Remaking 1960s GYROJET Rockets - Part 2: Test Fire
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- I've been working hard on bringing the Gyrojets back to life. I'm sure most of you already know about them, but in a nutshell they were tiny rockets invented in the 60s that were supposed to have a ballistic performance similar to that of a 45 ACP. Needless to say, they were a complete failure, and nobody has ever tried anything similar again. Until now 😎. In fact, the original design really left something to be desired, under many points of view which are covered in detail in the videos. I've made this topic into a 3 part series, with all 3 videos uploaded at the same time, covering as many aspects as possible. Not only will I be exploring a very interesting subject, that of rockets, but mostly I'll be trying to answer one question: if it had been designed properly, would the Gyrojet really stand a chance?
If you can and want to help me making videos like this, you can directly support me on Patreon:
/ backyardballistics
with your help, I can keep making educational content without having to give up my freedom of speech to the advertiser's needs.
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One step closer to the Holy Bolter! And this time it's even the correct size!
Patience Brother, we have many millenia until the Great Crusade.
The Final "bolt" will look more like a typical bullet, with a more conical shaped tip. But that can wait until propulsion is gotten right. Something as fast as typical 45cal. pistol round is a good place to start.
*grabs chainsword* Where's the heretics??
@@DocWolph The bolter also has the benefit of being two-stage: The first being a more typical cased firing, which grants it an initial kick, and allows sacrificing some rocket propellant for the explosive
What is the bolter, the flamer, the missile?
-The incarnation of destruction, by which we bring about the death of the Emperor's foes!
To-Do:
1. Make them be able to hit smaller things than the broad side of a barn.
2. Make them explode on impact.
3. Make a fully automatic launcher.
4. ???
5. FOR THE EMPEROR.
Next step: chainsword
@@Badchi we already have this lmao. Its easy compared to the bolter. Unless you want that nano-molecular bullshit.
@@Sollapoke Ok, melta-guns then
There is actually a working weapon system that has the same acceleration method as a bolter. It is a 2A28 73mm low-pressure cannon mounted on BMP 1. So technically we can already crusade in the name of the Emperor, we just need an exosuit to carry the thing. Fits the Warhammer vibe quite well
@@Badchi closest we can get are thermite launchers
In a fantasy unsiverse like Warhammer 40K this Bolter is way more impressive as it turns out in the real world. Thank you for the interesting content.
Glad you like it!
Bolt has a casing with gunpowder charge for initial acceleration, hence the famed recoil. The rocket motors switch on after leaving the barrel and assist during the round's flight, improving the ballistics and increasing effective range.
yeah, we're making a bolter but it's probably going to be way less bulky, lighter, with less recoil and less ugly.
Look up the Frag-12 shell for the AA-12 shotgun. That's just a bolter. I don't care that it's not a rocket propelled micro grenade round. It is a micro grenade of the same caliber as a bolter that's engineered to detonate a split second after impact, like a bolter, and will literally blow a human in half, like a bolter, and can kill everyone in a 3m radius with the shrapnel, like a bolter.
Shame using them is a war crime.
@@MeepChangeling seems pretty humane to me. shouldnt be a war crime
I have been thinking about the modern Gyrojet rocket design for so many years....suddenly TH-cam recommended your video lol :)
Same I have a idea that could bring it back
Does yours have electric ignition? My imaginary design does...and yes youtube suggestions brought me here
That’s how watchlists work you get on one they recommend them all
TH-cam is spying on your brain.
Artificial intelligence at its creepiest?
You are doing the Emperor's work techpriest.
"Just wanted to see the rocket fly"
Perfectly understandable reason. Well done.
I'm now a subscriber.
-Fin stabilizers, maybe spring loaded.
-12 gauge 3in shell package, shotgun primer ignition
-Ported shotgun barrel mod for Mossberg 500
-Screw on noze cones
-Tactical nuclear warhead tips available for military and law enforcement only
You probably have the best "gun" youtube channel of all. Focusing on education while still keeping it entertaining. Love your videos, keep it up!
