# Bolters...



## rata tat tat

From wikia.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Marines
This seems a bit too heavy for me.

A standard bolt pistol is capable of housing around 30-40 rounds, each round weighing 0.8kg and with a diameter of .75 calibre which is 19.05mm (Warhammer 40k Space Marines Codex)​

A single fully loaded bolt pistol would weigh at least 32 pounds. Good grief. This must only be the SM version. I can't imagine a Commissar hefting that much weight in one hand and being able to aim it.

And, why not a bolt revolver pistol. Check out this prop from a fan site. To me it seems likely from the length of the chambers it could be a bolter.


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## Dirge Eterna

That is a Nerf N-Strike Magnum, if I am not mistaken. I know my fake guns. Dakka!

It looks good, but I don't know if the barrels are wide enough for bolt shells... Definately a great looking prop though. A+ for effort!

-Dirge


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## Klomster

Fun fact Dirge eterna (and totally off topic) my desktop image is the same as your avatar!

On tpic, that is an evil looking pistol mates.


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## Khorne's Fist

It does state that the stats are from the space marine codex, so it's safe to assume it's marine issue. The sizes would have to vary, a marine size and a human size. Considering a modern day GPMG is only something like 27lbs (and that bitch can feel very freaking heavy after a while, believe me), a 32lbs pistol doesn't seem feasible for an unaltered human.

As to the different types of bolt pistol, anyone familiar with Inquisitor scale models may have come across all the variants that GW have designed for the range. There are revolvers in there, amongst others.


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## Son of mortarion

rata tat tat said:


> From wikia.
> http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Marines
> This seems a bit too heavy for me.
> 
> A standard bolt pistol is capable of housing around 30-40 rounds, each round weighing 0.8kg and with a diameter of .75 calibre which is 19.05mm (Warhammer 40k Space Marines Codex)​
> 
> A single fully loaded bolt pistol would weigh at least 32 pounds. Good grief. This must only be the SM version. I can't imagine a Commissar hefting that much weight in one hand and being able to aim it.
> 
> And, why not a bolt revolver pistol. Check out this prop from a fan site. To me it seems likely from the length of the chambers it could be a bolter.


the most likely scenario is that they got the magazine capacity wrong, since that is a bit high even for a rifle, which typically have capacities around 20-30 rounds. The weight migh also be off, as that is about half a pound each, which is wayyyy too heavy for a .75 cal round, which has seen service, during the time of the american civil war. the likely weight is probably closer to 2- 3 oz. ea, with a capacity of 5-15 rounds, depending on magazine. a .45 auto has a magazine capacity of 7 rounds, but the mag is in the grip, with the setup that a standard bolt pistol uses, it is likely that it has closer to the 5 round range. I don't have it on me, but I believe that the dark heresy rulebook has the capacity near there, not the 30-40 round business.

Remember, with wikis, any fool and their brother can post an article, and there is no peer review, nor are there any requirements to verify information by citing other sources.


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## Meowmix

rata tat tat said:


>


You know, they could have at least sanded off the "Maverick" logo on the bottom.

Also, I've got that exact nerf pistol (unpainted, of course). It's quite fun.


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## Dirge Eterna

I think I like the logo down there. Gives it a "I just bought this, and it's STILL going to kick your ass." 

Plus, it makes that part of the weapon more interesting. Nothing says "Meh" like a featureless weapon.

-Dirge


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## Cato Sicarius

Son of mortarion said:


> the most likely scenario is that they got the magazine capacity wrong, since that is a bit high even for a rifle, which typically have capacities around 20-30 rounds. The weight migh also be off, as that is about half a pound each, which is wayyyy too heavy for a .75 cal round, which has seen service, during the time of the american civil war. the likely weight is probably closer to 2- 3 oz. ea, with a capacity of 5-15 rounds, depending on magazine. a .45 auto has a magazine capacity of 7 rounds, but the mag is in the grip, with the setup that a standard bolt pistol uses, it is likely that it has closer to the 5 round range. I don't have it on me, but I believe that the dark heresy rulebook has the capacity near there, not the 30-40 round business.
> 
> Remember, with wikis, any fool and their brother can post an article, and there is no peer review, nor are there any requirements to verify information by citing other sources.


No, they haven't. These are Space Marines, super-human men, capable of spitting acid, lifting rocks the size of a 60" TV, and wearing Power Armour, which enhances their strength even more. These sort of weights would be to them what a calculator is to us - rather light actually. 

And yes, according to Lexicanum at least, the Imperial Guard use smaller versions than Power Armoured humans (including Sororitas as they wear Power Armour). To a Power Armoured human, the Space Marine Bolter has only a tiny amount of recoil, so they have to make the guns considerably smaller in order to let the Imperial Guard keep their working arms.

So there's your answer - yes, they are talking about Marine ones, as if these were issued to Imperial Guard, everybody would be running away with broken arms instead of being shot by their own side.

P.S. It's fiction - the measurements don't have to be exactly correct mate.


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## Baron Spikey

They've done a typo and put the words *Bolt Pistol* in place of *Bolter*, an understandable mistake. The Bolt Pistol only holds 12 rounds max in a sickle magazine and can hold as few as 6 in some magazine types.

Not sure about the ammunition but that also doesn't sound terribly accurate and I'm not sure where they've gotten THAT info from.

@Cato- actually Space Marines still have to train extensively with Bolt Pistols because even with the added strengthening aspects of Power Armour the recoil of such a weapon can still throw their if they try to use it 1 handed. That's why using a Bolter single handed is even more extraordinary.
)ref- 'Space Wolf' by William King, the only novel or fluff I know of regarding the first use of a bolt pistol by a novitiate Marine)


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## Lord Lucius

definetly for marines as i just read my dark heresy rule book & standard bolt pistols have a capacity of 8 bolts .also the rate of fire seems very slow,2 shots in 5 secs.does any one know the fastest modern pistol?


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## Major Maxillary

before I start I should explain that I am an amateur gunsmith, and as such know quite a bit about firearms, thoguh admittedly nowhere near as much as I want. the following is based on observations and musings and nothing more.

To understand the mechanics of a bolter, we must first know what a bolter is and how it differs from the myriad other weapons in 40k.

Las weapons shoot lasers
stubbers and autos are your typical guns
and bolters seem to shoot rockets.

your typical bolter round is likely about the size of a shotgun shell, if not shorter, making up the cartridge is the projectile, and two types of propellant; a rocket motor that would likely kick in after the round leaves the muzzle and the propellant that starts it on its way. the longer the bolter round the farther it can maintain its speed due to larger rocket motor; imagine an ESTES rocket motor tached to the back of a .75 shaped charge slug and then crammed into a shotgun shell, maybe 20 gauge. that's a bolter round, more or less.

since a bolter would be defined as any weapon that shoots bolter rounds, then it's entirely possible to have any sort of weapon to fire them, from a huge stubber pistol to a single shot rifle.

one advantage to rocket propulsion in projectiles is that the round fired provides its own momentum and can even stabilize itself via fins or vectored thrust ports, thus allowing it to maintain it's muzzel velocity and removing the need for a long barrel, or any barrel at all. hence why you see the magazine on a bolter is so far up and the barrel is likely only large enough to hold the round for firing.

anyone who has fussed over a rifled can tell you that this would be a godsend

I suspect that the reason bolters are so large is that they operate on the blowback principle; where the pressure in the chamber and the delay in cycling is maintained by nothing more than the weight of the bolt, or in the case of pistols like the Hi-point the weight of the slide. simply put the bolt needs to be heavy in order to keep the weapon from opening too early, and the larger the caliber the heavier the bolt needs to be; to illustrate a .32 ACP PPK is light as a feather, but a 9x19mm hipoint is huge bulky and above all heavy, even though the difference is only two milimeters of case length and a little bit of powder(32 ACP = 9x17mm aka 9mm kurtz).

so thus bolters are heavy because they have to be for their operaton, but if you were to, say, make a snub nosed bolt-action rifle that took sickle magazines then it would be far lighter, as the breech would lock thereby removing any need for recoil systems.


