Calling the gun nuts: is this plausible?

[Thande]

I just had a funny idea for an alternative or possibly future firearm lock, but I don't know enough about the subject to know whether it's plausible or not.

Flintlocks worked by flint striking steel and thus producing a spark to ignite the gunpowder, while modern percussion locks work by using chemicals that ignite when compressed. However, what about a "piezo-lock"?

This kind of technology, in which a struck quartz crystal produces an electrical discharge, is currently used in gas lighters. Could it also be a plausible alternative means of a firearm lock? Perhaps in the 19th century?

 

[Mike Stearns]

Interesting idea. I don't know whether this would work for handheld Infantry weapons, but for crewed machine guns, artillery and Naval guns, it might be a possibility. A TL where this is developed might get to coherent engery weapons a lot faster that in OTL.

 

[Wanderlust]

Electrical ignition? Like Aliens' Pulse Rifles

 

[CaRL]

I don't see why it wouldn't work. Don't the MetalStorm Systems use a similar principle?

 

[CalBear]

It would work, but what would be point be? The reason that the percussion cap/primer cap has been in use for 150 years is that it is simple, cheap, and, in the cartridge form, effectively idiot-proof.

The tech needed to get to the cap was very simple, the surprising thing is that it took as long as it did to come into general use, and once discovered was easy for even local manufacturing resources.

 

[The Dean]

Metal Storm uses electric ignition and Trevor Baylis is working on a piezo electric battery charger to be put in the heel of a shoe so that every step taken a jolt of charge goes into a storage cell. Now squeezing a piezo generator lights a torch bulb I see no reason why it would not ignite gunpowder or fulminate of mercury.
Now I have an idea, my boy has a piezo electric torch operated by squeezing the handle. I think I shall have to take it apart and carry out a few modifications and see if I can ignite some powder from a cartridge. I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[MrP]

Metal Storm uses electric ignition and Trevor Baylis is working on a piezo electric battery charger to be put in the heel of a shoe so that every step taken a jolt of charge goes into a storage cell. Now squeezing a piezo generator lights a torch bulb I see no reason why it would not ignite gunpowder or fulminate of mercury.
Now I have an idea, my boy has a piezo electric torch operated by squeezing the handle. I think I shall have to take it apart and carry out a few modifications and see if I can ignite some powder from a cartridge. I'll let you know how I get on.

Sadly, this was The Dean's last post on ah.com . . .

 

[Thande]

Metal Storm uses electric ignition and Trevor Baylis is working on a piezo electric battery charger to be put in the heel of a shoe so that every step taken a jolt of charge goes into a storage cell. Now squeezing a piezo generator lights a torch bulb I see no reason why it would not ignite gunpowder or fulminate of mercury.
Now I have an idea, my boy has a piezo electric torch operated by squeezing the handle. I think I shall have to take it apart and carry out a few modifications and see if I can ignite some powder from a cartridge. I'll let you know how I get on.

Er, that isn't quite what I had in mind Thanks though

 

[Thande]

The tech needed to get to the cap was very simple, the surprising thing is that it took as long as it did to come into general use, and once discovered was easy for even local manufacturing resources.

That's rather disingenuous. None of the chemicals involved exist in nature, the reason being that - well - they're explosives and would detonate almost as soon as they formed. We're not talking gunpowder here, the preparation of fulminate of mercury, potassium perchlorate, lead azide etc is quite complex.

While there wasn't a chemical 'industry' in the early 19th century, there were a great number of natural scientists involved in chemical and electrochemical experiments after Davy and Lavoisier made it fashionable again. If there hadn't been all those people mixing chemicals together almost randomly to see what happened, there wouldn't have been percussion caps for decades or centuries more.

 

[Thande]

Additionally, I should point out that potassium perchlorate's preparation requires electrolysis, which was not invented until the latter half of the eighteenth century. Fulminate of mercury was possible at any time, as nitric acid, mercury and alcohol have all been known since antiquity, but it takes a great deal of chemists messing about over a long period of time, for someone to add them in the right order.

 

[CalBear]

That's rather disingenuous. None of the chemicals involved exist in nature, the reason being that - well - they're explosives and would detonate almost as soon as they formed. We're not talking gunpowder here, the preparation of fulminate of mercury, potassium perchlorate, lead azide etc is quite complex.

While there wasn't a chemical 'industry' in the early 19th century, there were a great number of natural scientists involved in chemical and electrochemical experiments after Davy and Lavoisier made it fashionable again. If there hadn't been all those people mixing chemicals together almost randomly to see what happened, there wouldn't have been percussion caps for decades or centuries more.

Well, if you are planning to wipe out that entire branch of scientific experimentation (BTW: wouldn't that rather wreck your Ph.D??) then I am wrong. However IOTL the cap was a "bound to be" event

 

[Thande]

(BTW: wouldn't that rather wreck your Ph.D??)

