Gyrojets, the James Bond weapon of yesteryear.
The Gryojet was introduced in the 1960's by MB Associates of San Ramon,
California from 1960 to 1969.
The company was founded by Robert Mainhardt and Art Biehl, who joined forces
to develop Art Biehl's armor-piercing rocket rounds.
A family of weapons was introduced, including a carbine, rifle, pistol, flare-gun and
light machine gun.
The weapon was cocked by sliding a lever above the trigger forward to pull a round
into the gun, which sprang back when the trigger was pulled. The lever hit the bullet
on the nose, driving it into the firing pin. As the round left the chamber it pulled the
lever forward again to re-cock to fire again.
Instead of being pushed out of the barrel, like a regular cartridge by a powder charge,
the Gyrojet is propelled like a regular rocket and (interestingly) would have increased in speed after it left the barrel (for a split second), unlike a regular cartridge, which would slow down after leaving the muzzle..
Instead of rifling in the barrel of the firearm to stabilize the projectile, the rocket had multiple angled exhaust ports to produce a spin.
The Gyrojet was also used in survival flare guns and a similar idea was explored
for a grenade launcher.
There were two sizes: (first 13mm, then civilian legal 12mm, to comply with ATF rules) but there were other sizes for military experiments - 1.5mm Lance-jets up to 40mm,
and 100's of variations; flares, wad-cutters, armor-piercing, and many more.
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Below are a few Gyrojets available.
We are always looking to buy Gyrojets. |