@ Lord Lucius: the fire rate of any modern pistol is as fast as you can pull the trigger. though this does not mean folks fire that fast normally as most need time to aim. if we're talking a shotgun shell sized cartridge then it's entirely understandable that the fire rate in the hands of an unaugmented human being so low due to it being what folks in the shooting circles call a "wrist breaker."
a real bolt pistol would be up there with the Colt Python, the Taurus Raging bull, or the Wildey Magnum.


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## Baron Spikey

+rep to you Major Maxillary (and my thanks) for a perfectly plausible- hell, likely- explanation regarding what I thought was a typo concerning ammunition weight, and the general usage of weaponry utilising said ammunition.


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## Lord Lucius

cheers major maxillary (+rep)


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## Major Maxillary

Baron Spikey said:


> +rep to you Major Maxillary (and my thanks) for a perfectly plausible- hell, likely- explanation regarding what I thought was a typo concerning ammunition weight, and the general usage of weaponry utilising said ammunition.


I wasn't even going to get into the realm of the ammunition weight of bolter rounds. What with the depleted heavy water core(deuterium lol) and the crazy other crap.

but yeah these things are pretty much Automatic Grenade Launchers similar to some of the newer models to come out of china and Russia.

I imagine the Heavy Bolter as the 40k equivalent to the Mk 19 AGL.

of course its perfectly reasonable to have different calibers of bolter rounds, and that .75 is just the preferred size due to the good explosive yield compared to smaller sizes. following that logic It's very possible to have some sort of welrod or derringer type bolt pistols for self defense or even assasination.


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## Micklez

Cato Sicarius said:


> And yes, according to Lexicanum at least, the Imperial Guard use smaller versions than Power Armoured humans (including Sororitas as they wear Power Armour). To a Power Armoured human, the Space Marine Bolter has only a tiny amount of recoil, so they have to make the guns considerably smaller in order to let the Imperial Guard keep their working arms.


Although in the Capherise Cain (cant remember his name, his the coward of a commissar) books he goes to say that he prefers the Laspistol to a Bolt pistol due to the weight. So Bolt pistols are still going to be pretty heavy


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## Grik

I read somewhere that a bolt round is a .75 calibre shell. Roughly the size of a soda can. I want to say it was in an official GW Codex or release, but for the life of me I can't remember where I read it. I wouldn't mind owning a Bolt Pistol though. It'd be a sweet gun. :biggrin:


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## Dirge Eterna

I remember reading somewhere that the Guard's bolt pistols are smaller then the ones they issue to SMs, because human hands can't fit around the grip of an SM pistol. Also, if you look at the models, then you can tell the sizes are different.

-Dirge


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## CamTheApostle

This isn't really a spoiler, so I can say it. In the Eisenhorn books (not sure which), the titular character is given a beautifully crafted bolt pistol by a space marine librarian. It fits his hand just fine and carries the magazine in the grip. That really doesn't fit the standard image of the bolt pistol we have. 

Some may say that this was just the author's perception and individual touch on matters, but that only feeds Cato's point: Its fiction. Specifics aren't that important.

This is one thing I like about the 40K universe is that terms like 'bolter' and 'lasgun' are generic terms used to describe a multitude of things that are generally alike. For example, modern handguns such as the Berreta 92 (9x19mm parabellum), Colt M1911 (.45 ACP), and the FN Five-seveN (5.7x28mm), are all very dissimilar guns with differing ammunition, magazine capacity, accuracy, and levels of reliability. Yet by the 40K standard, they are all 'autopistols'. And they would all be Rng 12", S3, AP-, Pistol.

