Bolter sizes/layout

[Ryan Thunder]

Could be armour. After all, they have to stand up to Space Marine use.

[Alkaloid]

What confuses me, particularly with the heavy bolter, is what the hell all that extra material is used for? When you get right down to it a gun can be a pretty compact thing. Bolters and heavy bolters seem to have massive amounts of 'body' to them which just doesn't seem to serve any purpose.

Given that it is a .75 calibre weapon that can be fired handheld by un-augmented humans, I've always assumed that there was a sort of free floating 'gun' section inside the case, and it was mounted in some sort of recoil absorption rig that needed the bulk.

[Kojiro]

But Bolt pistols lack this 'recoil absorbtion' mechanism. Humans have no trouble firing those however (and those are the same rounds fired by bolters). Take a look at a heavy bolter- there's a good foot between the trigger and the ejection port. What the hell is going on there? There are, in some versions, cables that go in there. Presumably to power/cool the thing or link up to the devastator but IG heavy bolters lack any or all of said cabling.


Anyone got any idea what the internal working of such a weapon would look like?

[Gunhead]

Following is pure speculation but... A heavy bolter could and probably would include an electric motor to feed and fire the weapon. Electric firing mechanism eliminates the need for springs and such and would have the added benefit of keeping the firing going even if you run into a dud shell. With a vehicle mounted version, you probably hook up the weapon to the vehicles batteries so it's allways powered. With more advanced batteries and such, you can esily have a powersource that's good for several thousands of shots before needing to be replaced or recharged. A battery backup would be good for any vehicle mounted weapon too in case the powercable is damaged or cut. I could think far more esoteric reasons too, but this is far the simplest and .. oh wait.. this is 40K .. simplicity and reason need not apply.

-Gunhead

[Alkaloid]

But Bolt pistols lack this 'recoil absorbtion' mechanism

Why? There is space for it. The bolt pistol is still way overbuilt, the magazine and ejection port are in front of the hand, but the body of the gun extends out past the back of the hand, and the shorter range could imply a smaller initial propellant charge.

Anyone got any idea what the internal working of such a weapon would look like?

As for the Heavy, we know that space marine weapons have all sorts of fancy electronics that hook directly into their armour, so that would be the cables, and if the barrel moves inside the body like I think, then the space directly behind the barrel is going to be taken up by whatever mechanism there is for that. From there a solid build could easily take up the rest.

[Gunhead]

Back in the day bolt rounds were universal- bolt pistols, bolters and heavy bolters all fired the same round. No idea why heavy bolters were more powerful). But in principle all bolt weapons work similarly, if not for the scale/RoF.

If you can increase RoF you are making a weapon more "powerful". More lead out means more hits to the target means more likely the target is put down. Increasing the rate of fire seems to be a key issue here, after all they produce storm bolters which are basically two bolters taped together and this allows increased rate of fire. More in the same vein would be that heavy bolters are belt fed weapons capable of sustained fire where as none of the other bolters really are. Have no idea why heavy bolters are more powerful per shot, if I had to guess this comes from the days GW started making rpg like games.

The physical size of the shell affects rof too. It take more time to cycle a .50cal than say 7.62NATO and if regular bolter and bolt pistol are relying on a mechanism that is powered by the round going off, it would put some limits on attainable RoF over some form of powered feeding system. Random thought: Bolt rounds have been described as being .75cal. Has it ever been stated in fluff that their caliber is the same as ours?? Hehe.. or that caliber is the same through out the Imperium??

-Gunhead