Well actually no some are quite scientific
hahaha, no
This is Part 2 of 3 of my video series on the Gyrojet. You can find the other two parts at these links:
Part 1: th-cam.com/video/FUATE-Ci1n0/w-d-xo.html
Part 3 (on my second channel Beyond Ballistics): th-cam.com/video/2PIBQCsYogk/w-d-xo.html
you can order Mel Carpenter's book on the gyrojets at this link: www.gyrojet.net/
Dovresti linkare il secondo canale nella pagina dei canali sul tuo canale
Also aluminum has a higher thermal expansion compared to steel so if it expands it sticks to body harder.
Very exciting project! You should put the link to the second channel in the descriptions of the videos, too. That's often the first place people check.
Wow! That's impressive! I almost bought a Gyro-Jet at a gun show back in the 70s. It was a bit pricey, so I passed on it.
Good call and bad call, you missed having a relic but money is precious
@@kabardino1337the resale value is great now though. Wonder what ROI it would make
I was under the impression that the "you could hold it with your fingers at the muzzle" thing was a myth/exaggeration. The numbers I've seen and the testing taofledermaus did seems to indicate that, while it would be lacklustre as a weapon, it would still seriously injure you if you tried
From the pistol barrel it would be almost harmless, although certainly not pleasant. There is a documented case of a robber stealing a gyrojet pistol and shooting all 6 rounds at point blank against a man, who didn't sustain any injury. The robber threw away the gun in disgust and run away🤣
@@Backyard.Ballisticsthat is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while, thanks!
This is absolutely fascinating. Thank you for taking the time to do this, and for sharing it.
I'd really be interested in buying a more refined 12 gauge version if it ever became commercially available and was safe to shoot out of a pump action. Honestly, novelty shotgun ammo is already full of interesting loads, I would love to have something like this to add to the collection!
take a 20 gauge buckshot round, dremel off the lip and remove the primer. take a 12 gauge round, remove everything down to the charge. slide 20 gauge into mostly empty 12. if things work exactly right, the 20 gauge charge won't have enough compression to do anything but burn like a rocket as it launches... note: i'm not crazy enough to try this.
I was very impressed many years ago with the Gyro... It seemed to me just marvelous, until I came here and watched your videos and realized its drawbacks.
Anyway, I´m very glad to see a folk that is investigating this principle.
Hope very much that you will do more research on it.
Many thanks..!
I’m so glad you did this development. You did a fantastic job in researching and development an improved projectile. I have been fascinated by the Gyrojet system since it first came out, and I think you have done a wonderful job improving it. Now I’m going to watch your next video.
Hi just wondering if a 2 stage would be beneficial? One for initial acceleration, 2nd to hold speed add gas to reduce drag.
Have a standard firearm type kicker charge to launch it, then a second stage that kicks in once it's far enough away to no longer be a danger to the user.
Then build an automatic long arm (rifle), call it a bolter and profit$$$
So basically a bolter from Warhammer 40k
@@Legitpenguins99 A 40K bolter would be an automatic RPG.
@@DeltaPi314 the bolts are only about the diameter of a 12 gauge shell, so hes on the right path to making one. Slap on an initial powder charge, toss in some binary explosives in the front, and you got a modern day bolter
That’s how many if not most modern rocket launchers work, they have an ejection charge that shoots the rocket out then the rocket motor kicks in, in many launchers this is lethal it’s so powerful, a small black powder charge with some card board behind it should work, but it would not spin the rocket to stabilize it, it would just push it out of the tube
If your shooting an M136 Out of a turret at a target up in the mountains above you and point the back of the launcher into the vehicle on accident,it will kill everyone in the vehicle (some lessons are learned the hard way)
rocket-ramjet may be worth looking at.