So when we look at bolters and bolt pistols, we should also take into account that it is more then likely that there are hundreds, thousands, or possibly millions of different variants and sub-types. Lots of things happens in ten thousand years.


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## scolatae

CamTheApostle said:


> This isn't really a spoiler, so I can say it. In the Eisenhorn books (not sure which), the titular character is given a beautifully crafted bolt pistol by a space marine librarian. It fits his hand just fine and carries the magazine in the grip. That really doesn't fit the standard image of the bolt pistol we have.
> 
> Some may say that this was just the author's perception and individual touch on matters, but that only feeds Cato's point: Its fiction. Specifics aren't that important.
> 
> This is one thing I like about the 40K universe is that terms like 'bolter' and 'lasgun' are generic terms used to describe a multitude of things that are generally alike. For example, modern handguns such as the Berreta 92 (9x19mm parabellum), Colt M1911 (.45 ACP), and the FN Five-seveN (5.7x28mm), are all very dissimilar guns with differing ammunition, magazine capacity, accuracy, and levels of reliability. Yet by the 40K standard, they are all 'autopistols'. And they would all be Rng 12", S3, AP-, Pistol.
> 
> So when we look at bolters and bolt pistols, we should also take into account that it is more then likely that there are hundreds, thousands, or possibly millions of different variants and sub-types. Lots of things happens in ten thousand years.


Well said.


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## Dirge Eterna

Indeed. Given the ridiculous variety in everything else (like lasguns), it is safe to assume Bolters would be different based on function, area in which it is used, and even culture.

-Dirge


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## Cato Sicarius

Micklez said:


> Although in the Capherise Cain (cant remember his name, his the coward of a commissar) books he goes to say that he prefers the Laspistol to a Bolt pistol due to the weight. So Bolt pistols are still going to be pretty heavy


All I said was that it made it lighter and easier to use, not that it made it as light as a Lasgun or similar.


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## Major Maxillary

Grik said:


> I read somewhere that a bolt round is a .75 calibre shell. Roughly the size of a soda can. I want to say it was in an official GW Codex or release, but for the life of me I can't remember where I read it. I wouldn't mind owning a Bolt Pistol though. It'd be a sweet gun. :biggrin:


if that's true then the guys at GW are even worse at dimentions than me, lol.

.75 is nowhere near the size of a soda can, unless soda cans are TINY over there in grimdark England. one caliber is 1/100 of an inch, and bullets are measured by their diameter or the width of the bore that they're made for, sometimes both, so .75 is three quarters of an inch wide.


for reference, pictured is .700 nitro express; a round with slightly less impact energy than the infamous .50 BMG everyone is so keen on banning. I could go into the details of it being a 1000 grain lead slug that strikes with about 14,300ft/lbs of energy and can stop a pissed off rhinoceros dead in mid stride, and that enterprising hunters in WW1 used their trusty elephant guns to deal with brash german snipers who used steel plates to protect themselves, but that's beyond the scope of this post and I already ranted about that elsewhere on the intertubes.

to picture a bolter round; widen this by .5", then shorten it by half, and then make 3/4 the length the projectile and you basically have what a .75 bolter round might look like.

recoil would never be considered "light" so I can understand needing to be in power armor to use the damndable thing, otherwise you'd wind up getting nasty problems like hernia or hemorrhoids from carring it, carpel tunnel from firing it, and not to mention bad posture from trying to stabilize it.


I imagine Guard bolters to be comparable to the .50 Action Express(pictured here next to .32 ACP for size comparison. keep in mind the .32 ACP has a case length of 17mm) or even 500 Linebaugh, at least for their bolt pistols.

or maybe not, we are talking about the techdumb Imperium, here. they probably only have one or two sizes of bolter round due to thinking that if the omnisiah were to deem it necesary to have more than one size of bolter round he's give them a new STC or something. I don't know.


