# a simple question about the bolter!



## dewn_moutain (Aug 7, 2010)

Ok. So I am sitting earlier today on my lunch break looking at the SM codex, casually ignoring the mock jibs thrown my way for playing this game, when it dawns on me...

WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH THE BOLTER??

Now, what i mean is, take a look at the bolter. now look at it some more. now take a good HARD look at it. Notice anything off? ill offer a hint, Its the ejection port. 
Now, i know the stats behind the bolter; it fires a .75 caliber, miniature rocket propelled, fin stabilized explosive warhead round out to a range of (roughly) 450 meters accurately {gw never really specified the max range or anything like that}. It can come in different ammo patters, the dragonfire, the kraken round, the hellfire, etc, which is awesome. i love reading about that lil tidbits of fluff. but i really want to know, how does the gun work. 
You look at it, and the first thing i see is how the ejection port is nearly at the top of the gun, and not in-line with the barrel. And then i look at the pictures of the gun in action, and i see these really small shell casings coming out and i compare it to the barrel of the gun; total mismatch of sizes.

So, has anyone, at any time, read in a previous WD or BL book that makes mention of how this great weapon works?


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## forkbanger (Jan 25, 2010)

Bolters use the same science as spaceships that travel through hell and allow teenagers to be transformed into nine-foot tall genetic supermen with direct neural interfaces to their unobtanium powered armour, to fight extragalactic bioengineered killing machines and sapce fungus bovver boys.

Don't think about it too hard, basically. It's a submachine gun that fires caseless explosive minimissiles, because at the outset 40k was hilariously, ridiculously over-the-top.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

Except that it does have cases. We had a thread about this a while back and basically it amounted to "it's a caseless explosive sometimes."


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

forkbanger said:


> because at the outset 40k was hilariously, ridiculously over-the-top.


It's not anymore? :laugh:

The bolter is also supposed to fire caseless rounds, but in the pictures you always see bolters ejecting casings like it's going out of style. Also, they're supposedly deuterium-filled. Deuterium is a radioactively stable isotope of hydrogen, and according to my sources that's both physically impossible and a terrible idea for an explosive payload.

But, hey, chainswords!!! k:


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Captain Galus said:


> It's not anymore? :laugh:
> 
> The bolter is also supposed to fire caseless rounds, but in the pictures you always see bolters ejecting casings like it's going out of style. Also, they're supposedly deuterium-filled. Deuterium is a radioactively stable isotope of hydrogen, and according to my sources that's both physically impossible and a terrible idea for an explosive payload.
> 
> But, hey, chainswords!!! k:


It uses a depleted uranium core, not deuterium filled. I couldn't find any type of bolt filled with deuterium in it.

I'm no nuclear physicists, but deuterium can be used in fusion reactions with tritium or itself.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

hailene said:


> It uses a depleted uranium core, not deuterium filled. I couldn't find any type of bolt filled with deuterium in it.
> 
> I'm no nuclear physicists, but deuterium can be used in fusion reactions with tritium or itself.


You've obviously not seen the 3rd Edition BRB then where it states that Bolts use depleted Deuterium.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Deuterium, in larger quantities, yes... like a compressed cylinder, roughly twice the size of a camping propane canister, with a microwave-emitting detonation device and a rip-cord primer handle. This, we call the meltabomb.

Or, on a weaker scale, in massive magneto-resonance chambers housed inside bulky gun-casings, deuterium can be superheated by electricity, then sprayed forward by the magnetic field, producing the effect of a bolt of bluish white plasma gas, racing towards an ork.

Or an even bigger scale, Kawasaki Ninja sized body of ceramic unobtanium-lined inter-stellar torpedo able to survive entry through an atmosphere, containing roughly a one ton TNT equivalent hydrogen bomb without the radiation.. This, we call a melta torpedo.

Back on the subject of Deuterium as a core, in the 3rd ed BGB (the paperback thing they stopped selling maybe 8 years ago?) showed a model of the bolter round, I think, or perhaps it was that edition's space marine codex. Either way, in the old design, it was recorded as deuterium, but I'm sure GW changed the name to depleted uranium when they realized that it was widely known that deuterium was just hydrogen with an extra neutron.

