Slugthrowers

Chemically-propelled slug throwers are still the most common variety of firearm. They are cheap, reliable, and widely available. Matter compilation made caseless ammunition a viable design element, and nearly all slug throwers use them. Caseless ammunition fires solid metal slugs encased within a brick of solid propellant. By forgoing the ejection cycle, firearms have higher fire rates and magazine capacities at the expense of slightly more recoil. The lack of external moving parts also means most slug throwers are designed hermetically sealed, allowing it to be operated in a vacuum, underwater, and in any number of adverse atmospheric or weather conditions without exposing the internal mechanism of the weapon to the elements (or in the case of a vacuum, a lack thereof). Slug throwers come in every size and shape imaginable, as matter compilation allows for easy customization, and can vary between high-maintenance, high-performance, intricately designed military weapons and cheap, single-use zip guns. Before the war, firearm schematics were highly regulated and the unlicensed printing of slug throwers was a serious crime that entire police task forces were put together to crack down on. Now, with slug throwers being largely replaced by gyrojet firearms by the military, and with little civil structure remaining in the system, old, pre-war to post-war black market firearm schematics are readily available, and on some more remote colonies one can walk up to any market stall and print out a military-grade assault rifle for less than its neighboring stall charges for a meal. With no external moving parts, slug throwers all have internal magazines. Ammunition is sold in polymer cassettes, which are mounted onto a sealed loading port on the gun. Internal servos strip and load rounds from the cassette until the magazine is full, a process that usually takes about 2-3 seconds for a standard 50 round helical magazine. This also allows operators to "top off" the magazine by reloading with a partially empty magazine. When empty, the polymer cassette is either discarded or deeked. Slug throwers almost universally have a single-shot, burst, and full auto setting, with the burst setting firing several rounds before the gun finishes recoiling from the first round fired, and so quickly that to the untrained ear, 3 or 5 or sometimes as many as 8 shot bursts sound like a single shot.