Ancient drum feed bolt pistol (revolver)

[slitth]

I was thinking about some of gear that was made during the great crusade.

And was think that maybe some had made a revolver that use Bolt rounds.

Perhaps the ancient knights of Caliban made use of a "Bolt revolver"

after all a revolver maybe a safer choice than a tradition bolt pistol.

As it should have less likelihood of jamming and may be easier to maintain.

 

Anyway I think that it would be a "Bolt revolver" could be a cool concept for veteran or ancient warriors to use.

It could make Fallen stand out a bit more for the normal Dark angel or chaos figures.

 

What do you think?

Could a "Bolt revolver" work or is it to silly and impractical?

[Ezr91aeL]

If I dont remember badly in Dark Heresy there was a revolver model of boltpistol, but it was made by the gangs of Gunmetal City, a manifactorum-slum of the Hiveworld Scintilla and it was revolver because made from scraps (in Gunmetal City were produced the majority of bolt rounds of the entire sector). The funny thing was it used Heavy Bolter rounds... so it was devastating. Sadly if you made a negative critic it exploded in your hands.

[Ovidius Incertus]

While I could see it happening from an atmospherics perspective (i.e. it certainly has an "archaeotech" vibe to it), I'd question the practicality for two reasons: 1) within the current model range, bolt rounds are of an absurd diameter, so a cylinder containing bolt rounds would necessarily be of an even more ridiculous diameter to have any capacity at all, thus making the overall size of the weapon silly, even if wielded by a transhuman, power-armored spaceman; and, 2) a bolt revolver would, for this reason suffer from the same problem a modern revolver suffers from, woeful ammunition capacity in the face of box-magazine fed firearms.  In the grim darkness of the far future, spraying and praying seems to be the norm, so I don't know who'd want to have a revolver or who would be able to reload a cylinder, round by round, with power armored gauntlets on.  Current large caliber revolvers like those in .480 Ruger or .500 S&W give a capacity of 5 rounds and the guns are massive in the hands of a normal human; even plus-capacity revolvers like the 8-shot S&W 627 (an N-frame gun) are considerably larger than their "normal" sized equivalents (like the L-frame 686).

 

That said, 40k certainly doesn't run on practicality, so, in this case, I'd go with rule of cool and deem the idea "cool".  Maybe some sort of gun where the cylinder was itself removable and "disposable" like a Remington 1858 New Army would be slightly practical and pretty awesome.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I would point out that Dark Heresy made a point of noting that Astartes bolt rounds and bolt rounds made for bolters designed for human hands are two different sizes of ammunition; what defined the "bolt" wasn't its caliber, it was being an armor-piercing, mass-reactive gyrojet.  So it's entirely possible to have a bolt revolver built for human hands that doesn't take two hands to hold (although that is apparently a thing if you look at the sneak-peek pics of the new Goliath gangers for Necromunda).

 

Personally, I'd call it a "clockwork bolter," but that's just me.

[slitth]

While I could see it happening from an atmospherics perspective (i.e. it certainly has an "archaeotech" vibe to it), I'd question the practicality for two reasons: 1) within the current model range, bolt rounds are of an absurd diameter, so a cylinder containing bolt rounds would necessarily be of an even more ridiculous diameter to have any capacity at all, thus making the overall size of the weapon silly, even if wielded by a transhuman, power-armored spaceman; and, 2) a bolt revolver would, for this reason suffer from the same problem a modern revolver suffers from, woeful ammunition capacity in the face of box-magazine fed firearms.  In the grim darkness of the far future, spraying and praying seems to be the norm, so I don't know who'd want to have a revolver or who would be able to reload a cylinder, round by round, with power armored gauntlets on.  Current large caliber revolvers like those in .480 Ruger or .500 S&W give a capacity of 5 rounds and the guns are massive in the hands of a normal human; even plus-capacity revolvers like the 8-shot S&W 627 (an N-frame gun) are considerably larger than their "normal" sized equivalents (like the L-frame 686).

 

That said, 40k certainly doesn't run on practicality, so, in this case, I'd go with rule of cool and deem the idea "cool".  Maybe some sort of gun where the cylinder was itself removable and "disposable" like a Remington 1858 New Army would be slightly practical and pretty awesome.