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## Alcoatari

*Screw Russia and China, this on comes from our own backyard, the AA-12*



Major Maxillary said:


> I wasn't even going to get into the realm of the ammunition weight of bolter rounds. What with the depleted heavy water core(deuterium lol) and the crazy other crap.
> 
> but yeah these things are pretty much Automatic Grenade Launchers similar to some of the newer models to come out of china and Russia.
> 
> I imagine the Heavy Bolter as the 40k equivalent to the Mk 19 AGL.
> 
> of course its perfectly reasonable to have different calibers of bolter rounds, and that .75 is just the preferred size due to the good explosive yield compared to smaller sizes. following that logic It's very possible to have some sort of welrod or derringer type bolt pistols for self defense or even assasination.







If you watch this video all the way through, there is a round equipped with a small warhead inside the shotgun shell, Ladies and Gentlemen, America has a bolter too.

(although this one does have a recoil suppression system. Another video depicts a 95 lb woman firing it in full auto...):good:


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## Coder59

Just my two cents here but there is a passage in the Dark Heresy rulebook that states that the Bolters listed in there are 'Civilian' grade models and not nearly as superkickassawesome as the Space Marine 'Military' version.


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## Skye

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Bolter
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Bolt_pistol
I trust Lexi a bit more. Here's a link to the bolter and bolt pistol profiles.


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## shaantitus

Major Maxillary. You know lots of cool shit. Rep.

But we have to remember it is all fiction or we will all go mad trying to get our heads around it.


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## chromedog

The bolter is .75 calibre because it was a 'popular' size at the time in the SF novels and comics the 40k writers were reading (Both The Stainless Steel Rat and Judge Dredd's handguns have been .75cal. SSR's gun was even recoilless.). Given that GW published the Judge Dredd rpg at the time, it was possibly a link to it.

The 40k writers themselves probably know no more than the average hollywood writer about guns (ie, considerably less than you or I).

In Necromunda, you can buy "bolter" shells for shotguns - they're (guns) stated as being 'modified' to fire the round (single). Given the size of the 'standard' bolt round, the shotguns might be as large as 10ga, but it is also concievable that they are the smaller arbites scaled rounds fitted with sabots for use in a 12ga.

Major Maxillary. +rep to you, sir. You've done a man's job.


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## Tuck3r

That and the statements about "bolt" guns being very generalized is REALLY accurate. In one of the Soul Drinkers books not sure which and i don't wanna skim my omnibus just now. an Inquisitor attempting to locate the soul drinkers has a revolver firing boltshells slightly longer than normal because the adeptus mechanicus added behind the exploding shell a guide system based on a lazer line o sight at time of fire on whatever you we're pointing it at they also replaced the explosive in the tip with somethin else essentially making every shell as mini impguard Voidstrike missle. the one where everything in radius is cut into the warp. that one and from what i remember of the description it would look like the nerf bolter in the first post but with alot o intricate filigre and purity seals.


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## magnus962

Excellent shenanigans happening in this thread, it satisfies me greatly.

Also, I cannot for the life of me remember which novel I read that included it, but I am certain there was one where a standard human picked up a dead space marine bolter and fired off a burst into an enemy which threw the human to the ground from the impressive force. Which would go to backup the claim that the variants between human/ space marine stuff is exceptionally different even if our generic name is not.

Anyone happen to remember that novel or story?... its been bugging me since the start of this thread.


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## Tuck3r

i've read that in one of my Space marines novel's i think it was the ultramarines book where urial ventress is assisting a defence against the nyds not positive on that though


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## hailene

But it doesn't make much sense.

First, bolters are smoothbore weapons. They don't need riffling to put a spin on the bolt shell. This cuts down considerably on recoil.

Secondly, bolt shells don't really accelerate until after they leave the bolter. This means that the force within the barrel is comparatively small.

A .75 bolter should be easy enough for a human to shoot.