As to the caseless issue. I have seen a lot of diagrams showing bolter shells and their casings. In some, the casing is very short, just enough tubing around the bolter shell to hold it there until the primer is triggered, but in other cases, the casing is much longer, housing about half the rocket fuel inside the casing. I would presume this has to do with ammo stability and making sure the backing (and used primer) are ejected properly without any jamming issues. With an actual casing, you have something big to fish out when it jams, if you have a small back plate with the spent primer, you have little to reach for, and probably won't be able to dislodge it.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Baron Spikey said:


> You've obviously not seen the 3rd Edition BRB then where it states that Bolts use depleted Deuterium.


After some research, I stand corrected.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Belthazor Aurellius said:


> Deuterium, in larger quantities, yes... like a compressed cylinder, roughly twice the size of a camping propane canister, with a microwave-emitting detonation device and a rip-cord primer handle. This, we call the meltabomb.
> 
> Or, on a weaker scale, in massive magneto-resonance chambers housed inside bulky gun-casings, deuterium can be superheated by electricity, then sprayed forward by the magnetic field, producing the effect of a bolt of bluish white plasma gas, racing towards an ork.
> 
> ...


I'm looking for some where where the bolter uses depleted uranium and other than lexicanum I can't find one...so until proven otherwise GW hasn't retconned the Depleted Deuterium core of a bolt shell. (plus it was 6 years ago since 3rd Edition not 8)


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## Loki1416 (Apr 20, 2010)

forkbanger said:


> Bolters use the same science as spaceships that travel through hell and allow teenagers to be transformed into nine-foot tall genetic supermen with direct neural interfaces to their unobtanium powered armour, to fight extragalactic bioengineered killing machines and sapce fungus bovver boys.
> 
> That is the best, well thought out answer I have ever read! For whatever reason, I laughed my ass off! Have a couple rep for makin me laugh!


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## dragonkingofthestars (May 3, 2010)

the US army tryed some thing like this once (the JPEG bellow is of the pistol), called it the Gyro jet it stand to reson that we can infer propertys about the bolter from the Gyro jet

its perks were and these are abridge qutos 
from ://www.deathwind.com/project.htm

No Recoil:Actually there is a slight negative recoil as the projectile actually tends to pull a vacuum in front of itself because of specific design features and the “Coanda” effect.

Very Little Noise:Only a whoosh sound

Superb Accuracy:The projectile design itself is inherently accurate because of the extremely high spin rate 

Air, Water, Space , Multi Environment 

the reason the USA dumped the Idea was that it had a accuracy problem due to manufactering problems dueing testing that made the Miltary thing the weapon idea it self was the problem. check that web site up there for more.

compare it to the bolter, the Gyro jet was case less, but unlike a normal bullet the thing speed up as it went down range meaning that the farther away you are the more dangerus it is, so for max effect you should combine it with a case for close range performence, this plus the negitive recoil would mean a net 0 recoil this is how you see marines fireing them one handed, trying doing that with a AK-47. the Bullets were not exposive but kentic though it not a far strech to think about puting a warhead on this micro rocket. this also explains the short size of the boter, compare to a space marine its more like a carbine really it becuse unlike a true gun it does not need a long barrel to allow the gas's to speed the Bullet up as it get full speed farther down range. notice the holeon the barrel these let the expanding gass escape as a bolter has no such holes it stands to reason the gas's are harvested to speed the round up yet faster. the bullet could be made from any thing from plasteel to Deuterium to depleted Urainum, would depend on the model really it likely changes based on whats hand, what the chapter traditionaly uses, and what model there useing. 

thats about if for my spree and all i could think of on the subject,, whoo that is the longest post i had made to date.


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## 5tonsledge (May 31, 2010)

you cant make logic out of a fantasy game because simply it doesnt exist. if you want to play with logic thin about the fact that people are geneticly eginereed to 8 foot tall people with unabtainible metal armor and multiple organs. oh and try this they live forever practicly. oh and a dead emperor who lives because of his active brain being pumped nuietrients to live on. so really theres no logic. but yo have to think GW probably paid those artist to make the drawings for them and the artist probably have only a general ideal about what the marines look like and fluff so its not there fault. plus the cartridges are cool


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

dragonkingofthestars said:


> the US army tryed some thing like this once (the JPEG bellow is of the pistol), called it the Gyro jet it stand to reson that we can infer propertys about the bolter from the Gyro jet
> 
> its perks were and these are abridge qutos
> from ://www.deathwind.com/project.htm
> ...



