There's something I noticed that is practically never touched upon: why did personal firearm magazines universally go the way of using springs to push cartridges into position rather than using a mechanical cam / gear to do so? Since the invention of the autoloader it was only one step away to think of harnessing that same kinetic energy to cycle the next round of a magazine into position.
Is it just more complex? I can't see how linking the elevator of the mag to the bolt movement is any more difficult or requiring of tight tolerances than the gas piston pushing the bolt. The concept of making magazines be so cheap as to be disposable didn't come until much later.
Is it more unreliable? The Lewis Gun seemed to work perfectly fine even for a design hailing from the WW1 era.
The advantage of a mechanically driven mag seems to be too good to pass up; as many rounds as you want with no added reliability issues, no spring to fight against when loading, no long spring to get weak over time, speed of the elevator or rotating pan is always synchronized with the gun's action... So what gives?
because the Lewis did not work "perfectly fine". it took careful inspection of the drums to make them reliable.
Other systems, as used in the BREN or VGO were far more expensive than conventional box mags.
The drums used in the Mg15 (and similar) were simply absurd.
Adam Jackson
(cont)- The only one that came close was the helical screw drum used in many aircraft cannon, and it is something that will never see use in small arms because of the sheer complexity and size.
Landon Martin
>Mechanically driven magazines?
well that's a cartridge elevator really.
Adrian Moore
You’re spending too much time thinking if we could, and not stopping to consider if we should
Lucas White
But the Bren and MG-15 used springed mags?
Julian Diaz
Because springs worked and its cheaper and lighter than putting a mechanical system in every magazine. That said LSAT was looking into what they called "Weapons Powered Magazines", which is pretty much what you're describing. From the somewhat vague interviews done about the program is seems to be part way between a belt and a magazine and does have the advantages you describe but it also seems to have been abandoned. Personally I always wanted to see someone try a weapon powered version of a helical magazine the Calico has. They're clunky pieces of shit when spring powered. >because the Lewis did not work "perfectly fine". This is correct but its not really a result of the being weapon powered, but due to other design aspects of the pan magazine. Not really, thats just a part of the action. They still have a traditional magazine feeding into the action. Of the extant technologies its actually closer to a belt feed than anything else.
One of the most basic principles of mechanical engineering is keep it simple, stupid. Don't spend hours on a finicky newfangled complex mechanism when a five hundred year old design for a simple coiled piece of metal works better.
Evan Lee
yes they did. And they were also junk.
Blake Jones
A mechanical magazine isn't that complicated user. You already have the bolt reciprocating, and theres a dozen simple ways to make that feed the action. Magazines are the number 1 cause of malfunctions in small arms. There's a good argument for "positive feeding".
pic related is a hack job conversion on a weapon that was never intended to use a weapon powered feeding mechanism and even it isn't that complex. Something specifically for it would be even simpler.
I really wonder how reliable the helical mags are. The spiral direction they are pushing it in has to generate a ton of friction. Calico's design is one and the PP-19 also uses a helical mag, this type of mag is just really rare. The Russians seem to like the PP-19 so I guess it works fine?
Never knew that the LSAT program had that as a side project, but its right there in Wikipedia. Nice find.
>a gear or two that pushes up the follower bit by bit is complex >a spring that needs to be the right metal of the right tempering and the right length for this amount of rounds that can bend around the curve and apply equal pressure on both ends of the follower that loses strength over time yet can't be too stiff or its unloadable or will kill the feed lips
Please enlighten me how that's supposed to be an argument for them rather than against them.
Jordan Diaz
>Mechanically driven magazines A traditional revolver cylinder is one.
Levi Foster
t. caveman
Carter Diaz
Other than "they were junk"? Deal with them yourself. That's how I learned.
Jayden Williams
But if spring based magazines are junk then we're learning that weapon powered mags are better.
Grayson White
Holy fuck were you asleep?
Mech driven drums were prone to failures.. Spring driven drums were prone to failure. Only a few specialized works paid off. Those are in service feeding 20mm cannon in the USN ans USAF .
Kevin Martinez
But you mentioned the Bren, which uses box mags...
Every ounce that goes into a mechanism is an ounce that could have been ammunition. Springs work, are simple to produce, and maximize ammo capacity.
/thread
Jordan Cooper
You don't thread your own post, retard.
Jeremiah Roberts
And they dont maximize capacity, because the compressed spring uses space in the magazine. This is especially bad in drums. just look at stuff like the beta-c.
Dominic James
Lewis guns were notoriously unreliable in Dutch service in WW2.
Bentley Morgan
The evans lever gun was supposedly very reliable. Just a pain to reload when you actually ran dry.