What you want is something like a M72, which is a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Burns out entirely inside the launch tube. And even that, using the best propellant at the time, never did damage by impact. You basically need to add an enthusiastic chemistry warhead to make a Gyrojet useful.
Or you could use a few positrons, that might work.
@@gabrielclark1425 so, an either electric or antimatter warhead. Containment is . . . an issue.
What a fantastic project you undertook. I think your video shows that you improved upon the original design for the Gyrojet projectiles. Thanks for sharing your work in this video series.
Now I'm off to your second channel to watch you make these.
Dude this is so next level in concise , interesting information . Love it , thank you for your effort
the end result reminded me of the Luftfaust a 20mm 9 barrel AA rocket launcher used in the last days of WW2 by the Germans, well done hope you get time to work on the project again
It astounds me that your restoration videos do so much better than this. To be this project is some of my favorite stuff from youtube, and apparently its not even a lack of exposure that makes people disinterested in it.
I would even donate money to see other testing of this sort, not that it would be enough.
Always loved the Gyrojet idea since I learned about it, amazing work my man!
Keep it alive ;)
You are my style of mainiac. Much respect from TheGulfOfTexas.
A modern reimagining of decades old technology that just never quite made it. Truly amazing work.
Thanks for doing the research on the Gyrojet and actually building prototypes - with actual measurements and calculations!
I actually heard about Gyrojets in an old science fiction story by Larry Niven, probably written in the 1970’s. He mentioned the ammo as being expensive at $1.45 apiece, which has to sound like the deal of a century after manufacturing your own!
If you ever want to pick up this project again, I’d love to help. I’ve built some amateur rockets and engines, and still have reference material on propellant formulation, chamber pressure and burn rates, grain casting, thermal analysis, etc. And I have a box of empty CO2 cartridges that I knew would be good for something, someday!
This is amazing. So entertaining and cool. Thank you for both the work put into the project, and for creating the video series to help us understand choices and reasonings.
my pleasure!
Great project. Thanks for sharing your your gyrojet project!
Brilliant work, sir. Thankyou for being so thorough with documenting each and every step. That will make it much easier for the next person
Really loving your channel(s) and how you record, and present your different subjects. Very well done, keep up the great work!
Americans: 50 Cal AK.
Italians: Gyrojet remake.
This is a severely underrated channel.
So awesome. I was amazed when I learned about the original
Very cool revisit of a very sci-fi bullet. A lot of work, research and testing to get a really nice result. Well done!
Hopefully you come back to this because I loved the Gyrojet the moment I first saw it, and since then I've been frustrated that we haven't seen more attention given to it, it was such a wild invention. (Needs to be in video games at least!)
I'd love to see it make a comeback as a gun-nut's favorite toy lol
There's lots of downsides to it. It's nearly useless at close range and way too inaccurate at any other distance. You might have something as a flechette delivery system if the games were in outer space.
how well would a hybrid design work?
have the primer and some powder in a stubby but relatively normal casing, with the burning of this powder being what ignites the rocket propellent through the nozzles themselves.
this would give an initial 'kick' to accelerate the projectile down the barrel and also serve to cycle the action. dealing with low MV issue at the cost of a bit of recoil and a small shell to eject.
Wait, isn't that just a bolter from 40k?
@@gabrielmirandahurtado6539 if you make the rounds explosive tipped
Maybe the primer can be heavy loaded so its push the rocket and ignite it
Why bother? Did you blink when he showed the remains of the rocket afterhitting concrete?
I'm delighted that someone in another part of the world has this much interest in one of my country's weirdest and most unusual and innovative "firearms". A remarkable effort and project. Love it! 😃🚀 Launching model rockets was one of my favorite things as a kid in the '80s. We did all kinds of dumb and dangerous things with the rocket engines back then... 🙄 Sounds like these may be breaking the sound barrier as well!
6:00 that, battle brothers. Is the sound of vengeance.