 

If we compare a revolver to magazine fed gun of same calibre, then its not that much bigger.

So a "Bolt revolver" would probably not be much bigger that a normal bolt pistol.

 

But it would still suffer from a smaller bolt count that a bolt pistol. (5 or 6 vs 12) and a longer reload time.

 

It only real appeal would be that a Bolt revolver would be simpler to make in more limited or primitive places.

It wouldn't suffer from a bad bolt casing jamming it.

Or there would be probably some honourable value in using it.

[Laughingman]

The archaeotech pistol from the legion praetor model that looks revolveresque  in shape. It supposed to represent a variety of pistols from before old night. alternatively the templar brethren upgrade kit comes with such a pistol.

[Trevak Dal]

As to plausibility I kind of think of hand cannons from Destiny. They aren't exactly firing bullets from the magazine but they kinda are, it's more like a power cartridge or preloaded refillable ammo cylinder magazine instead of individual shells into a premade cylinder like a colt or Webley.

 

I'd picture it as a las type directed archeotech energy weapon, an up powered lower capacity version being equal to a bolt weapon.

 

I had made one using some Lego bits from the wild west sets, revolver cut up onto a bolt pistol body-i was going for a Thorn look, but gave up and just put it back in my bits box.

[Irbis]

If we compare a revolver to magazine fed gun of same calibre, then its not that much bigger.

 

Eh, it would be far thicker. To give one example, two guns using bolt-sized ammo:

 

http://1y7vgdz53a11xyb91s53s6d6.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/6-Twelve-standalone-2.jpg

 

6 shot revolver

 

 

12 shot box magazine (yes, it's a shotgun based on AK-47 design).

 

Note how one is nearly 3x as thick as the other while not really offering any advantage justifying it...

[reckoning]

Eh, the Six12 is hardly a good comparison for what the OP is looking for. The pic you've posted doesn't exactly do the comparison justice either because the actual barrel on the Six12 is the same size as the ak style shotgun you've posted. They both fire 12g. If you look closely enough you can see the actual barrel is much smaller than it appears.

 

So yes, a sickle magazine wins over a revolver in terms of ammo storage. But a revolver is much more user friendly when it comes to malfunctions.

 

If you change the above two examples to fire 30mm-40mm rounds, none of this changes.

[Sothalor]

There are actually some good reasons for "revolver"-type early bolt weapons to exist during (and especially) before the Great Crusade. One advantage revolvers have over self-loaders that tap the energy of a discharging cartridge to cycle their mechanisms is that a revolver is not dependent on the behavior of its ammunition to function.

 

What do I mean? A self-loader (be it semi-automatic or fully automatic) depends on the physics of the igniting propellant to cycle its operating mechanism. On a pistol, this may be as straightforward as direct blowback (recall the laws of thermodynamics; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). On a rifle, it more likely uses some form of gas port in the barrel to tap the energy of the expanding gasses to cycle the bolt. This internal movement is also what extracts an empty cartridge, ejects it, recocks the firing mechanism (hammer or striker), and loads a fresh cartridge from the magazine into the chamber.

 

Now, this interaction (especially for pistols) can be quite dependent on the ammunition being used. Guns (and again, we're talking mostly pistols here) can be very particular about what ammo they'll feed and cycle. They're dependent on their engineering and construction. A hollow-point cartridge may tend to get caught on the geometry of a feed ramp, for example. If you load a cartridge with too much propellant, it may cycle the gun too violently/swiftly, which can cause issues. These can range from unreliable extraction (the weapon cycles while the pressure in the chamber is still too high to safely and reliably pull the empty case out) to potentially having your weapon shear itself apart in your hands when you fire it. Conversely, if you try to run rounds that have too little propellant, the gun may cycle too weakly to pick up the next round from the magazine - certain parts aren't moving as far as they should. If a cartridge doesn't go off in the chamber, then you need to manually cycle the gun to dump that one.

 

These guns are also more dependent on their ammunition being a certain spec than revolvers tend to be. Cartridge lengths, for example. 10MM Auto and .40S&W rounds may share the same diameter, but their cartridges are different enough that they're not freely interchangeable. .45 ACP and .45 Winchester Magnum are likewise dissimilar enough in cartridge length that they're really not interchangeable. We're not even going to get into the whole steel versus brass casings thing here.