It looks like you know a hell more of these things than I do, so have some rep :victory::victory:


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Baron Spikey said:


> I'm looking for some where where the bolter uses depleted uranium and other than lexicanum I can't find one...so until proven otherwise GW hasn't retconned the Depleted Deuterium core of a bolt shell. (plus it was 6 years ago since 3rd Edition not 8)


My bad.

On the whole recoilles pistol shown above: Bolters in fluff have a certain crack and roar to their report. Erego, simply by fluff accounts of their sounds, we can draw that the bolter does indeed require some element of explosive propulsion. Also, I believe in the current incarnation, the bolter has a small casing in the back with enough propellant to ignite a fuse in the rocket, while simultaneously propelling it down the length of the bolter shaft. The bolter, therefore is not a caseless gun. The shell does self-propel, but requires a kick out the door too.


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## Turkeyspit (Jun 11, 2010)

"Lt, what do those pulse rifles fire?"
"10mm explosive tipped, caseless. Standard light-armor piercing round, why?"
...and yet if you watch carefully, you can see shell casings being ejected as Crpl Hicks and Friends mow down the aliens.

What's my point? Caseless ammo sounds good, because it implies progressive technology. At one point in the mid-90's, it looked like caseless ammo was going to be the ammo of the future - obviously that hasn't happened yet.

So the fact that bolter ammo is currently *not caseless*, should not really be an issue. I think the mass-reactive aspect of the bolter round is enough of a leap forward in technology - no need for it to be caseless as well. Afterall, we still see heavy-stubbers and auto-guns around, don't we?

The evolution / retconning of lore in W40K can be an issue, no doubt. That's why it's best to always look at the current rulebook/codex for information.

For example, in W40K Rogue Trader (essentially, version 1 of the rulebook) there was no Horus Heresy, Eldar mingle freely with other species (because their lives are boring without external contact), the city of Helsreach is located on a planet called' Logan's World, which is in the Eye of Terror, which 'blinks' every few years, shrouding a number of worlds in a Warp Storm.

Things change - just gotta roll with it :wink:


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Apparently the original bolters were caseless had similar problems to the gyrojet pistols; at very short ranges the projectile wasn't lethal. Since then the bolters and ammunition have been modified (sometimes by the owning Marine, and the specs don't always line up with other boltguns, apparently the Techmarines turn a blind eye to it) to have a propellant charge; more often than not this is a cased explosive.

Take a look at weapons like the FN-F2000 and you'll realize that the ejection port doesn't have to be in line with the barrel, and since it's just to get the round up to speed and out the gun at a decent rate, it doesn't have to be very big either...


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## dewn_moutain (Aug 7, 2010)

Khargoth said:


> Take a look at weapons like the FN-F2000 and you'll realize that the ejection port doesn't have to be in line with the barrel, and since it's just to get the round up to speed and out the gun at a decent rate, it doesn't have to be very big either...


i just took a look at the thing, very interesting. would be interesting to fire one of those. gave you some rep khargoth

would love to have the money to have a gunsmith actually build me a working copy of a bolter. would be nice to have on me at a games day...lol!


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## Tuck3r (Apr 9, 2010)

I saw some probably dangerous garage born schematics for a caseborn mini rocket gun and a short video

What they did was take a model rocket engine and put metal fins smaller than the rockets width on the back that would provide spin and keep it on a designated parabolic arc. then the added some gunpowder to a casing designed to fit snuggly around the rocket. the ignition from the gunpowder propelled the rocket out of the barrel where the freshly ignited rocket extended the parabolic.

Though they showed the gun up close and the concept looked pretty sound but they didn't show it fire from up close they showed it from a distance then ran up to the target where they'd hit the 9 point ring on an inch and a half bulls-eye. not even sure of the distance of the target so i don't know if it was fake but from a standpoint of what little physics i know it seems pretty sound... that would explain the casing and what not but i wouldn't recomend too strongly that you try it unless you have a pretty strong grudge againsty your hands


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

I was actually planning on building one, shouldn't be all to diffiult, althouh I don't know if I could legally do it since the round would be an explosive.. So I was justi going to use .308. Not a true bolter but good enough.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

.308 bolt pistol? Commissar's sidearm?


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## chromedog (Oct 31, 2007)

The main purpose for an eject port on a 'caseless' weapon would be for the rapid removal of dud rounds or to clear a jam. Even if the AM had a 99% quality on bolt round production, that still amounts to a LOT of potential duds. 