A rifled barrel combined with a powder charge to give initial velocity as well as ignite the rocket would seem a reasonable next step in what is clearly an attempt to build a bolter.
These are some hefty rockets you have made there. The kinetic energy is rather large. I did not expect that at first. This can be considered a really dangerous firearm. Pistol like velocities after 15 feet is quite good!
The accuracy can be worked on. Maybe if you have the body extended beyond the nozzle, and remove a lot of the material, just to give it some sort of elongated tail like a ww2 bomb. That should keep it flying straight. I once did a project on water rockets, we made one with fins, that one did not fly straight. The one with the tail stabilized ever time without failing.
Maybe you can get a bullet shaped nose on it by making a punch and a die, and putting a piece of sheet metal under a hydraulic press. That should do good. If you set it up right you could even make the serrations for the stabilizing fin in the sheet metal disk that is to be formed/pressed. That way you only need 2 operations. One is punching the disk, one is forming the disk.
I am sure this design will work well. Finding faster burning/smokeless powder to leave less of a smoke trail may be solved by just dissolving smokeless powder in acetone, and forming it (yes i repeated that part, this should be tried IMO.. :P).
A closer fit to the barrel would obviously give it better accuracy. Maybe rifling a barrel at the same twist rate of the rockets will also help stabilizing(???).
I think these rockets start to look like the dumb fire rockets on helicopters of planes. Those are usually stabilized with fins to make them rotate. They do not have rifling in the barrels.
Once the accuracy problem is solved, these rockets may actually prove to be accurate and deadly to extended ranges. Maybe longer burn time will give them more range too. But then it starts to look like some sort of regular rocket.. Any way, i think it is really cool to see this project come to completion with such good results!
Greetings,
Jeff
Someone plz take this up I would love to see this taken to its full potential.
That's basically the precursor to a bolter from 40k lol
That’s in part 3 lol
To hold the aluminum nozzle you could try adding a groove around the outside and crimping the steel case around it.
This is beyond cool. Would love to see a shotgun slug with a rocket element so it could start out subsonic and then reach supersonic speeds. Would be great for use with a suppressor. It’s so unfortunate that rocket ammo wasn’t developed further
Why would anybody put a suppressor on any weapon that is using a supersonic projectile..?
@@Blazin130 if muzzle velocity is subsonic then the suppressor will be much more effective. The rocket element could then take the projectile to supersonic velocity, allowing for greater range
@@sackofclams953 I was thinking of using the suppressor as a stealth-element, concealing the user's position - which would be counteracted by the supersonic projectile. I've no gripes with the fact that effective range would be increased, I'm more concerned about the mini sonic-boom that would negate the noise advantages of using a suppressor.
This 12 gauge rocket ammo reminds me of AAI's work on 18.5mm rocket-boosted flechette shells for use in their (very bolter looking) 18.5mm Submachine Gun.
oh man love to see you take this further
I can just imagine Taofladermaus salivating at the thought of high speed camera test of this impacting his gummy bear. It's too bad you didn't make many more for him to try.
Omg. It was an amazing project. Your incredible man.🤘
Wow dude, what a video! really appreciate the effort!
Cheers from Argentina! love your restoration videos!
Thank you for this mini-documentary and step-by-step explanation I really like the concept. I may end up using a similar concept it into my capstone , might be a email in the future.
What a fun project!
Ty for a very interesting pair of videos explaining a bit of why the Gyrojet did not work very well or at all really .
I still remember the fanfare about the Rocket Gun, I was about 10 when it first came out, and about 20 when it was gone.
But I did use it in my Traveller game in the 70s and I saw it used in a few other Sci Fi or modern type games .
Because even if it was a flop, it was a great idea for Sci Fi games, because of the Coolness Factor.
The true potential in this tech was never replacing small arms. It is miniaturing 20-40mm autocannons into man portable medium machine gun type weapons. There’s a niche to be created there in real life weapons squads
Maaan you rock. Love your shit.