 

All of this means that if you stuff a mag with a random assortment of ammo from every-which provenance under the sun, it's not unreasonable to expect that firearm to have problems running it all reliably. That's not saying a gun will definitively fail in those conditions, but you're not doing it any favors.

 

 

In contrast, a revolver uses cams and notches and mechanical means in its engineering to index its cylinder when the hammer is cocked. It does not rely on any interaction with the ammunition to function; the ammo is not an active participant in the firearm's operation. The cartridges just sit in the cylinder, until a cylinder rotates in-line with the barrel, the hammer falls, and the firing pin strikes the primer of the cartridge sitting in that cylinder. The revolver does not use any of the energy of that fired cartridge to cycle its mechanisms.

 

This means that a revolver is typically much less finicky about the ammunition you use with it. If a cartridge fits in the cylinder, you're probably good to go. If the cartridge doesn't go off, you can just repeat the firing procedure to index to the next cylinder. You can have a very hot load in one cylinder - such as .357 Magnum - and a very mild load - .38 Special - in the one next to it. It doesn't matter to the revolver.

 

 

So why this whole spiel? Well, the thing is, prior to the Great Crusade, I don't imagine there was much in the way of consistency in terms of ammunition manufacture. They might have shared a common technological base in times long past, but for the most part worlds were isolated from each other. There was a wide range of industrialization ranging from Mechanicum forge-worlds to feudal, agricultural iron-age levels. Hell, just Terra alone had a wide spectrum of technological levels that the Emperor encountered during the Unification Wars. Until the nascent Imperium really gets going, and even then during much of the early stages, I think ammunition might well have been all over the map in terms of consistency and quality. One day you might have stuff from the finest tech-forges available, the next you might be using cartridges cobbled together by some techno-barbarian band in the rad-wastes.

 

In such a situation, I could well see individuals choosing to carry revolver-type weapons, especially for a sidearm. This might especially go for second-line and rear echelon forces, who probably receive less priority when it comes to logistical support.

[lunchb0x]

While I could see it happening from an atmospherics perspective (i.e. it certainly has an "archaeotech" vibe to it), I'd question the practicality for two reasons: 1) within the current model range, bolt rounds are of an absurd diameter, so a cylinder containing bolt rounds would necessarily be of an even more ridiculous diameter to have any capacity at all, thus making the overall size of the weapon silly, even if wielded by a transhuman, power-armored spaceman; and, 2) a bolt revolver would, for this reason suffer from the same problem a modern revolver suffers from, woeful ammunition capacity in the face of box-magazine fed firearms.  In the grim darkness of the far future, spraying and praying seems to be the norm, so I don't know who'd want to have a revolver or who would be able to reload a cylinder, round by round, with power armored gauntlets on.  Current large caliber revolvers like those in .480 Ruger or .500 S&W give a capacity of 5 rounds and the guns are massive in the hands of a normal human; even plus-capacity revolvers like the 8-shot S&W 627 (an N-frame gun) are considerably larger than their "normal" sized equivalents (like the L-frame 686).

 

That said, 40k certainly doesn't run on practicality, so, in this case, I'd go with rule of cool and deem the idea "cool".  Maybe some sort of gun where the cylinder was itself removable and "disposable" like a Remington 1858 New Army would be slightly practical and pretty awesome.

Never watched a modern grenade launcher in action have you? 

http://img-cdn.redwolfairsoft.com/upload/product/img/ICS-190-1L.jpg

[Zodd1888]

I can see the use of a revolver in the case of various types of specialty rounds in a chamber. Being able to swap between AP to HP to smoke, a incendiary to EMP could be useful. It's a specialist weapon for sure, and would really serve as a Grenade Launcher, but Bolter rounds are basically already there.

 

Either way, Rule of Cool. Would I take a Dreadnought dual wieldling revolvers even if it made no sense? Hell yes, and I'd Greenstuff a 10 Gallon Hat to boot.

 

Oh the boots!

