Book details
My book "Classical Internal Ballistics" is now finished. It is available on Amazon at a price of £38.00. (€46.00 or $48.00).(The link above is for Amazon UK, but it will be available on the Amazon for your country.)

This book deals with the "classical" problem of internal ballistics, which is how to calculate the maximum pressure and muzzle velocity from the powder properties and loading parameters.

The early chapters in this book discuss the thermodynamics of guns and how propellants burn. This is followed by a number of chapters which deal with various correction factors to the main internal ballistics equations, including shot-start pressure, barrel friction, heat loss and pressure gradients in the propellant gases. These chapters are in the manner of reviews of the art on the particular topic.

Chapter 9 discusses various analytic approaches to solving the internal ballistics equations - mainly to show how gun performance scales with various parameters, particularly calibre. Chapter 10 is the signature chapter, where the previous chapters are brought together within a discourse on how to create a numerical internal ballistics system. Chapter 11 covers the internal ballistics of air guns.

The mathematical underpinnings of several parts of this book are set out in a number of appendices. Appendix 4 gives estimated vivacities for over a hundred commercially available small-arms propellant powders. It also sets out the details of a general numerical internal ballistics system which can be used together with the vivacities provided to enable comparisons of the computations with real-world results.

A certain level of mathematical proficiency has to be assumed, which is that the reader will be comfortable with calculus and have an easy familiarity with Newtonian mechanics. That said, this book is aimed at a range of readers from shooters wanting to learn something about the subject, through enthusiastic amateur ballisticians who want to try their hand at some practical calculations, to hard-bitten, time-served, real-life ballisticians for whom it is hoped that there is sufficient new material in this book for it to be worth their time reading it.

To everyone who is sufficiently curious about internal ballistics to pick up this book, I hope they learn something of interest before they put it down again.

The chapter list is given below.