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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I think some people here have no idea what they’re talking about.
The reason is hasn’t been adopted across the board is the same reason a lot of things don’t get adopted immediately. Momentum. Most bullet manufacturers are set up to make bullets the same way they’ve been making bullets for a hundred years. With a brass cartridge.
In regards to case pressure, there is something to be said about that, but most of the pressure in the bullet is contained *by the barrel of the gun*. There’s a reason you can throw a grenade down a tank barrel without a problem. The tank barrel is made for something exploding with 1000 times the pressure. Some people won’t load a bullet into their gun if there is a dent in the case. I’ve done it a few times with no problem, *because the bullet case just expands to fit the chamber*. Load it with a dent, it comes out without a dent. The pressure is contained in the chamber and barrel of the gun.
Something to be noted, before I continue. Polymer cases aren’t entirely polymer. They still have a steel or brass base. There are a couple reasons for that, not important for this discussion.
Do a search for “polymer ammo casing”. I found an article on gunsandammo.com that features a picture of a man catching the polymer case of a 50 caliber rifle, something that you shouldn’t do with brass because it would burn you. Polymer doesn’t absorb heat as quickly as brass, it’s an insulator rather than a conductor, so most of the heat goes down the barrel. You can find more results with the same search terms on youtube of people firing the rounds.
The company spearheading polymer ammo is called True Velocity. They’ve made ammo in many different calibers and tested it with zero issues.
The one downside that I know of, that can legitimately be argued in civilian use, is that brass ammo can be reloaded. Polymer ammo can’t be. Neither can steel case, but people buy a lot of that. And .22 ammo is brass, but nobody reloads that because it’s so cheap.
For the shotgun question, if you search on youtube for Taofledermaus, those guys load shotgun rounds and you should figure out why certain statements here are wrong.
edit: I didn’t discuss cost. Yes, they are more expensive now. As with all other new technologies, price will go down over time. Look at how much a computer hard drive or a flat screen tv used to cost when they were first introduced. They were unobtainable for the common consumer.
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