[jeffersonian000]

Check out the Puckle Gun:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puckle_gun?wprov=sfti1

 

It’s a very early form of repeating gun that used a revolver style build yet fired bolter sized projectiles. And they are “Astartes-size”.

 

SJ

[Ovidius Incertus]

 

While I could see it happening from an atmospherics perspective (i.e. it certainly has an "archaeotech" vibe to it), I'd question the practicality for two reasons: 1) within the current model range, bolt rounds are of an absurd diameter, so a cylinder containing bolt rounds would necessarily be of an even more ridiculous diameter to have any capacity at all, thus making the overall size of the weapon silly, even if wielded by a transhuman, power-armored spaceman; and, 2) a bolt revolver would, for this reason suffer from the same problem a modern revolver suffers from, woeful ammunition capacity in the face of box-magazine fed firearms.  In the grim darkness of the far future, spraying and praying seems to be the norm, so I don't know who'd want to have a revolver or who would be able to reload a cylinder, round by round, with power armored gauntlets on.  Current large caliber revolvers like those in .480 Ruger or .500 S&W give a capacity of 5 rounds and the guns are massive in the hands of a normal human; even plus-capacity revolvers like the 8-shot S&W 627 (an N-frame gun) are considerably larger than their "normal" sized equivalents (like the L-frame 686).

 

That said, 40k certainly doesn't run on practicality, so, in this case, I'd go with rule of cool and deem the idea "cool".  Maybe some sort of gun where the cylinder was itself removable and "disposable" like a Remington 1858 New Army would be slightly practical and pretty awesome.

Never watched a modern grenade launcher in action have you? 

http://img-cdn.redwolfairsoft.com/upload/product/img/ICS-190-1L.jpg

 

 

 

I have, and I'm not entirely sure how the MGL runs contrary to what I said. 

 

If you compare it to the Milkor Hydra (albeit a prototype), which feeds from a box magazine, the MGL is like two or three times as wide for either equal capacity or lower capacity. 

 

Speaking purely from the size of a cylinder, a cylinder fed firearm should be wider than a firearm feeding from a box magazine, given the same diameter projectile.  If you start talking high pressure rounds vs. low pressure rounds, then the gun gets even bulkier since the cylinder is the chamber and it needs to handle the higher chamber pressures.  I suppose bolt rounds, if they're actual rocket-driven, are probably low pressure, though.

 

Melancholic's argument is compelling, however, given a pre-Unification provenance.

[Jacinda]

 

  If you start talking high pressure rounds vs. low pressure rounds, then the gun gets even bulkier since the cylinder is the chamber and it needs to handle the higher chamber pressures.  I suppose bolt rounds, if they're actual rocket-driven, are probably low pressure, though.

 

Melancholic's argument is compelling, however, given a pre-Unification provenance.

 

Also, if you assume bolts are rocket driven and thus very low pressure there not not be enough initial blowback to reliably cycle the weapon, either.

[reckoning]

As usually happens during one of these conversations, we're attempting to explain space fantasy with real world technology.

 

That only goes so far. The creators of WH40K are not weapons or warfare experts. Nor are they experts in the field of biology, human anatomy and medical science.

 

Hyper-lethal warriors with 2 hearts and the 3 lungs welding automatic grenade launchers and chainsaws are simply awesome though.

 

You want a bolt revolver, have at it. Rule of cool wins.

[Arkangilos]

Something else is that a Bolter round is only 19mm in diameter. .75 caliber is 19mm.

[reckoning]

Something else is that a Bolter round is only 19mm in diameter. .75 caliber is 19mm.

This is something Ive never actually seen. Source?

 

I believe you, just would like to finally put answer this question.

[graysparrow]

 

Something else is that a Bolter round is only 19mm in diameter. .75 caliber is 19mm.

This is something Ive never actually seen. Source?

 

I believe you, just would like to finally put answer this question.

 

 

Bolters being .75 caliber, that's been in multiple rulebooks, index's, and codex's over the years.  Hit up Lexicanum to see all the nice history of the bolter, it's ammo, and all the variants of both. 

.75 caliber being 19mm, that's just doing the math to convert from Standard to Metric.  Caliber is 1/100th of an inch increments, so .75 caliber is .75 (or 3/4) of an inch.  Converted to Metric that is 19.05mm, which is being rounded to 19mm. 

