Unusual Firearms: What Was the Designer Thinking?
When it comes to military technology, it’s not just about robots, drones, and high-tech lasers. Sometimes, the most fascinating inventions are purely mechanical, with not a single electronic component in sight. This article explores several ingenious and bizarre firearm designs from the mid-20th century—hybrids of pistols and revolvers using “triangular” cartridges, a Soviet triple-barreled assault rifle, and even a caseless “cuckoo clock” gun. These military oddities would look right at home in a science fiction movie.
Dardick “Revolvers”
In the 1950s, American engineers experimented with alternative ways to feed machine guns. Someone noticed that a cartridge with a triangular case would take up less space in a magazine. While most dismissed the idea, American inventor David Dardick took it seriously. He believed a “triangular” cartridge would be perfect for a weapon combining the simplicity of a revolver with the high capacity of a pistol.
In 1958, Dardick patented the open chamber gun for the Tround cartridge (short for Triangular Rounds), which used a plastic case shaped like a Reuleaux triangle. While often called a revolver, Dardick’s design was really a hybrid that would have given Samuel Colt nightmares.
The Dardick revolver’s grip housed a fixed magazine holding 11, 15, or even 20 rounds, depending on the model. It was loaded through a special side port. Cartridges were pushed from the magazine into the revolver’s cylinder by spring pressure. The cylinder’s chambers were open on one side, with the cartridge case itself and the pistol’s frame containing the gas pressure during firing.
When the trigger was pulled, the cylinder rotated a third of a turn, the hammer cocked and released—all powered by the shooter’s muscle. Spent cases were ejected by centrifugal force, and a new round was loaded into the firing position.
Dardick designed his weapon for the civilian market and advertised its main advantage: the large triangular cases could easily accommodate bullets of various calibers—.38 (9mm), .22 (5.56mm), .30 (7.62mm). All you had to do was swap out the barrel. He even made an accessory to convert the revolver into a lightweight carbine.
Despite its cleverness, the Dardick revolver never caught on, mainly due to its high price and the unusual ammunition it required.
Interestingly, a decade after sales ended, Dardick was approached by Harrington & Richardson for help designing a rifle for the SPIW (Special Purpose Individual Weapon) competition, which sought radical improvements in infantry weapons.
The experimental H&R SPIW rifle was supposed to use a Tround cartridge loaded with three flechette darts, similar to the subcaliber projectiles used against armored vehicles today. However, the rifle was dropped from the competition due to dangerous unreliability. H&R failed to properly seal the chamber, so only the plastic case stood between the shooter’s face and escaping gas.
Multi-projectile cartridges are a topic for another time, but the idea was that several bullets fired at once would group more tightly than a three-round burst, since recoil would have less effect. An even more radical approach to increasing accuracy while maintaining a high rate of fire was to fire multiple barrels simultaneously. Some sources claim the H&R SPIW had three barrels, but available images and patents suggest it had a single, three-channel barrel.
The TKB-059 Triple-Barreled Assault Rifle
Other multi-barreled automatic weapons exist, including a triple-barreled prototype built in Tula, Russia, under the direction of German Aleksandrovich Korobov in 1962. Known as the “ZB Device,” it had three separate barrels and borrowed some components from the Kalashnikov, but featured a then-futuristic bullpup layout with a 60-round magazine located behind the grip.
Photos show the prototype was rather crudely made, serving mainly as a demonstration model. Nevertheless, Korobov was tasked with refining the design, and in 1966 he presented the TKB-059—a fantastic assault rifle with nothing left from the Kalashnikov. Today, it can be seen at the Tula State Arms Museum.
The TKB-059’s body splits in half, with the internal mechanisms forming a single block that recoils along rails inside the weapon—a so-called “carriage” or “sled” system. The recoil energy is used to reload the weapon. Weighing 4.15 kg (about 9 lbs), the rifle held 45 rounds.
The TKB-059 passed state trials and demonstrated better accuracy than a modified Kalashnikov, but was never adopted. The unusual design was off-putting, but the real reasons were practical: the magazine was difficult to load, it couldn’t fire single shots, and there was little demand for such a weapon. The standard AKM met the military’s needs just fine.
Heckler & Koch G11: The Caseless “Cuckoo Clock” Rifle
Another remarkable design is the German G11 rifle, which used caseless ammunition. Development began in 1967, when West Germany’s Ministry of Defense sought a replacement for the aging Heckler & Koch G3. H&K saw promise in reducing the size and weight of ammunition by eliminating the case. Lighter, more compact rounds would let soldiers carry more ammo and could revolutionize automatic weapon design by removing the need for an ejection mechanism.
The “cartridge of the future” was a bullet embedded in a block of explosive material, developed by Dynamit Nobel AG. Early versions were 4.3mm lacquered propellant blocks with a bullet glued in front, but these would ignite spontaneously in overheated chambers during rapid fire.
This problem was solved in the 1980s with the telescoped 4.73mm DM11 cartridge, based on heat-resistant octogen propellant. Prototypes included a pistol, submachine gun, and machine pistol, but eventually development focused on a single assault rifle—the Heckler & Koch G11. Its design was extremely complex.
Like Korobov’s rifle, the G11 used a “sled” system, but that’s where the similarities end. The G11 was nicknamed the “German cuckoo clock gun” for good reason—its internals really do resemble clockwork. Even detailed disassembly videos can’t fully explain how it works.
Here’s the basic idea: a box magazine holding 45 or 50 caseless rounds is inserted on top, parallel to the barrel. Rounds are fed vertically down into a rotating cylinder, which acts as the chamber. The cylinder turns 90 degrees, aligning the round with the barrel, and the firing pin strikes, firing the round.
Surprisingly, the G11 made it to field trials. German engineers continued development into the 1990s, but the project was ultimately halted by NATO’s standardization of ammunition. In 2004, American defense contractors acquired the G11’s blueprints and documentation for the Lightweight Small Arms Technologies program. The G11’s fate is unknown—its technology may have been classified or simply forgotten, with the latter more likely.
Only in a parody of a utopian future would the G11 have been adopted. Still, the Heckler & Koch G11 left its mark on pop culture. It appears in the action-comedy “Demolition Man” (1993), as well as games like Fallout 2, Jagged Alliance 2, 7.62 High Calibre, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and even anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Darker Than Black. Not a bad legacy, all things considered.