In my previous article, I briefly overviewed the Soviet 6mm program.This program was built upon a series of studies and a research and development initiative focused on sub-caliber fin-stabilized discarding sabot (FSDS) flechette ammunition, which took place from 1960 to 1981.The motivation behind this research largely stemmed from the US Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) program, which ran from the 1950s to the 1970s.In the mid-1960s, engineers at NII-61, now known as TsNIITochMash, developed sub-caliber FSDS ammunition.
Fair enough! At those round weights, it’s also unsurprising.
Regardless, it seems a if there would be several potential applications where deflection might be less important. I’m just surprised nobody seems to be researching or offer anything.
Would not handguns also see the same benefits? Thinking through it, deflection might be even more damaging for some uses, like home defense. If the rounds are effectively light AP (more that standard ammo), they’re not only going through walls, but then off at some arbitrary angle, and that wouldn’t be good.
This is military rather than private defense driven, and in the military arena flechettes seem to periodically reappear. There always seems to be someone interested in them, but for small arms they seem unable to get past some of the issues that were identified early. Tank sabot penetrator rounds are more or less the same thing, but scaled up and with that increased size and specific use they are quite popular.
For personal self defense handguns, while flechettes don’t have the downside of deflection, many of their upsides become irrelevant. This leads to trying to sell a more expensive ammunition to go in what would be a small selection of guns and not doing the actual task any better than conventional rounds.
Except AP, right? And if so, legislation would be harsh; c.f. SS190 5.7x28. I understand the actual AP capability is questioned, but it’s hard to evaluate because it’s hard to get. I also understand that this is because LE gets twitchy about AP ammo and the NFA tends to cave on any legislation LE Unions get behind.
The legislation already exists.
18 U.S.C., § 921(a)(17)(B):
It would be difficult to produce flechettes not caught by that existing definition.
Putting aside legality and assuming that is overcome, it would still be an uphill fight in the market. I would posit that the majority of people buying handguns do not highly weight armor penetration as a factor. Any company going into flechettes as an armor piercing solution would have to eat all the R&D costs to get flechettes that sufficiently penetrate armor from a pistol length barrel, produce or partner with an ammunition company to produce this new and expensive ammunition that only works for one brand on the market, produce and sell handguns for this. All hoping to recoup costs by catering to the subset of the market that is willing to pay significantly higher prices just for armor penetration.
The only viable customer for a company to pitch flechettes to is the military, and once more- all of the rifle attempts have had insurmountable problems. Investing in flechette handguns simply wouldn’t be worth the time, as handguns are considered of low importance to small arms and current calibers work well enough. Even armor piercing 5.7mm never caught on widely for military adoption.