 

++EDIT++

...and for the record, I love the idea of a Bolter shell revolver pistol!  I hope someone does a conversion and posts pics.  :D

Edited October 26, 2017 by graysparrow

[Steel Company]

 

 

 

Something else is that a Bolter round is only 19mm in diameter. .75 caliber is 19mm.

This is something Ive never actually seen. Source?

 

I believe you, just would like to finally put answer this question.

Bolters being .75 caliber, that's been in multiple rulebooks, index's, and codex's over the years. Hit up Lexicanum to see all the nice history of the bolter, it's ammo, and all the variants of both.

.75 caliber being 19mm, that's just doing the math to convert from Standard to Metric. Caliber is 1/100th of an inch increments, so .75 caliber is .75 (or 3/4) of an inch. Converted to Metric that is 19.05mm, which is being rounded to 19mm.

Having handled 20mm rounds, they are big rounds... I'm not sure people understand just how large that really is...

[graysparrow]

 

 

 

Something else is that a Bolter round is only 19mm in diameter. .75 caliber is 19mm.

This is something Ive never actually seen. Source?

 

I believe you, just would like to finally put answer this question.

Bolters being .75 caliber, that's been in multiple rulebooks, index's, and codex's over the years. Hit up Lexicanum to see all the nice history of the bolter, it's ammo, and all the variants of both.

.75 caliber being 19mm, that's just doing the math to convert from Standard to Metric. Caliber is 1/100th of an inch increments, so .75 caliber is .75 (or 3/4) of an inch. Converted to Metric that is 19.05mm, which is being rounded to 19mm.

Having handled 20mm rounds, they are big rounds... I'm not sure people understand just how large that really is...

 

 

Well, keep in mind that a 20mm round is a larger diameter shell casing necked down to a 20mm round.  A better visual aid, at least I think so, would be a 12 gauge shell, as that's just a straight.729 inch diameter from top to bottom. 

[Zodd1888]

https://goo.gl/images/KwSBWo

 

Compare those to a standard NATO round and down further to a 9mm. So crazy, but perfect for augmented super men/women. I can see why anything can hurt anything in 8th!

[reckoning]

 

 

 

Something else is that a Bolter round is only 19mm in diameter. .75 caliber is 19mm.

This is something Ive never actually seen. Source?

 

I believe you, just would like to finally put answer this question.

Bolters being .75 caliber, that's been in multiple rulebooks, index's, and codex's over the years. Hit up Lexicanum to see all the nice history of the bolter, it's ammo, and all the variants of both.

.75 caliber being 19mm, that's just doing the math to convert from Standard to Metric. Caliber is 1/100th of an inch increments, so .75 caliber is .75 (or 3/4) of an inch. Converted to Metric that is 19.05mm, which is being rounded to 19mm.

 

++EDIT++

...and for the record, I love the idea of a Bolter shell revolver pistol! I hope someone does a conversion and posts pics. :D

Cool, thanks for the info!

[Steel Company]

 

 

 

 

Something else is that a Bolter round is only 19mm in diameter. .75 caliber is 19mm.

This is something Ive never actually seen. Source?

 

I believe you, just would like to finally put answer this question.

Bolters being .75 caliber, that's been in multiple rulebooks, index's, and codex's over the years. Hit up Lexicanum to see all the nice history of the bolter, it's ammo, and all the variants of both.

.75 caliber being 19mm, that's just doing the math to convert from Standard to Metric. Caliber is 1/100th of an inch increments, so .75 caliber is .75 (or 3/4) of an inch. Converted to Metric that is 19.05mm, which is being rounded to 19mm.

Having handled 20mm rounds, they are big rounds... I'm not sure people understand just how large that really is...

 

 

Well, keep in mind that a 20mm round is a larger diameter shell casing necked down to a 20mm round.  A better visual aid, at least I think so, would be a 12 gauge shell, as that's just a straight.729 inch diameter from top to bottom. 

 

 

 

I wasn't talking about just girth, but also length and weight.

[Gentlemanloser]

That's what she said!

 

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll get my coat. ;)