So essentially you're potentially proposing modern heeled bullets then?

I have a feeling that this would be somewhat incompatible and or expensive/requiring more manufacturing steps due to the way modern jacketed ammo is made. But that's just my first impression on it.

Heeled bullet illustration below.

autogun said:

A thought crossed my mind: as I understand it, one problem with polymer versions of metal cases is that the necks have to be very thin, hence TV preferring a neckless design for their clean-sheet 6.8 mm NGSW. A alternative approach might be to design a bullet with a reduced diameter at the case mouth, so the neck can be thicker. Not sure if this would allow enough contact with the bore to keep the bullet stable, though.

You mean, just like the Mle1898D bullet with a 8.15 mm shank riding in a 8.3 mm bore?

That's one option, for sure, but you're still stuck with the very short ogive length of existing military cartridge.

Another option is to use a neckless design, and have 3 "petals" around the bullet. When the bullet starts moving, the petals "open" to allow proper bullet guidance. 

nincomp said:

I am curious to see how much of the bullet's tail protrudes into the propellant space of the neckless designs.  I have often read that doing so with a normal cartridge can reduce accuracy.  Maybe this reduction is too small to be an issue for a military cartridge?

Short necks are no different to long necks. The longer necks are just mechanically stronger and support the projectile better. With the polymer neckless case, the projectile is welded to the case so that isn't an issue. It will allow the the flat body of the projectile to be smaller or even allow a more coke bottle shaped projectile which will will reduce friction in the bore and drag.

nincomp said:

There have probably been designs that tried to tuck the neck backwards into a metallic cartridge body to get the same effect, but I have never seen one. 

It's theoretically possible but would make filling the case problematic, and while it might tension correctly the external neck is much more accessible for testing and correcting errors. 

EmericD said:

You mean, just like the Mle1898D bullet with a 8.15 mm shank riding in a 8.3 mm bore? That's one option, for sure, but you're still stuck with the very short ogive length of existing military cartridge.

Sure - but I was only trying to solve one potential problem without needing to alter the guns: the weakness of thin polymer necks. I wonder how the 7.62mm TV holds up when being hammered through a high-rof MG?

You are of course correct regarding the short ogive length offered by existing military cartridges. They are from a time when nobody thought that small arms would ever have any important role in combat again.  

But I cannot resist to remark that the 6.5x55 Swedish/Norwegian of 1894 offers 25 mm ogive length, compared to the "big" 23 mm of the new wonder cartridge 6.5 Creedmoor. Pity, that Norwegians and Swedes gave up their superior cartridge (sectional density)  for standardizing on 7.62 mm NATO, only to find out that 6.5 mm is now viewed as respresenting the future. 

JPeelen said:

But I cannot resist to remark that the 6.5x55 Swedish/Norwegian of 1894 offers 25 mm ogive length, compared to the "big" 23 mm of the new wonder cartridge 6.5 Creedmoor. Pity, that Norwegians and Swedes gave up their superior cartridge (sectional density)  for standardizing on 7.62 mm NATO, only to find out that 6.5 mm is now viewed as respresenting the future. 

That was a Mauser thing after the 7.65x54. Everything from Mauser had 25 mm for the ogive. The US in their wisdom reduced it on the 30-03/6 and no one else thought it was a good idea at the time. 

Red7272 said...

Short necks are no different to long necks. The longer necks are just mechanically stronger and support the projectile better.

From what I could infer from the "stay out of the propellant" articles, the concern is that the turbulence of the combusting powder at the base of the bullet could effect the initial engraving into the rifling.  None of the articles specified whether the concern was simply bullet alignment or some other evil caused by propellant turbulence on the unprotected bullet base. (Wow! that almost sounds off-color :0  )

As for metallic case designs with the neck within the backwards necks.  Yes, I can see any number of problems when put into mass production.  It still would not surprise me if it had been tried and become one of those ratholes into which money was poured.  There is a big difference between having an IDEA and having A GOOD IDEA. ;)

Red7272 said...

Everything from Mauser had 25 mm for the ogive. The US in their wisdom reduced it on the 30-03/6 and no one else thought it was a good idea at the time. 

Yet another example of the difference between an IDEA and a GOOD IDEA.

You guys know all those decisions predated not just modern understanding, but really any comprehensive understanding of supersonic aerodynamics, right?

Different countries had different levels of (often secret) expertise in this at the time (the French understood it better than anyone else at least until the German wind tunnels arrived), but it's unreasonable to take it for granted that they "should have known" longer ogives would be better.

Only a few years prior to .30-06 (which really had its COAL set by .30-03, not by any aerodynamic principles) the French with their heights of understanding thought that the lowest drag ogive possible was a 2 caliber long tangent, based on atomic newtonian principles. The modeling available wasn't just bad, it was atrocious. The only way to optimize was to just do a ton of testing, but at the time that was EXTREMELY difficult. You can't see the bullets in flight, and the only way to measure retained energy is kinetically (how far does the pendulum move? Try hitting it at 1KM). Add to that their poor understanding of bullet stability and it's a mess. Not everyone figured it out. Certainly not the American Ordnance system, which before WWII was so impoverished it routinely outsourced almost all development to the private sector.

Only a few years prior to .30-06 (which really had its COAL set by .30-03, not by any aerodynamic principles) the French with their heights of understanding thought that the lowest drag ogive possible was a 2 caliber long tangent, based on atomic newtonian principles. 

Depends on what you call "a few years prior".

In France, nearly all the work on modern bullets was done between 1893 & 1896, and i7 bullet form factor as low as 0.82 were achieved at this time (and they had access to better instruments than only ballistic pendulum, electricity was known at this time).

So, 7 years before the adoption of the .30-03 everything was known (but kept secret), so ok let's say that the .30-03 and the .30-06 were just a bad timing...

The USA produced the Mle1898D bullet during WWII, and were perfectly aware of its ballistic advantage. By 1917, they did know that the shape of the Mle1906 bullet was not as good as it was supposed to be, so they copied the Swiss GP11 to make the .30 M1. During the '20s, when the "impoverished" US ordnance developped the .276 Pedersen, the bullet shape was following the best recipe known at this time.

They reverted to the Mle1906 shape for the .30 M2 excatly because the M1 had too much range, and not enough drag...

During the development of the M59 bullet, the US did known that better shapes were available because they used a secant ogive instead of a tangent ogive, but it was a very short one and didn't even cared to use all the space available. They selected a 1.8 calibre secant ogive when they have space for a 2.5 calibres ogive.

During the production of the .223 Remington, they did know that the 5.5 radius ogive used by Remington to load the cartridge was very inferior to the Sierra bullet used during development.

So, did they know that better shapes were available, I think the answer is "yes".

Did they cared? Not really.