo due to the fragility of the energetic components, and their exposure to the elements. The HK G11 (awesome futuristic gun) used caseless ammo, but they found out that in hot, humid, and cold environs, the ammo would deteriorate and becomes junk.

 

It's tough to beat metal cased ammo, as it seals the cartridge and protects against the elements. It's also durable and easy to manipulate.

 

This telescoped ammo that ARDEC is developing is not dissimilar from 7.62x38mmR used in the Nagant M1985. Except instead of a metal casing, it's plastic with some metal to hold the primer cup.

[Fishpaw 17]

A few years ago they came out with a plastic cased ammo. I saw it in .223 for a while, but it never really took off.

[SpacemanFry 51]

It's tough to go for true 'caseless' ammo due to the fragility of the energetic components, and their exposure to the elements. The HK G11 (awesome futuristic gun) used caseless ammo, but they found out that in hot, humid, and cold environs, the ammo would deteriorate and becomes junk.

 

It's tough to beat metal cased ammo, as it seals the cartridge and protects against the elements. It's also durable and easy to manipulate.

 

This telescoped ammo that ARDEC is developing is not dissimilar from 7.62x38mmR used in the Nagant M1985. Except instead of a metal casing, it's plastic with some metal to hold the primer cup.

 

Oh I'm not saying it's easy or that we'll solve the issues in the near term, but IMO it's a worthy goal. Caseless ammo and more energetic powder will mean the ability to carry a large number of ammunition for troops.

[tony357 386]

Personally I'd like to see more research into caseless ammo.

 

We did that for about 200 years...

[Vlad G 345]

I played with the .223 version that was out a few years ago. It melted in hit chambers, it bent in mags when feeding energetically and it shot like ****. You can probably solve some of those problems not all of them, If I was going in harm's way I would want the heavier brass ammo over the plastic one that can get bent, attacked by cleaners, attacked by deet, melted, etc.

 

Plus if it ever catches on it will the government another way to control ammo, as it wouldn't really be re-loadable. Or maybe just give the ammo makers more power to charge whatever they want as you can't reload.

[Pew Pew Plates 358]

I shoot caseless ammo all the time!

[raz-0 1,259]

I played with the .223 version that was out a few years ago. It melted in hit chambers, it bent in mags when feeding energetically and it shot like ****. You can probably solve some of those problems not all of them, If I was going in harm's way I would want the heavier brass ammo over the plastic one that can get bent, attacked by cleaners, attacked by deet, melted, etc.

 

Plus if it ever catches on it will the government another way to control ammo, as it wouldn't really be re-loadable. Or maybe just give the ammo makers more power to charge whatever they want as you can't reload.

 

Yes, but I'd like to know what powder they used. It was the cleanest burning .223 I have ever seen.

[halbautomatisch 60]

Geez, the indoor ranges don't even like steel case ammo, plastic cases would be an expense for them to get rid of instead of brass which is a profit center. I'm sure they wouldn't want to see this.

[KpdPipes 388]

It certainly won't dissipate heat as good as brass. That's not a big deal if you're target shooting but becomes an issue for military personnel. The weight savings is nice of course.

 

This.....plastic cases have the little problem of fusing themselves into the chamber when it gets REALLY hot under continuous fire. Now, if they could do something like the Composite cases for the M1A1 Abrams main gun, where only the case head is metal and the rest is combustible..THAT could be interesting..problem is finding a materiel that isn't Hydroscopic..which is what killed the HK G-11

[Ray Ray 3,566]

I shot plastic stuff all the time, out of my 12 gauge and 410 gauge honey's.

[halbautomatisch 60]

I shot plastic stuff all the time, out of my 12 gauge and 410 gauge honey's.

 

Yeah, but not full auto

[usnmars 136]

wow as if plastic guns weren't a way for manufacturers to mark up prices but yet decrease manufacturing costs, plastic ammo is lower than low!

