I’ve never fired/handled guns but have some knowledge of guns and their basic mechanisms, and this thought just came across. If you could make cartridges out of polymer/plastic, and they are significantly lighter, wouldn’t you want to switch to them asap? yet there is no adoption. On the other hand shotgun shells have always been plastic but it’s not problematic in any way? why is this the case?
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One issue is that polymer casings dont hold on to heat very well. A shotgun is not typically a rapid fire weapon (some can yes), where a rifle could be needed to fire quickly with multiple reloads in both semi and full auto etc. A brass cartridge fired from a rifle will carry a good amount of heat out of the weapon with it, leaving the chamber with less heat and thus able to safely fire for longer periods. I believe this is part of the reason the army gave up on the polymer belt fed expirements they were doing in an attempt to lighten the load for machine gunners.
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