Suppressed mouse firearm

Geez! I thought I had posted this years ago! Mice and rats present some really neat, and at the same time maddening, bits of world building and tech design for my Andur and variants of my Angel and Knight dreamscapes.

    Having sentient, bipedal individuals who range in size from 7.5" to 12.5" living in many cases side by side with bigums who range in height from 36" to almost 96" creates all kinds of fascinating studies in architecture, manufacturing, medical, exploration, and popular culture. It also create all kinds of opportunities, and nightmares, for military affairs, security, and rescue operations.

    Mice and rats are unusual rugged and strong for their size. A mouse weighing only a few ounces is capable of lifting several times their own body weight. Except for Petina who just runs on her own rules. However they still don't have the mass to exploit their great strength. This can be quite a problem when it comes to design weapons for them. Especially firearms.

    This is a suppressed firearm I designed for mice and rats several years ago. It is intended to be used as a close range sniper weapon for discreet removal of individuals or key pieces of non-hardened technology. It meant to be used at ranges of less than 100yds from its target. Now at those distances even if you are tiny there is a chance your opponent may find you or see your muzzle flash. Also the problem arises of how do you fire a weapon with a large enough projectile to drop a target like a six foot tall bigum quickly and consistently when you are only a few inches tall.

    In this case the answer is to develop a recoilless, suppressed firearm that can transported by a mouse sniper and his spotter/assistant. For this design I came up with design that incorporated some elements of the German Armburst anti-tank weapon with elements of Soviet/Russian suppressed, flashless pistols. The projectile,cartridge, propellant, barrel are assembled as one prepackaged unit that is loaded on to the launcher unit. Not unlike the Milan missile. The operator cocks the striker spring by brace the butt stock against his shoulder and pulling the twin cocking levers toward him. This cocks the striker/firing pin assembly. Upon firing a firing pin strikes the bottom edge of cartridge which crushes a primer material in the bottom cartridge wall.

    This detonates the powder which drives two pistons. The first piston punches a cartridge forward upon which the bullet engages the rifling to give it some stabilization to the projectile which then exists the barrel. The piston diameter is slightly larger than that of the barrel, so it is stopped at the mouth of cartridge both muffling the denotation trapping a flash inside the barrel.

    At the same time the detonating powder drives a heavy metal counterweight piston rearward. This piston is eventually stopped at the rear of the tube however at this point the recoil pulse is over and the weapon is done firing. At this point the team will either lay low for awhile, exit the area, or begin the process of reloading the weapon which entails removing spent barrel projectile assembly and locking a new one to the main body. The old one can either be disposed of on site or carried away to remove evidence for the scene.

    The projectile fired is roughly 5.56mm and is designed with a light penetrator tip to help break through bone, especially skullbone, the rest of projectile is of fragmentation variety that is filled with small shot that quickly travel in widening cone inside the body. The projectiles will travel about eight inches inside the body but in the case of a shot to the brain cavity this can result in catastrophic damage to the brain. However it may not even create an exit wound, and with only 5.56mm entry wound it may not be immediately obvious to folks standing around the target that it has been shot. The target just suddenly falls to ground, only a few seconds later would blood begin flow from the head.

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