Interesting that you are revisiting this technology. Great project
Man that’s really great. Thanks for sharing.
It's very tempting to suggest that you could put driving bands on these to fit a rifled 12 ga. slug barrel and load them into a shotshell with a small charge of black powder to clear the bore and ignite the propellant (the shotgun primer might even do the job of ignition). You'd eliminate the bore windage from your test launchers, get the rockets spinning (possibly even eliminate the seemingly annoying-to-machine angled nozzles -- allowing a single central nozzle and short stainless screws to replace the cross pin), and provide some initial velocity. I think these rockets, potentially converted to central nozzle but without further modification, would be practical in that launcher (as a bonus, they could be fed from the tube magazine of a pump shotgun).
Here in the USA, there might be problems with regulations that could define this as a Destructive Device, but they'd likely be okay since they'd be fired from an unmodified shotgun and don't include an explosive charge.
The ATF just officially declared those new GyroJet rounds as "fully semi-automatic machine guns".
He’s Italian
They can’t do anything
@LabRat Knatz Dont give them ideas....These ridiculous jokes tend to have habit to turn into reality these days..
What a great project!
I've never seen a range designed with protective walls like that. Very interesting. Very expensive to build but would be necessary if making an outdoor range in a populated area. In my state in the US we have large conservation areas and they usually build a range with a tall berm of dirt/rock/sand at the end of the range and the same walls between lanes of increasing distance so the entire range doesn't have to stop firing for the other distance lane to check/change targets. But they are so far away from populated areas they don't need the protective walls, at least I've never heard of an accident here from a stray bullet from someone aiming over the berm on purpose or accident.
Awesome !!
Impressive.You did great.It was very fun to watch.Thank you.
An improvement. Good for suppressive fire.
Very interested to see part 3 when I can find it
Impressive thrust at 3:22. Even more in later versions.
Very cool. Thanks for sharing your endeavor.
Very impressive and thank you so much for your dedication, well done!
Interesting project. Looking forward to part 3 of the series.
It's already uploaded, you can find the link in the pinned comment
@@Backyard.Ballistics awesome! Thank you
That's seriously cool...
congratulations on the successful launches! This was fascinating to watch!
This guy is a genius!!!
I've wondered whether hybrid of a shell-contained kicker charge and a rocket of this kind would work, generating a much higher peak velocity. It would void the idea of a recoiless rocket, so it would not be a gyrojet proper. but it would make the round more useful - assuming it worked.
also: subbed
It's already in a sci-fi book Warhammer 40k and yes it's the future of long range rounds
@@popinmo This already exists in the real world with rocket-assisted projectiles... but on the scale of 155mm howitzers and up. No one has developed it for small arms due to the engineering difficulties and not offering any overwhelming advantage over better designed bullets and propellants.
And no, 40K bolters are not the future of "long range rounds." By the time it becomes economically feasible to make something like a bolter from Warhammer 40K, we will probably be using directed energy weapons for certain applications--and realistically, something like a 40K lasgun would be *much* more of a gamechanger in the real world than a Space Marine's bolter.
Imagine having a 4 kg weapon that is pinpoint accurate out to 300m and is powered by "magazines" that hold at least 50 full power shots and can be recharged in direct sunlight?! And which also delivers the muzzle energy of at least a full-power 7.62x51mm load to the target with zero recoil for the shooter... and is somehow eye-safe as well? Any nation in this world that managed to develop such technology would be capable of conquering the Earth, because you can bet they'd find a way to scale it up to larger weapon systems (e.g. tank guns and aircraft armament), and it would make ballistic missile defence a cinch as well. Moreover, due to how technological development tends to work in the real world, the autocannon-calibre lasguns (i.e. lascannons) would come well before the man-portable implement, and having a robust, reliable, and potent laser weapon that can punch through any known tank armour would change the way wars are fought indelibly.
