Firearms Expert Reacts To Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun’s Guns

Sad, didn't see a reaction to the chainsword... would've loved that.

The case on the boltshells are to hold the primer and kicker charge. The kicker charge is where the majority of the recoil comes from and deals with the minimum distance requirement of pure gyrojet ammunition.

The reason bolter shells are cased is because they have a small boosting charge to help get the main charge far enough away that the rocket motor doesn't damage the gun

"My armor is contempt, my sword is hatred, my shield is disgust, in the Emperor's name, let none survive."
The full quote

Don't need a stock if you can't feel recoil

Quote about the Bolter Shotgun but basically applies to everything 40k: "I think the rule of cool is sufficiently powerful in this context that even I am obliged to not care."

This is just a game that runs on "space magic"

The lack of stocks for Space Marine weaponry is (sans the technobabble) due to sensors on the gun relaying data to the helmet, where a HUD on the lenses show where the gun is pointing. You don't need to bring the gun to the shoulder and aim parallel with the barrel, as some sort of targeting device combined with a sophisticated helmet shows where you're pointing the gun at any time.
Sort of like in VR when it can show you where any gun you're holding is pointing.

The closest analogue for the boltgun in terms of handling is the short stockless shotgun. Which are mostly awful to use but then again I’m not a 9 foot tall super human.

HEAT Round: Uses the tank's own armor to destroy internal crew or equipment.

Could the shotgun "shot" be made of white phosphorus?

Smerf armour is largely plot armour and contempt for the older fanbase.

Btw, I love the fact that Jonathan goes into a lengthy explanation of the history of electrically primed ammunition in order to not have to nitpick the lack of dimples on cases ejected from the Heavy Bolter.

This man is the perfect person for this job.

So the reason for the casing for bolt shells is that the shell holds an initial charge that kicks the round out of the rifle and then the rocket kicks in as soon as it leaves the barrel. Like a contemporary RPG except somehow it has rifle accuracy

The bolter is powered by the might of the Emperor’s righteous fury. ‘Nuff said.

You just know this dude is going go on a deep dive afterwards.

BOLTGUN

also would be interested to see him read the way the guns work in the lore in depth then give his opinion on it

That rotary launcher looks interesting, i can't see anything that matches it perfectly it could be a Frankenstein gun. The stock looks like an m16 style stock, the cylinder looks like it could be an RG-6 or melkor while the barrel looks like a deftec barrel though the forend grip is wrong

Best part about this video... The Warhammer 40k advert that popped up at the breaks

If anything the cased rockets probably exist to give it a baseline speed so that if figjting at extremely cqb you wouldnt just have a heavy club that shoots nerf darts

10k likes for you awe.

The fact that he mentioned the lack of a buttstock baffles me. Has he not read the million pages of lore? ha ha They wear power armor and have cogitators. cmon brooo

"firearms expert reacts to the most unrealistic and over the top weaponry in history of fiction"

The armour of contempt relates to being able to defy daemonic infestation of the self by sheer will ;) Read the books fellas

Love his cheerfulness and open-mindedness towards every subject matter.

So for bolters and why they aren't caseless: they actually are hybrid rounds. Gyrojet bullets take time to get up to full speed. Bolter rounds solve this by having a normal primer to give it immediate speed, then the gyrojet aspect kicks in immediately after to give it even more of a punch and longer range. This would be overkill in our world, but completely reasonable in 40k, especially when you consider the actual killing effectiveness of bolters is more based on their ability to transfer extreme force to the target so even those in impervious armour take bruising damage from the impacts. As for how it is do-able? Size. Those rounds are huge, so this 2-stage system functions largely thanks to sheer size.

For the shotgun: the shotgun they use is either a 2 gauge or 4 gauge. Which is kind of horrifying but looking at it in action, yeah that makes sense.

The Bolter launches a two stage ammunition, it uses gun powder as the kick off to get the "bullet" moving, then a secondary ignition happens as the round leave the barrel. The Bolt round is effectively a rocket propelled grenade with armor piercing capabilities. It typically will either explode on contact of burrow in about 1 to 2 inches before detonating.

