just with electric clockwork

Hell I bet I could do it

it'd probably break after 100 rounds but I bet I could make something that'd work

I'd supercap it and use the gas system or pump to charge the cap via piezoelectric shit

and have support for just plugging cr123's in

burning nickel filaments is easy and not super duper high amp

The ammo would be hard but I don't think it'd be impossible

I'd probably just use nitrocellulose paper

there are some methods for soapifying the shit

The clockwork and levers could just be printed sintered metal where it'd be exposed to high temps

maybe I should make a pea shooter 22

that'd be fun

My primary worry irl has been

when we move to electrically controlled everything

Is the ATF going to classify all of it as "Easily converted to fully automatic"

because when you're literally autoloading with solenoids and gas, and a button is just controlling a brain box

there's really nothing stopping you from tapping in

Well until there is a major breakthrough that is functional/ practical for the everyday idiot we are stuck with what we have for the most part for a while

We're stuck fighting for AR15s

If you're doing away with the mechanical hammer in exchange for an electronic ignition, you're dependent on electronics anyway, would it be worthwhile to go the extra mile and do away with the whole gas operation and simply have electrical operation? What are some practical considerations/hurdles?

running out of battery and being unable to cycle the gun except manually for one

you would ideally have some way to draw a bit of power from the cartridges to drive the action

if not neccesarily via gas then something else

nobody likes needing two kinds of thing to make their gun work

the ammo

and then the other ammo

to make the first ammo work

maybe electromagnetically draw power from a coil along the bore of the barrel?

>shrug

then bullet passing through the coil induces current to drive the mechanism

i dunno how well that would work though

it would probably need to be a superconductor to generate enough power

e.g. motor rotating a wheel, wheel transfers motion to a piston (steam engine style), piston attaches to bolt

well yes but if the bolt is reciprocating back under power already then what is the electricity even doing for you

It wouldn't, the bolt is typically gas-operated, here you'd do away with the gas operation entirely

are we talking purely doing away with a firing pin? i dunno that building a steam engine style crank to charge things up is actually simpler than a mechanical firing pin

No

well i mean unless its delayed blowback, there is no such thing as the bolt moving except via some kind of gas operation

well wait okay maybe the unlocking could be electronic

Getting rid of the firing pin and using an electrical pulse for ignition (like a spark plug, even) is a very obvious go-to when you're going for something caseless

then the rest of the extraction is from the force of the casing being driven out of the barrel by gas force