The best PhDs end up wiping things out, like preconceptions

Well, if you are planning to wipe out that entire branch of scientific experimentation

Not really. I mean, consider the odds. You had alchemists and iatrochemists experimenting throughout the 17th and 18th centuries without ever coming upon suitable cap reagents. It's not as though they had the stuff but no-one had thought of making caps - that came straight after the substances were discovered in OTL. In that sense it was an obvious idea, although I'm not sure if that's what you meant. The 19th century work was built on a solid foundation. Possibly caps are inevitable, but if Davy and Lavoisier and just a few other men hadn't re-popularised chemistry at the end of the 18th century (the early to mid 18th century was a desert as far as chemistry's concerned) then it could have been delayed for decades, maybe even a century.

Not that that has much to do with this thread, though I suppose you could argue that the quartz piezoelectric effect could have been discovered before percussion cap reagents (I don't think that's beyond the bounds of possibility).

 

[Chuck Mandus]

I just had a funny idea for an alternative or possibly future firearm lock, but I don't know enough about the subject to know whether it's plausible or not.

Flintlocks worked by flint striking steel and thus producing a spark to ignite the gunpowder, while modern percussion locks work by using chemicals that ignite when compressed. However, what about a "piezo-lock"?

This kind of technology, in which a struck quartz crystal produces an electrical discharge, is currently used in gas lighters. Could it also be a plausible alternative means of a firearm lock? Perhaps in the 19th century?

IIRC from the old James Burke "Connections" TV show (1978), I think it was Allesandro Volta (sp) experimented with a "glass gun" that fired a cork where he kepts swamp gas inside and he used a spark to ignite it. It MIGHT have used a piezo-electric ignition system. Going from that, I say it could be possible.

 

[The Dean]

Sadly, this was The Dean's last post on ah.com . . .

Reports of my demise were exaggerated, I couldn't resist trying this out and used the stripped down torch as a spark generator to ignite the propellant removed from a .22 rifle round. Only the slightest squeeze of the torches piezo generator gave enough spark to set off the propellant. So I would say that putting a piezo generator in the trigger mechanism to produce a spark in the cartridge instead of the cap or rimfire ignition would work.
I also found I could ignite the propellant when I put a piece of wire wool across a 9v battery's terminals. The wire wool immediately burst into flames and set off the propellant. This is the sort of firing method Metal storm uses; electrical spark generation, not wire wool; I just could not resist trying it out.

 

[Thande]

Reports of my demise were exaggerated, I couldn't resist trying this out and used the stripped down torch as a spark generator to ignite the propellant removed from a .22 rifle round. Only the slightest squeeze of the torches piezo generator gave enough spark to set off the propellant. So I would say that putting a piezo generator in the trigger mechanism to produce a spark in the cartridge instead of the cap or rimfire ignition would work.
I also found I could ignite the propellant when I put a piece of wire wool across a 9v battery's terminals. The wire wool immediately burst into flames and set off the propellant. This is the sort of firing method Metal storm uses; electrical spark generation, not wire wool; I just could not resist trying it out.

Well done, Deano!

Come to think of it, a battery-powered spark is an interesting idea, too...I have this impression of Napoleonic soldiers walking around with Voltaic piles wired into their muskets

The trouble is, it'd have to be a significant improvement over a flintlock...could it be made waterproof, perhaps?

 

[The Dean]

Well done, Deano!

Come to think of it, a battery-powered spark is an interesting idea, too...I have this impression of Napoleonic soldiers walking around with Voltaic piles wired into their muskets

The trouble is, it'd have to be a significant improvement over a flintlock...could it be made waterproof, perhaps?

In the spirit of experimentation I shall fish the dead torch out of the bin, where I hid it at the bottom, and see if it will generate a spark in the rain; or in the absence of rain as the bank holiday W/E is over, the shower.

 

[Thande]

In the spirit of experimentation I shall fish the dead torch out of the bin, where I hid it at the bottom, and see if it will generate a spark in the rain; or in the absence of rain as the bank holiday W/E is over, the shower.

Are you going to continue trying out my daft mad scientist ideas until you get yourself killed?

At least let me give you Igor hazard pay!

 

[The Dean]

Are you going to continue trying out my daft mad scientist ideas until you get yourself killed?

At least let me give you Igor hazard pay!

Playing with stuff dangerous? never, now trying to explain to my son why I had to throw away his torch.....

 

[Thande]

Playing with stuff dangerous? never, now trying to explain to my son why I had to throw away his torch.....

Suggest something to do with drinking the battery acid, or was that just me?

 

[Haggis]

If you pee on it it'll usually recharge. Or keep it cold.