Guns in the future?

[Mr Evilwrench]

We've pretty much reached the apex for powder. If there was anything more than slight incremental improvements to be made, they would have happened in the last fifty. Caseless? Maybe not quite, you have to have something to hold it together, but you may be able to do it with something that will burn off on firing. The projectile just is what it is. We understand the ballistics about as much as we're ever going to. Railguns exist. The limitation is energy transfer, and to improve, you're going to be heavy into superconductors. Nothing practical or portable, maybe some naval guns or fixed emplacements. Now, lasers are getting interesting. We may be able to scale the power up a couple of orders of magnitude, presuming the energy storage keeps up. That "phased plasma rifle, forty watt range" may indeed show up. There's no bullet drop with a laser. Otherwise, we're pretty much going to see more sophisticated aiming devices, like the scope that can calculate drop for any given load (this already exists) and can factor wind in. Gives you a crosshair where the bullet's going to hit at the range of the target. No brainer, but it's still going to be a copper jacketed BTHP from a brass case through a rifled barrel, driven by smokeless powder.

 

[95wrangler]

Caseless? how about making a plastic explosive burn slower like gun powder, form it into a cartrige shape and glue a bullet to the end? Or just use c4 with said bullet and build a gun that can withstand the pressure! That would improve tragectory!

 

[Sylvain]

They already to caseless rounds.

 

[IncendiaryGunner]

We have some decent laser systems...

BBC News - Laser gun fired from US Navy ship

U.S. 'Star Wars' laser plane shoots down ballistic missile | Mail Online

I do not think small arms versions of lasers will be widespread any time soon... burning a hole through someone is a pretty wicked way to kill them...

Sonic weapons is another potential variety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myWxwNQfo-8

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Yes, I know there's stuff called caseless, but it still has to be held together, and protected from the elements. There may have been some experimental ones, but where are the ones ready to be let loose in the wild?

The difference between high explosives and low explosives is that high explosives explode, while low explosives just combust rapidly. High explosives can't really be slowed down meaningfully, and will cause destructive pressures regardless how thick your chamber is. You will explode a gun with each round fired. Not a viable plan.

 

[88E30M50]

I'm thinking that 40 years from now, guns will look and work pretty similar to how they look and work today. Which is pretty much how the looked and worked 40 years ago and 40 years before that. Sure, there are some nice advancements like laser sights, tritium sights, LED gun lights, polymer frames, etc... but the basic function has not changed much in 100 years. I think the reason it has not changed much and will most likely not change too much is that an effective gun needs to balance simple function and reliability with usability. Most revolutionary designs give up too much in some category to catch on. At its most basic level, a gun is simply a tool that can transport an energy source in a safe manner and then expend that energy in a very specific direction. Engineers will have to find something as simple and reliable as gunpowder to transport energy and that's a tough thing to do.

Couple that with the impending troubles we are going to go through in the next 20 years and it's going to be tough to come up with something better than what we currently have. Science advances on a wave of excess energy and we are nearing the end of the wave that's carried us for a couple of centuries. A lot of our current toys will be useless as the huge amount of energy available slows to a trickle. I'll bet that if you were transported 50 years into the future with a DVD and a box of .308, one of those will be usable and the other will make a nice target to shoot at.

 

[JoshuaW]

What if the RFID scanners in store and other places, they could tell where you go with that gun.

That's like a GPS but it's still tracing.

Not really. At the most that provides a network of check points, which you found easily avoid. GPS is an in-demand and precise system, nothing like you describe. Besides, by the time such a network could be created we would all wrap our holsters in duct tape and be done with it.

 

[60Driver]

Some great ideas above. Clearly I think "intelligent" rounds and aiming systems will become far more prevalent, think XM-25. Stronger and smaller electronics will allow guided/ranged munitions in small arms. Maybe IFF (indentification friend foe) rounds are a posibility. Small aerodynamic fin to stear round off target if it picks up friendly IFF. Man portable energy weapons are a maybe, power requirements are pretty tough engineering hurdle to clear. But 100 years from now I honestly think that despite carrying an overhead guided intelligent munition firing future M4 Mod 2211 you will still see this....it has lasted 100 so far no reason it won't go another 100...

Not just saying this because I have, do and will carry one. Think about it, electronics can be jammed, emp'ed, hacked etc. At the end of the day when the wizz bang stuff fails, your AIMPOINT goes TANGO UNIORM or 100 round super Beta mag train wrecks, guys still reach for old reliable. I carried pretty high tech AGM-114s to deal with threats on the bird. They are a phenominal weapon system. But at the end of the day I was damn glad to have JMB's good ole Ma Duece spitting .50 Cal hate mounted on the other side. Simple, brutally effective and no high tech countermeasure stops it! Though I would like some tungsten penetrator cored HEI 230gr 45 ACP please!

 

[indiucky]

Do you think guns in the future will look anything like they do today? What about the ammo they fire? This should be intresting

They will be mosins with black synthetic stocks. In 200 years the supply of mosins will begin to dry up and then they will have to begin making new ones. Until then??? Hold on to your Tula's.

 

[Mosinowner]

They will be mosins with black synthetic stocks. In 200 years the supply of mosins will begin to dry up and then they will have to begin making new ones. Until then??? Hold on to your Tula's.

That shipment hit the USA I think.