"Calif Bill" wrote in message
ink.net...

Not commenting on comparison to fly rods and can not connect the two. But
modern rifles do not have an explosion in the firing chamber. That went
out with black powder. Modern powders are considered propellents and have
a longer burn time. Different powders, different burn rates.

The distinction between propellants and explosives is doubtless a useful one
in trades where people routinely use one or the other to make loud noises,
and my reading confirms your classification of modern gunpowders among the
former, as well as burn time being the deciding factor. However, I suspect
that the distinction is rather arbitrary. The burn rate of high explosives
makes them dangerous even when burned in small quantities in open air, while
doing so with the slowest of propellants is relatively safe. THAT
distinction is lost at whatever point is agreed upon as the dividing line
between propellants and explosives. And, anyway, "relatively safe" is, if
you will pardon the usage, a loaded term.

The point of all this is that, "modern rifles do not have an explosion in
the firing chamber" is dangerously misleading. Steam, air and carbon
dioxide are not explosives; they are not even combustible. Nor, except in
some specialized applications is any of them even a "propellant." And yet
any of them (as well as a host of other more or less inert substances) can
and DO cause explosions when confined under pressure. When all is said and
done, it doesn't have to be an "explosive," as the term is used among
pyrotechnicians, to explode. What takes place in the chamber of a gun
(whether the motive force is supplied by burning powder or compressed air or
carbon dioxide) IS an explosion.

As to barrel movement. Guns normally tend to climb at the barrel as the
lever arm is upward. The M-16 is designed to not climb or drop as the
barrel is in line with the back of the stock. Why it has a carry handle.
The sight plane is along the top of the handle.

The muzzle of an M-16 doesn't rise as radically as that of many others, but
it DOES rise. Been there......got it on film.

Wolfgang