@@Schwarzvogel1 not nessarily
After you described how hard it was to design a good rocket I was expecting way less from the test fire footage but that result was awesome! Love the detailed breakdown, too. Assuming the barrel/rifle (launcher?) was safe, would these still be uncomfortable/dangerous to fire (with the exhaust and everything)?
Normally rockets meant to be fired by a man are designed with a very short burn that ends before the rocket comes out of the tube. This way no plume hits the shooter. However, this limits the reachable velocity, and if more velocity/range is required a second rocket motor (booster) is made to ignite once the rocket is at a safe distance from the shooter.
In my case the plume would hit you in the face, but with good eye protection I wouldn't worry too much. The only risk is if the nozzle detached from the rocket, as it would get shot backwards
Why not remaking it to be more like a sabot round? Plastic casing that separates, a more RPG-shaped projectile, and tail fins. I think that would stabilize it a lot.
You are doing the Emperors work!
Could you pretty-please make a hand-held launcher as a follow up? You don't actually have to hold it or anything just wanna see what a precise barrel would do for the design + how the action of the thing would operate. I know you're probably sick and tired of this project by now, but I'd really appreciate one more step in refining it before you call it quits. Your work is amazing, as a maker you really inspire me and I thoroughly enjoyed your Gyrojet series.
Good video. Great work!
Sei tropo forte.... Grazie! Un saluto dal sud della Grecia
Gyrojet: The Return
The sequel is better than the original, baby!
i wonder how well a cross between a Gyrojet system and Metalstorm would work?
imagine something about the form factor of a bullpup carbine, but with 4 barrels with multiple gyrojet rounds stacked up.
Unfortunately I can't think of the name of them but I remember the first time I saw something on the AA-12 it also showcased 12ga grenades that had little pop out fins, not entirely sure how possible that exact design would be for a gyrojet with multiple nozzles but maybe a single one could work
Man just reinvented the Fliegerfaust
Amazing!!!
Dude. This is incredible.
While not accurate, getting shot at with these would be terrifying
You couldn't actually catch them. Some guys on youtube even found an old one and fired it. It goes relatively slow to final velocity but still fast enough to make you a hole in the hand.
I enjoyed revisiting this, and think there was an additional issue with your gyrojet ammunition which compounded the inaccuracy issue, and that is how the fuse partially blocked one of the nozzles.
While it appears to burn off, I suspect that could have caused additional instability issues due to uneven outgassing between the two exhaust ports
Absolutely fantastic thanks for sharing 👍
The main problem with the original is the same problem as this one: fantastically inaccurate. The velocity of a 12ga slug, depending on weight, usually from 1-2oz, 50 grams or so, is typically on the order of 1500+ FPS or about 450 m/s.
It needs proper fin stabilization or shuttlecock stabilization, the jets alone aren't enough to impart spin stabilization on something so small.
One step closer to concealed gyro jet in my edc
Awesome stuff.
This is awesome!
Dude. Your videos are some of the best. I’m hoping to become less poor soon to become at least a low tier donor. Your shit is top shelf. I’ve always been blown away by all your videos
it would be neat if it was possible to make a gyroget style rocket that could be used in existing weapons, I could see the issue with shotguns given the requirement of a rim and the primer on the original gyroget taking up too much room on the rear constricting the nozzles
Great Effort 👏👏👏
Great informative video!
Nice ricochet trick shot
Well Done - Likely a single nozzle design is going to be better and with folding fins for stabilization.
Outstanding!👏👏👍👍👍
Watching your results, I can see why the Gyro jet projectile was a failure. A bullet that goes down a rifled barrel has more spin to make it accurate whereby if you just use a tube with no rifling, you will not have enough spin to keep the projectile straight. Also, the lack of force created another problem as the thrust ratio is very low. So, there are still a lot of balistic issues to overcome. But it was a very interesting video.
Neat!