02-14-2013, 04:41 PM
What is the optimum internal pressure for a small arms cartridges employing current generation smokeless propellant? This is the beginning of your quest. Here is a hint the Grendel is actually slightly low. It needs a nominal increase in internal pressure by remit of a slightly faster propellant or a heavy ball projectile.
Bullet construction should be matched to the hit probability (sigma x, sigma y) which dictates effective range and the target definition. (You do have a target definition of course? repeatable specified material and defined barriers to examine the performance requirement)
Now you need only balance recoil and controllability vs weapon weight and muzzle blast.
The final jigsaw piece is to then define the weapon durability. This is a real trick. Weight is directly proportional to durability which the influences the controllability.
WX6 at Fort Halstead used to call these weight performance spirals and looked at them in terms of carried kills. You are either going up or going down but to stay constant is near impossible.
So the dilemma that now sublimes is not so much how can you improve the Grendel, that is easy, but why should it be improved and to what specification. It is easy to say we need more but difficult to define why.
Here is a example of the puzzle. We have an AP that at the expense of range will pop through ESAPI at 100 yards. Equally we have heavy ball that will devastate glass, body armor and woodwork but the lethal arc is too short and carried kills drops.
Bullet construction should be matched to the hit probability (sigma x, sigma y) which dictates effective range and the target definition. (You do have a target definition of course? repeatable specified material and defined barriers to examine the performance requirement)
Now you need only balance recoil and controllability vs weapon weight and muzzle blast.
The final jigsaw piece is to then define the weapon durability. This is a real trick. Weight is directly proportional to durability which the influences the controllability.
WX6 at Fort Halstead used to call these weight performance spirals and looked at them in terms of carried kills. You are either going up or going down but to stay constant is near impossible.
So the dilemma that now sublimes is not so much how can you improve the Grendel, that is easy, but why should it be improved and to what specification. It is easy to say we need more but difficult to define why.
Here is a example of the puzzle. We have an AP that at the expense of range will pop through ESAPI at 100 yards. Equally we have heavy ball that will devastate glass, body armor and woodwork but the lethal arc is too short and carried kills drops.