Ammorn's hijacked thread. He loves you guys.

Ammorn

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air guns don't work In Space

because no air In Space, by definition
If the air tank could withstand the added stress from no atmospheric pressure on the outside of the tank, then it should work fine in the vacuum of space. Then again that's only a 14 pounds per square inch difference. Now the big problem I could see is loading rounds into the chamber, since it uses a gravity fed tube magazine. You'd have to shake the rounds into the breech block, or be spinning to sling the rounds in with centrifugal force. Other problems could arise as metal parts of the same metal type that come into contact can cold weld in space given the right conditions. So, you might not be able to take the air tank off if the threading on the receiver and the tank are both the same metal, and the action and trigger could size up. Then again I think the oil lubricating the parts would prevent that since IIRC the parts have to be clean of any substantial amounts of foreign matter to cold weld.
 

maynard

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If the air tank could withstand the added stress from no atmospheric pressure on the outside of the tank, then it should work fine in the vacuum of space. Then again that's only a 14 pounds per square inch difference. Now the big problem I could see is loading rounds into the chamber, since it uses a gravity fed tube magazine. You'd have to shake the rounds into the breech block, or be spinning to sling the rounds in with centrifugal force. Other problems could arise as metal parts of the same metal type that come into contact can cold weld in space given the right conditions. So, you might not be able to take the air tank off if the threading on the receiver and the tank are both the same metal, the action and trigger could size up. Then again I think the oil lubricating the parts would prevent that since IIRC the parts have to be clean of any substantial amounts of foreign matter to cold weld.
cartridges with explosive propellant are smaller and less massive (there is no weight In Space) than tanks of compressed air

when will you realize the futility of arguing with the Rocket Surgeon?
 

Ammorn

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cartridges with explosive propellant are smaller and less massive (there is no weight In Space) than tanks of compressed air

when will you realize the futility of arguing with the Rocket Surgeon?
Conventional firearms will work in space. The USSR's Almaz program was a manned spy space station program before they developed the technology for spy satellites. They were armed with a 23mm autocannon mounted on the belly of the craft and had 32 rounds of ammo. OPS-2 was included in the Salyut program as Salyut 3 to disguise it's military purpose, and before it was abandoned and deorbited they did a remote test of the gun since they were worried about excessive noise and vibrations. It worked. Also of note, there's firearms routinely in space, since the Soyuz Capsule survival kit included a TP-82 survival gun in case they landed in the wilderness. The TP-82 is a 3 barrel break action combination gun with the 2 upper barrels being smoothbore 40 gauge shotgun, and the bottom being rifled and chambered in 5.45x39mm. In 2007 they switched to a semiautomatic pistol in the survival kit.
 

Ammorn

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One cool gun is the Gyrojet Gun. It's more of a ballistic rocket launcher since it fires 13mm thrust vector gyro stabilized rockets out of a smooth bore barrel with an open chamber. It was marketed to the military since it wold work underwater and in space and had little to no recoil. It would accelerate when fired, with a low non lethal muzzle velocity and at 60 feet it would have accelerated to 1,250 feet per second and the 180 grain rocket had 50% more power than a .45 ACP at that range. It suffered with accuracy and reliability, and the ammo was expensive and more complicated to produce than conventional ammo. Last I heard Gyrojet rounds will go for about $50 per round if you can find it since it's a rare collector gun. It's the closest to a Warhammer 40,000 Bolter that you can get, though I'd love to build one I could get the manufacturing licensing.

 
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