Pneumatic Weapon - Comparison With Firearms

Comparison With Firearms

In theory, pneumatic weapons have certain advantages over traditional firearms:

• The ammunition can be much simpler (and thus more compact and lighter for the same payload), because there is no need for a propellant or casing; the entire round becomes the projectile.
• Since no propellant is fired, there is no chemical residue to accumulate in the barrel or chamber.
• Because there is no casing to eject, it is theoretically possible to have a higher rate of repeat fire.
• The barrel is not heated to nearly the same extent as with a firearm.

In practice, pneumatic weapons are not as well-developed as traditional firearms and have a number of practical deficiencies:

• The weapon has to supply or be supplied with a source of very high pressure air, such as a compressor, which adds substantial complexity and weight to the weapon.
• The action, or the mechanism by which subsequent rounds are automatically reloaded, must also be powered by the air pressure; many modern firearms re-use the energy from the propellant to accomplish this (see Maxim gun), further reducing the amount of work the weapon itself has to do.