Here WAAAAY late but in case someone randomly stumbled upon this:

The boltgun rounds have cases because they're a 2-stage system. The propellant in the casing gets it out of the barrel and ignites the second stage that keeps the bolter round going. This allows the bolter to work at closer ranges as well because it'll still function like a normal bullet at point blank range

The space marine shotgun basically fires pellets the size of 12 gauge slugs.😅

Okay, I am going to stick my neck out here. This isn't armchair fire arms expertise! I have a minor observation to make, the film the Expenables. One of the Expendables owns a large auto-shot gun. The action of the ammo does have a (very tenuous) similarity of what Boltgun ammo is. Please note, the weapon is also a film based weapon. I don't know if a real version actually exsists. Thank you for your time.

Armour of Contempt is a metaphor for the space marines hatred for the enemy protecting his mind and soul from outside (enemy) influence

I always thought the a Bolt-round was a 2 stage Gyrojet. One is the casing, that gets it moving like a tiny artillary shell. The second is the gyrojet to keep the heavy shell up to speed, so it doesn't lose as much penetrating power after leaving the barrel.

Also, still morbidly entertained by the fact they don't tend to detonate until after they've hit something soft, and are inside the target. Proper Grimdark

Oddly enough the armor of contempt is an actual phenomenon in Warhammer though it's more of a spiritual armor to prevent chaotic corruption than actual physical damage.

Here was thinking the Volkite rifle was a heavy laser or hellgun type of rifle. Wikis and videos help!

If I recall correctly, in the lore the bolter guns have caseless ammo. I think video games just have it eject cases because it's familiar to players and looks cooler.

For those of you not in the know, the Bolter is GIANT, its huge, its used by 9 foot tall super soldiers in 1000+ lb power armour suits.
it doesn't have a stock because the power armour suits is the stock
and calling its not inaccurate to call it a grenade launcher, the standard variant bolt (the ammunition it uses) is .75 MM and is both fired by explsoive pressure and THEN uses rocket propulsion to deliver an explosive charge to its target.
The Bolt gun is a horrifyingly powerful weapon, and is still on of the weakest options a space marine has at their disposal.

I once read that the reason why the Boltgun rounds are cased in the games/artwork is because a gun ejecting casings just looks really cool. Fluff wise there's no reason for them to be cased as you say.

I've always imagined a meltagun to be "fusion flamethrower", that is basically a directed beam of fusion energy...

I'd like to see Jonathan do a follow up and check out Astartes and the way they depict the Bolters in that! Great video though!

In the book Shadowsword an ordinary Noble struggled to even us an astartes bolt pistol so he struggled to use what an astartes would use as a generic side arm

as for why the bolter is cased its for accuracy. you know how accurate the gyro jet is.. now the bolters can be using a primary charge like a 40mm shell and riffling for that initial spin and accuracy then after they are out of the barrel and spinning quite nice the rocket bit ignites and increases velocity then causes a explosive charge to go off.

Hello former Swedish army dude here. The way a shaped charge in for example the Carl Gustaf grg works is like how you said there is a pin made of copper in the conical charge that turns into a welding rod almost and melta through the armor and thereby turning the pressure in the armored vehicle into non survivable levels along with massive heat.

About the plasma gun and Doom- W40K came out in 1987 and Doom was in 1993, so the "plasma gun off of Doom" would be the other way around. Also worth noting is that the weapon held by the player model in Quake looks extremely similar to the W50K plasma gun.

if the guns use buttstock in this game can they aim with that big shoulder plate?

Also, the rule of cool is definitely the main focus of the world design, logic comes later.

The best comparison for a boltgun round is a .500 s&w round.

Melta's uses a combination of fuel, energy, and a reactor chamber to excite and break down molecular bonds and fire it out in a very intense but short range stream that melts things very very well. As it was described in a older codex, could have been revised/retconned since.

Heavy bolters have a grab handle on the top for space marines and are fired from the hip. I assume that is what it trying to be modeled in the game.