Gun on the moon?

Question

if you where on the moon , which is a vacuum, and tried to shoot a gun would it fire? after all, combustion needs an atmosphere with oxygen... or does the casing of the bullet create its own atmosphere? if so, the bullet would travel farther in the reduced gravity, but would it travel faster then it does here on earth?

Answer 1

Bullet wouldn't even fire. As you say, there needs to be oxygen, and there is none, nor will the casing create its own atmosphere.

Answer 2

yes it would fire ,but on earth the bullet would hit the ground the same time as the cartridge but on the moon the bullet would go 10x farther take 10x longer then the catridge would take to hit the ground but no it would not travel faster

Answer 3

If you fire a gun in a vacuum, it fires.  The bullets are sealed.  They don't use oxygen as an oxidizer, though - that's a gas.  They don't want the junk inside the bullet rattling around.  Gunpower has everything it needs to burn.

The initial speed of the bullet will be about the same as on Earth.  With no air drag, it won't slow down.  With reduced gravity, it will go farther, since it will take longer to get to the ground.

The highest muzzle velocities i was able to find on the net are around 4000 feet per second.  This is unusually fast.  It's a little over 1 km/second.  The escape velocity of the Moon is 2.38 km/second.  So you won't be able to fire the gun and not have it come back down.  But if that were your goal, it would be much easier to design such a gun than it is on Earth.

One of the Russian missions landed some distance from where they expected.  When the cosmonaut(s) got out of their capsule, they were met by wolves.  The story is that they routinely carry a gun on board these days.

Answer 4

Gunpowder carries its own oxygen bound in its chemical structure, which makes it explosive.  Gasoline, for example, requires oxygen from the atmophere, so it doesn't generally explode, just burns once exposed to air.  Solid rocket fuels also carry their own oxygen, while liquid fuels always require liquid oxygen to be carried along for later mixing in the reaction chamber.  This makes liquid fuels safer, but harder to use because of the liquid oxygen requirement.

Sorry for the digression.  Yes, a gun would fire on the moon.

Answer 5

1. It would definitely fire, every propellant since oldfashioned Gunpowder includes its own oxydator

2. Muzzle velocity would probably be pretty much the same (though one might argue that there is no air resistance in the barrel)

3. With reduced gravity and no air resistance it would go farther

4. Actually the muzzle velocity of Handguns (i.e. the M16 has a Muzzle velocity of  2,800 feet (853 meters) per second) well below the escape velocity, so the bullets would stay on the moon.

Answer 6

The bullet wouldn't travel faster if shot from the moon than it would on the Earth, it just wouldn't slow down due to the lack of atmospheric resistance.  It's muzzle velocity would easily exceed the moon's escape velocity so it would move in a straight line relative to the moon's position at the time it left the muzzle and continue at that speed and direction until it intercepted another object or was effected by the gravity of another stellar object.  The effects of the moons own gravity on the projectile would be almost entirely negligible.  

This is all assuming the weapon would fire at all...which I'm not entirely sure of given the lack of oxygen.  Certain guns can even fire underwater, so I imagine this would probably work in space too.  It might depend on whether or not the casing was sealed tightly enough to hold it's own gasses(air) in from the vacuum.

Answer 7

Now that is a good question BRAVO!!

Sorry I don't know the answer to you question will you excuse me.

By the way I will check back for more answers.