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## forkmaster

CamTheApostle said:


> This isn't really a spoiler, so I can say it. In the Eisenhorn books (not sure which), the titular character is given a beautifully crafted bolt pistol by a space marine librarian. It fits his hand just fine and carries the magazine in the grip. That really doesn't fit the standard image of the bolt pistol we have.
> 
> Some may say that this was just the author's perception and individual touch on matters, but that only feeds Cato's point: Its fiction. Specifics aren't that important.
> 
> This is one thing I like about the 40K universe is that terms like 'bolter' and 'lasgun' are generic terms used to describe a multitude of things that are generally alike. For example, modern handguns such as the Berreta 92 (9x19mm parabellum), Colt M1911 (.45 ACP), and the FN Five-seveN (5.7x28mm), are all very dissimilar guns with differing ammunition, magazine capacity, accuracy, and levels of reliability. Yet by the 40K standard, they are all 'autopistols'. And they would all be Rng 12", S3, AP-, Pistol.
> 
> So when we look at bolters and bolt pistols, we should also take into account that it is more then likely that there are hundreds, thousands, or possibly millions of different variants and sub-types. Lots of things happens in ten thousand years.


Just look in the codex where it says there are different patterns of lasguns with different sizes of clips (if you read Guns of Tanith you see there are at least 5 different sizes of clips) used by different regiments, depending on taste and where they are from.


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## Ordo Xeno Commander

You're kidding right? The force needed to propell a .75 bolt out of the barrel at sufficient speed for it to engage its own rockets without seriously affecting flight is quite significant. You don't want a long delay between you pulling the trigger and the bolt hitting its target, in fact you want that to be as small as possible, so the firing charge would have to be sufficient as to propell the shell out at speed. This alone would create one helluva recoil, considering the expanding gases which while pushing the bolt forward, are also pushing back against you.

To put it into a today scenario, I do believe the MK19 is similar. It's a smoothbore weapon (I think, from what I've seen of grenade launchers). You hardly see people picking it up and firing it with insufficent recoil. Heck it needs a tripod to support it and it definitely shakes considerably when fired. Now I know this isnt an exact parallel, but its close.

Take into account also the size of a Space Marine vs a Human, their bolters will be too bulky and big for us to handle in the same way as a rifle. Their recoil would be more significant due to the fact that they can handle it, so they have less need to reduce said recoil.


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## hailene

The entire point of a gyrojet weapon is for it to be light with little recoil.

If they wanted a heavy gun with recoil, then they'd just make a normal gun.

And you don't want the bullet to "propell (sic) the shell out at speed". That ruins the purpose of a gyrojet gun.


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## Ordo Xeno Commander

But then the delay between trigger pull and the round hitting its target would be insane, making it a somewhat pointless weapon. The round needs to be traveling at a sufficient rate so that when the engines on the round do ignite, it does'nt have to accelerate too much. You'd hardly want the somewhat heavy .75 cal shell to be dropping out of the barrel. 

I'm not saying they would make it a heavy gun, but no doubt it would be heavier and more efficient than the human pattern due to the fact that the Marines can handle that kind of weapon.

The light and low recoil part is entirely relative. So what a Marine counts as light and low recoil may be something quite heavy with high recoil for a different user.


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## hailene

Or a weapon that requires a bit of getting used to. If only the warriors utilizing it had life spans of 100s of years...

Also I think you're underestimating how quickly a bullet (well, rocket, really) can get up to speed. The "real" gyrojet weapon left the barrel at about 100 fps. By 30 feet out it's already cruising at 1,250 feet per second.

You also want most of the acceleration of the rocket to occur outside the barrel. Since that's, you know, sorta the point.

Also I want to note the grenade launcher you mention with the tripod has a diameter of 40mm. In addition, all the force of the grenade is done within the barrel. As opposed to outside, as is the case with gyrojet rockets. So it's rather moot.

Anywho, off to bed. Will check up in the morning.


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## Ordo Xeno Commander

I was talking about the force required for the grenade to leave the barrel. But whatever, obviously you know more about gyrojets than me.


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