Testing the super rare Gyrojet series of 1960s rocket guns

Guns.com ^ | 05/11/18 | Chris Eger

[Simon Green]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJAXpyt8-oQ&t=1134s

If encountering the Space Age MBA Gyrojet is like petting a unicorn, firing one is akin to bigfoot riding a unicorn, so be ready to nerd out.

In 1960, San Ramon, California-based nuclear weapons researcher Bob Mainhardt and arms designer Art Biehl came together to form MB Associates (after their initials) to explore modern rocket-firearm designs. The pair’s initial pet project was a small handheld flare projector that morphed, with an eye to military sales, into a rocket-firing family of weapons. These guns– both pistols and rifles– could be incredibly light (as low as 17-ounces), near recoilless, and powerful. In effect, they would be multi-shot rocket launchers that could be carried and fired by virtually anyone.

The Gyrojet was born, but the expensive niche guns (which retailed for over $2,000 when adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars) never caught on and marched boldly from innovative invention to curious collectible. Today, they are still about that price with those who seek them out while the dwindling supply of 50-year-old Rocketeer Automatic Rockets to fire from them go for up to $100 pop– which is why you hardly get any range time with a Gyrojet as it literally fires $100 bills.

To fill the void for speculative minds with a bent towards neat-o ordnance, Taofledermaus was able to make contact with a Gyrojet owner willing to bring both his pistol and carbine out to their test ground and get some high-speed footage and analysis of the rounds in the above video.

For more information on the Gyrojet, check out Mel Carpenter’s site on the matter, as he literally wrote the book on them.

[Kozak]

I’ve got a gyro jet flare launcher and shells.
We practiced with it during my AF survival training.

[Yo-Yo]

"24 for $31.20" First off, that must have been a very old price for those rounds, and second, what an odd price, $31.20, instead of $30, or $35. On second thought, $30 with 4% sales tax would be $31.20.

I remember years ago seeing the GyroJet guns in the James Bond flick You Only Live Twice and thought it was pure Hollywood make-believe.

The GyroJet and the Dardick revolver must be the two most bizarre firearms to come out of the 1960s.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Wonderful theory - well, sort of wonderful idea anyway - until they tried to actually build the things and make them shoot accurately and repeatably tens of thousands of times.

Couldn’t even make them fire repeatably hundreds of times.

Never mind the expense.

End-bleed gasses for extremely-long-range cannon shells is also extremely rare, extremely expensive, and very, very difficult to achieve in practice - much less at propulsion-bleed gas ejection rates in the many-times-smaller ports for bullets.

[Simon Green]

The GyroJet and the Dardick revolver must be the two most bizarre firearms to come out of the 1960s.

Both of them solutions in search of a problem.

[wally_bert]

Tiger Tanaka and his array of rocket guns including the special baby rocket for people who smoke too many cigarettes.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Well, it was my understanding that the GryoJet was very, very water resistant and even could be fired with some accuracy underwater. That was a long time ago and my brain cells could be playing tricks on me, so that is only my recollection.
 

[Little Ray]

The Dardick action would have made a good automatic cannon.

[UnwashedPeasant]

From Wikipedia:

"The Gyrojet is a family of unique firearms developed in the 1960s named for the method of gyroscopically stabilizing its projectiles. Rather than inert bullets, Gyrojets fire small rockets called Microjets which have little recoil and do not require a heavy barrel or chamber to resist the pressure of the combustion gases. Velocity on leaving the tube was very low, but increased to around 1,250 feet per second (380 m/s) at 30 feet (9.1 m). The result is a very lightweight weapon."

[Ozark Tom]

Would rather have a combustion-light-gas-gun scaled as a light arm from the smaller of the series (12.7? mm) prototype.

[TaMoDee]

I was stationed at an Army installation in California 1965 -67. Two gentlemen which I assume to be Bob Mainhardt and Art Biehl came to test a weapon. I was assigned as escort.
They let me fire two rounds. I was amassed at the lack of recoil since the only pistol I had ever fired was the 1911.
Ahhh the goode olde dazes!

[W.]

I bought six Gyrojet rounds for my collection in the mid-70’s. Cost me $15, sold 5 of them at the gun show for $50 each ten years ago. Also have a .38 Dardick round, it’s green and triangular!