[Jon 264]

Spoke with one of the guys producing this stuff @ SHOT. They have run thousands of rounds full-auto through M16s with no noticeable increase in chamber temp. Also, while the ammo will "absolutely not be re loadable".... it is possible to reload it. The one question the guys could not answer for me is what it does in a chamber that is super hot from firing brass rounds, which the engineer assured me he will test out probably this week. Finally, price will be cheaper than match-grade 223, but more than your typical range-blasting 223.

[BOOMSTICK 6]

I would like to see an internal high speed camera shot of one being fired.

[matt6669 71]

Yeah, but not full auto

 

You clearly have never seen Ray Ray shoot a shotgun.

[Zell959 40]

Spoke with one of the guys producing this stuff @ SHOT. They have run thousands of rounds full-auto through M16s with no noticeable increase in chamber temp. Also, while the ammo will "absolutely not be re loadable".... it is possible to reload it. The one question the guys could not answer for me is what it does in a chamber that is super hot from firing brass rounds, which the engineer assured me he will test out probably this week. Finally, price will be cheaper than match-grade 223, but more than your typical range-blasting 223.

 

On the whole, did you walk away "sold" on their chances of delivering the product as they describe it? I read one account where someone who had a chance to shoot some rounds got the feeling that each of the rounds provided was custom built for the weapons they were fired out of, so it wasn't really a demonstration of what can be expected when they [presumably] shift to large scale production.

[Jon 264]

On the whole, did you walk away "sold" on their chances of delivering the product as they describe it? I read one account where someone who had a chance to shoot some rounds got the feeling that each of the rounds provided was custom built for the weapons they were fired out of, so it wasn't really a demonstration of what their [presumably] mass produced ammo will be capable of.

 

Didn't do any shooting, but given the fact that I was chatting with an engineer and not a sales guy I do feel that they can deliver.

[DevsAdvocate 112]

wow as if plastic guns weren't a way for manufacturers to mark up prices but yet decrease manufacturing costs, plastic ammo is lower than low!

 

Plastic ammo was never about lowering costs, but weight.

[aguilar64 9]

This is from their website:

 

Great Value

In addition, production techniques developed should allow the price of the cartridges to drop well below that of equally loaded brass cartridges.

[Jon 264]

This is from their website:

 

Great Value

In addition, production techniques developed should allow the price of the cartridges to drop well below that of equally loaded brass cartridges.

 

Yes, however due to not having any heat issues, they feel that "equally loaded brass cartridges" would be match ammo. Therefore, expect pricing to be less than match ammo, but continue to be higher priced than your typical xm193 blasting ammo.

[raz-0 1,259]

Spoke with one of the guys producing this stuff @ SHOT. They have run thousands of rounds full-auto through M16s with no noticeable increase in chamber temp. Also, while the ammo will "absolutely not be re loadable".... it is possible to reload it. The one question the guys could not answer for me is what it does in a chamber that is super hot from firing brass rounds, which the engineer assured me he will test out probably this week. Finally, price will be cheaper than match-grade 223, but more than your typical range-blasting 223.

 

So it won't be more accurate, will be more expensive, isn't reloadable, and they have tested it full auto, but they haven't tested it in a hot chamber wile also making sure that only bolt actions were at the range for shot?

 

I'm thinking your engineer is either stupid or hiding something.

[Jon 264]

So it won't be more accurate, will be more expensive, isn't reloadable, and they have tested it full auto, but they haven't tested it in a hot chamber wile also making sure that only bolt actions were at the range for shot?

 

I'm thinking your engineer is either stupid or hiding something.

 

They were not at the range. Everything I am regurgitating was from their booth at the actual show. The engineer's train of thought was that if someone had plastic ammo they would only be firing plastic ammo, and therefore the chamber would not get hot. They have achieved match-ammo accuracy. They did not think about a gun that had just fired lots of brass ammo and then switching to the plastic before cooling down. Hope this clears things up.