Let the custom military ring man tell you exactly what a recoilless rifle is in case you don’t know. To be honest with you my understanding was not that good until I did the research to write this post but now I have a little something something to pass on to you.
Recoilless rifles are generally lightweight rifles which fire a pretty heavy shell. They were probably originally designed as antitank weapons so as to help the lightly equipped foot soldier by giving him some destructive power.
The unique thing aout a recoilless rifle is that it used various mechanisms to reduce recoil or kick back. Various techniques are utilized for this but the most common technique is to allow some of the force of the propellant to blow out of the back of the rifle as a sort of equalizer. This may not make the rifle 100% recoilless but it does reduce recoil significantly.
One inherent danger that you will have with a recoilless weapon is called backblast. Backblast is the force which comes out of the back end of the rifle. The shooter must confirm that there is no one standing directly behind him when he pulls the trigger. This can cause death or serious injury to the person standing there. Did you ever wonder why you would see two men manning the bazookas in the old WWII movies? Did you ever wonder why the second person would tap the shooter on the shoulder? Then the shooter would pull the trigger. The reason for this is that the second person would let the shooter know that there was no one in the backblast area and that it was OK to fire. He tapped him on the shoulder because the battlefield is so noisy he might not hear a verbal command.
These type weapons are not used by the US military (except the Marine Corps has a few) so unfortunately it is not available for use as a service ring design. There are a few being used by the US Park Service. They are used to fire into areas of heavy snow for avalanche control.
Related posts:
