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Q the James Bond music.
🎶You only live twice, or so it seems 🎶

This is only the 3rd Gyrojet that I've seen in the flesh and it followed me home today. And it came with 10 rockets! It's one of the earlier models in 13mm, after the Gun Control Act of 1968 they switched to 12mm and rifled the barrel.

When you pull the trigger, the hammer (shown uncocked) pivots up and whacks the nose of the rocket, forcing it back into the firing pin, detonating a standard small pistol primer to light the solid grain of propellant. The hammer restrains the rocket until sufficient thrust is developed to recock it. The rocket is now free to go on it's merry way, the exhaust nozzles in the rear are angled to give it spin (some rockets have two nozzles, others have four). With the firing chamber now empty, the magazine shoves a fresh rocket up into position. Note that the slide does not move when firing! You only pull it back to load the built in magazine

As you might imagine, the rocket starts out fairly slow and continues accelerating for 10 to 15 yards or thereabouts. If I do decide to fire it, I'll definitely have the LabRadar chronograph set up! I do believe that reloading for it is somewhere in the impossible range.

An interesting idea that was just too far ahead of it's time.

 

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Edited by DougStump
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Those guns are so cool. It's a shame you can't really shoot them because of the scarcity of the ammo. I wonder how difficult it would be to try to manufacture new ammo for it. Obviously the demand is just not there for a large scale operation of that sort. Really a unique but kind of wild idea those were.

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The total pistol production was somewhere around 2,500, with a much smaller number of carbines. So there really isn't much of a market to justify new rockets. But... Just as a brain exercise.

 

The outer casing (brass plated steel) could be drawn or CNC machined. I don't see why they couldn't be 3D printed on a printer capable of high strength metal. A cost analysis would be in order.

 

The bases were machined and the 2 or 4 nozzles hand drilled with a jig. This probably explains the inconsistent accuracy. The last rockets produced used sintered bases (mold compressed metal powder, then heat fused) and were allegedly more consistent. Standard small pistol primers were crimped in. Again, modern CNC or metal 3D printing should work well.

 

The biggest stumbling block is the propellant. The originals used a single grain of nitrocellulose, allegedly the fuel rods for 3.5" bazooka rockets. Cut into sections, then turned on a lathe (yes!) to the proper size and shape. A center hole bored, and a ignition booster (either a thread of guncotton or a strip of flash paper) inserted in the hole so the propellant burned from the inside out. Yikes! As long as the propellant could be safely machined, CNC would be the way to go and would be much more consistent than machined by hand. I have read a couple of articles on 3D printing explosive shapes. If there was a suitable propellant that could be extruded, this might be the best option.

 

It would be an interesting experiment, but the start-up cost would be very high.

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ammo is not too hard to find, its just insanely expensive, often well over a hundred dollars a round today.

 

MANY Moons ago it was dumped rather cheap when MBA folded

 

There is much myth regarding both the guns and their ammo

 

1st off it was ATF that shut down production

deal was that it was a DD

I have owned both the original 13mm and the later 12mm

never seen a 12mm with a rifled bore

further, spin stabilization occurs via canted venturis

rifling would degrade any potential accuracy. The barrel is no more than a launching tube

ATF let rifling slide as the "barrel" was near zero pressure bearing

 

I was an indulged kid

ended up with a 13mm with close to 500 rounds in the early part of the 70s

shot nearly every round I had

corresponded with MBA engineers as well. Still have some MBA paperwork filed away

 

So guys understand MBA specialized in what was to be the next generation of Combat Weapons

While the Gyrojet is now a cult fan boi thing there were other developments some are very well known and widely used today

 

MBA developed the first bean bag rounds

started as a thing to sell to air marshals as the were designed to not penetrate the pressure hull of a commercial airline

From there they developed 37mm bean bags as well as riot baton launchers

thing was those plastic batons were rifled which ATF decided made them DDs

there was a CO2 variant as well but MBA dropped the whole line

Steve McQueen uses one in Bounty Hunter

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One of those is on my long list. Would love to shoot one. Seen a lot for sale over the years, but they've all gone for bigger money than I want to put in.

years ago Numrich had frame halves for Gyros and Dardicks I built dummy guns off of

 

Last fall we dumped a real beater 13mm Gyro from Uncles Estate

little finish, action frozen.

Young guy took it away for $350 ?

 

hammer "spur" that sticks out the side of the frame had pretty much dissolved away but the rest was there

 

advised a deep long soak in Wintergreen oil to breakdown the aluminum oxidation and ultrasonics

I just had no interest

we have two or three 13mm rounds up for grabs

 

Few more points

pretty sure these were only in one movie

Moonraker, the Connery 007 flick in Japan

 

at dusk or in dark you get a flash signature out the side of the guns

 

sound signature is a bit more than a bottle rocket but still very low

better than say a Sionacs can of the 70s

 

They never were accurate

I zapped a Badger and a nasty neighborhood Dog with the 13mm mostly by luck

 

allegedly there was a select fire variant of at least the carbine

 

beside the loose info on goofballs bringing one to Vietnam there was as well a Detroit ? cop who carried a 13mm and waxed at least one perp with his

 

allegedly the mindmelt behind the Sandman pistols in Logans Run back in the 70s was a concept fusion between Gyros and Dardicks by prop men

Dardicks used a triangular cartridge that was magazine fed into a rotary hopper cylinder

Had a .38 for awhile

nylon cases, Numrich may even still carry parts and empty tround hulls

 

Trounds developed into a mess of heavy weapons applications

hopper fed but when Nam imploded so did the main market

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Minor point- the 007 movie featuring the Gyrojet was "You Only Live Twice" with Connery. "Moonraker" came along during the Roger Moore era.

 

I enjoyed the scene when 007 zaps a bad guy with a tiny rocket concealed in a cigarette.

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Yep- brought a whole new meaning to the Surgeon General's warning about smoking being bad for your health, LOL!

 

According to "Q", you had them set up to shoot out the front or out the back, so you had to be careful which ones you offered to the bad guy and which ones you puffed on yourself.

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