[Ultra-Tech] Bioplas Guns?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A search didn't find prior discussions of this, but would Smart Bioplastic (UT170) be a suitable material to make firearms out of?

Depends on properties that are unspecified in UT. Certainly, any parts of a gun that can normally be made of wood or plastic can also be made of bioplas, but plastics don't generally tolerate direct contact with flame (i.e. propellant gases) very well, and they're usually not very hard so they'll erode quickly.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Depends on properties that are unspecified in UT. Certainly, any parts of a gun that can normally be made of wood or plastic can also be made of bioplas, but plastics don't generally tolerate direct contact with flame (i.e. propellant gases) very well, and they're usually not very hard so they'll erode quickly.

Bioplas is explicitly resistant to flame (it gets x3 DR vs burn - or, rather, full DR vs burn/pi and x1/3 against everything else) and is self-repairing, so long-term erosion shouldn't be an issue. And it can get hard enough to serve as brass knuckles (Karatands, UT163), and possibly even enough to form and hold an edge, although that may require a modified form of bioplas (Bio-Tech has Polykeratin that can turn into a blade, but only in the form of TL 10 implants). But if it's not durable enough in the short-term, it may be that the barrels need to be smoothbore. Or maybe they can be rifled, but after a few shots the rifling is worn down and it becomes smoothbore, with lower Acc; considering this would probably represent less than 1 HP of Injury to the weapon, and that bioplas items regenerate 1 HP every 6 hours, the rifling may be able to recover in an hour or two.

EDIT: Of course, if the above won't work, given bioplas' high resistance to damage I think I have another option to have a collapsible barrel. Make the barrel out of metal of the minimum length, then make several more barrels of the same length and cut them in half long-ways. The extra barrels would be able to wrap around the original. Then, when you need to extend the barrel, the bioplas basically moves it into position and then wraps around to seal it. With the bioplas not being in direct contact with the bullet and propellant gases, there's no risk of erosion (the metal is all that's in contact). Something like this would probably work best with something that can manage variable output (use lower output when it's pistol-length, higher output when it's rifle-length) such as liquid propellant, electrothermal kinetic (ETK), or electromagnetic.