Without the port, you would have to DISMANTLE the gun to clear a jam or dud round. Even for a space marine in the middle of a battle, this is a bit much. A quick flick of a lever can clear it so much quicker (and I'll imagine that there are systems that allow the marine to select this function remotely through the suit interface systems - the PA HUD includes damage to systems and weapons status, it's not that much more of a stretch).
Given that in Space Hulk, storm bolters can jam (potentially making the ammo store go boom - called a 'cook off' if it's bad enough.).

The ONE production caseless assault rifle (Heckler & Koch G-11) still had an eject port.
Its rounds had the projectile seated into the block of propellant and had no actual casings (brass, etc) unlike regular bullets. This was its purpose (clear jams or duds).

More than likely, the fluff justification ruling is this:
Bolt rounds are a two-stage projectile. The actual round is caseless but it requires a kicker charge to give it a lethal enough impact potential close to the muzzle (the main weakness of the gyroc/gyrojet). 
It is THESE casings that are ejected.

In a similar way that grenades launched from most grenade launchers have a casing purely for the kicker charge to get it out of the barrel.


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## Grins1878 (May 10, 2010)

Turkeyspit said:


> Caseless ammo sounds good, because it implies progressive technology. At one point in the mid-90's, it looked like caseless ammo was going to be the ammo of the future - obviously that hasn't happened yet.


Would the original ball shot from muskets be classed as caseless? :wink:

Be handy as hell to go caseless nowadays, save picking up the brass after a day at the ranges!


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## Turkeyspit (Jun 11, 2010)

chromedog said:


> The main purpose for an eject port on a 'caseless' weapon would be for the rapid removal of dud rounds or to clear a jam. Even if the AM had a 99% quality on bolt round production, that still amounts to a LOT of potential duds.


Hadn't really thought about it, but yeah, that makes sense.

But, please be aware, the bolt round *used* to be caseless. Somewhere along the way, as the rulebook was revised, it was changed, and now has a casing just like regular ammunition.

I repeat: there is no need to justify an ejection port today, because as far as current fluff goes, the bolter rounds are *not* caseless. :victory:



Grins1878 said:


> Would the original ball shot from muskets be classed as caseless? :wink:


Well..er..I guess. But then their leap forward in technology was rifling the barrel to improve accuracy


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

I was looking through the space marine codex. Some of the images of Bolters or Bolt Pistols actually don't have the ejection ports. There's even a sketch of an ornately decorated bolgtun in the style of the old 1st-ed version (long, narrow body, magazine near the front, pistol grip, pretty simple), and it doesn't seem to have an ejection port (though it could just be a left-handed bolter?).

Also, from the images of SM in battle, in the main rulebook, there's some images where a few of the marines are shooting with ejection ports, and a few, while having the same size and shape bolter in the image have a relatively detailed bolter with no ejection port. I think what the artists might be conveying is that yes, some bolters are caseless, but that some have been modified over time either by marines, guardsmen or the mechanicum, and that these modifications were either accepted, or falsely claimed to be "rediscoveries" of older patterns, thus gaining acceptance from the Mechanicum.

As GW likes to point out that not everything is as the general summation of 40k suggests, it is possible that not all ingenuity has been lost to the Imperium (Space Marines invented the Land Raider Redeemer, essentially)... At least, not entirely. I think.


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## dewn_moutain (Aug 7, 2010)

Tuck3r said:


> I saw some probably dangerous garage born schematics for a caseborn mini rocket gun and a short video... that would explain the casing and what not but i wouldn't recomend too strongly that you try it unless you have a pretty strong grudge againsty your hands


meh. use a thick enough metal tube, and itll withhold the pressure of the blast. shouldnt be too hard to make it....trouble will be making it automatic....


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Belthazor Aurellius said:


> As GW likes to point out that not everything is as the general summation of 40k suggests, it is possible that not all ingenuity has been lost to the Imperium (Space Marines invented the Land Raider Redeemer, essentially)... At least, not entirely. I think.


They apparantly also invented the Annihilator variant of the Predator tank too. The Adeptus Mechanicus declared it tech-heresy of the worst kind, but begrudgingly investigated the designs due to the undeniable success. Eventually they decided it was an original design and gave it the blessing of the Omnissiah; by that point the Astartes had been widely using it for over a century.


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