Another pistol for agent 007
The Smith and Wesson Vulcanic pistol, created in the 50s of the XNUMXth century, also fired bullets with a charge inside, but it was a charge consisting of ordinary black powder. Photo by A. Dobress
The secretary is the most elegant person
in the United States - lying prone,
clutching the carpet with frozen fingers:
he died instantly, without screaming.
Garin, biting his trembling lips,
slowly put it in his jacket pocket
beam revolver.
A. Tolstoy “Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin”
in the United States - lying prone,
clutching the carpet with frozen fingers:
he died instantly, without screaming.
Garin, biting his trembling lips,
slowly put it in his jacket pocket
beam revolver.
A. Tolstoy “Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin”
stories about weapons. Among the great variety of firearms generated by the talent of gunsmiths, there are also many examples created by the imagination of science fiction writers. For example, in Edmond Hamilton's Star Kings, his characters use pistols that fire atomic bullets. Well, in Francis Korsak’s novel “This World is Ours” - a continuation of the novel “Aliens from Nowhere”, representatives of the Galactic League are armed with beam fulgurators - a certain type of laser blaster that successfully migrates from one SF novel or SF film to another.
Moreover, it is interesting that the basis for this weapon was laid by our Soviet writer Alexei Tolstoy, who armed his engineer Garin with a “beam revolver.”
However, among the great variety of all kinds of pistols that have been created to date and have not found combat use for a number of reasons, there are also those that... enjoyed great success among filmmakers. And all because they had a spectacular appearance and, moreover, they wrote a lot about them in the press, that is, they were well known to people.
So in the movie “You Only Live Twice” - the fifth film about the British superspy James Bond, his arsenal included a completely unusual pistol “Girojet”, developed by MB Associates in the early 60s of the twentieth century.
It is interesting that this pistol was owned by such famous characters from the American stories, like Ronald Reagan, J. Edgar Hoover and Barry Goldwater. American special forces teams used Gyrojets in Vietnam, and they were also featured in James Bond films. That's because the Girojet is one of the strangest and most unique firearms ever conceived and put into metal.
Still from the film “You Only Live Twice” (1967). James Bond in front of an arsenal of Girojet pistols and carbines based on it
Interestingly, this weapon is more than just a pistol, as its 13mm bullet is nothing more than a solid propellant rocket, the fuel charge in which is ignited by a rifle primer in its bottom part.
The barrel of the pistol has a smooth channel, but the bullet nevertheless rotates when it leaves it, and the rotation of the bullet is achieved due to four inclined channels for the release of gases in its bottom.
The pistol's trigger mechanism is equally unique. When you pull the trigger, it releases the hammer, which is mounted not behind the bullet, but in front of it. The trigger rises through a slot in the bottom of the barrel, hits the “bullet in the nose” and pushes it back towards the stationary firing pin, which punctures its primer. When the bullet began to move forward along the barrel, it pressed on the trigger, threw it back to its previous position and thereby cocked it, after which it flew further, and the next bullet was fed from the stationary magazine in the handle to the chambering line.
The Gyrojet was made of an alloy of aluminum, magnesium and zinc, which is why it weighed only about 620 g and had a fairly respectable size. It had no recoil and worked quite well under water.
However, due to accuracy problems and the high cost of ammunition, this pistol was not widely used.
It was produced from 1960 to 1969, so today it is very difficult to find even the most common and used models for less than $1. Unfired samples, presentation models and rare variants can cost more than $500, and Girojet ammunition even sells for $5 per round.
Unlike the Volcanin, the Girojet pistol fires rocket-type bullets, inside them there is rocket fuel, upon combustion of which hot gases flow back through four oblique holes located in the bottom of the bullet. Photo of Rock Island Auction Company
Well, the idea of such an amazing development came to the minds of the designers Arthur Bill and Robert Maynard out of a desire to please the military, who wanted to have a pistol for special operations with good stopping power, but at the same time with a silent shot. If this could be done, then the commercial project would clearly bring significant profits to its creators.
This photo clearly shows the cutout for the trigger on the pistol body on the left, the sliding magazine cover with protrusions above the handle, and the safety button on the right. Photo by A. Dobress
And yes, the designers managed to partially fulfill all these requirements: for example, at a distance of 50 meters, the energy of the mini-missile of the Girojet pistol was almost twice as high as the energy of the bullet fired from the barrel of the Colt M1911A1 army pistol. At the same time, instead of the loud sound of a shot, one could only hear the quiet hiss of a flying away rocket.
Inside the barrel, the rocket ammunition accelerated very smoothly. Because of this, the pistol had virtually no recoil when firing, which became an important argument in its favor. That is, in daytime conditions, with the help of such a pistol it was possible to remove a sentry at his post “without noise and dust,” but nothing more than that.
This was where all the advantages of the new pistol ended.
Moreover, at night such an operation turned out to be difficult to carry out due to the fact that the hot gases flowing from the bullet turned it into a kind of “firefly”, which noticeably unmasked it.
But the pistol turned out to have much more disadvantages than advantages.
And this is how the Girojet fires. Time-lapse photography clearly shows the flight of his bullet. Artstation Company Photo
The fact is that the bullet gains speed during the shot due to the rapidly growing pressure of the powder gases in the barrel. But the mini-missiles of the Girojet pistol, leaving the barrel, had a speed of only 30 m/s, and they reached a maximum speed of approximately 380 meters per second only at a distance of about 20 meters from the muzzle, that is, by the time the powder charge was completely burned out .
As a result, the effectiveness of the Girojet in combat at short distances turned out to be significantly lower than that of the same army pistol.
The capacity of its built-in magazine, which held only six rounds, was also considered insufficient. In addition, it had to be loaded manually, inserting racket bullets into it one after another.
Bullet for the Girojet. Photo by the International Ammunition Association
Small rockets (jet bullets) with a pointed tip of 13 mm caliber (13x50 mm cartridge), made of stainless steel, were used as ammunition for the Girojet pistol. Targets were hit by jet bullets in the same way as with conventional pistol bullets, due to their kinetic energy.
The burning time of the powder charge in the rocket ammunition was about 0,1 seconds. At the moment of departure from the pistol barrel, the speed of the rocket bullet was only 30 m/s, and this is a very low value.
The main problem here was that it achieved its greatest power only at a noticeable distance from the pistol, and this made it ineffective in close-range combat. Only at a distance of seven meters did it increase to 300 m/s (note that the initial speed of a Makarov pistol bullet is 315 m/s directly behind the muzzle).
In addition, this pistol also had fairly frequent misfires.
Its other big drawback was its completely unsatisfactory accuracy: at a distance of 100 meters, the spread of hits from the aiming point reached two meters, that is, it was possible to hit a human figure only by accident.
The Girojet carbine was also manufactured and shown in the movie “You Only Live Twice”, but in the end it did not prove to be a perfect weapon!
Still from the movie “You Only Live Twice”: “Girojet” in battle!
* This pistol received the name “Girojet” for a reason. It combines the words “gyroscope”, since the bullet in it is stabilized by rotation, like a gyroscope, and “jet”, that is, “reactive”.
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