Spaceforce Small Arms

Where do you think the heat goes, out of interest?

It stays in the chamber. Change my mind.

You'd need a guidance system so that they hit the target. They don't spin fast enough at the muzzle to stay stable.

I don't think ballistics works quite the same in vacuum, certainly as far as spin is assumed.

*concerned

If you install a guidance system it's a missile, those things are rather large. This is specifically a thread about small arms.

How are you gong to get third degree burns through your EVA suit?

Or we could go old school and make all the guns water cooled.

The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of a system must increase over time, unless the system has already reached equilibrium. A gun with a hot chamber and a cold exterior is not in a state of equilibrium. In order for the heat to remain in the chamber, the chamber would have to be a perfect insulator. A perfect insulator would violate the second law of thermodynamics. But the chamber and most of the parts touching the chamber, being made of steel which has extreme thermal conductivity, are the exact opposite of insulators. The heat cannot stay in the chamber because that doesn't make any fucking sense nigger. QED.

I suppose there's no need to worry about weight up there, give every man a twin barrelled Vickers gun.

Dude, the laws of thermodynamics are hardly new or obscure. If you're new to them then have a basic (but rather fun) primer on the subject in vid related.

Let's assume that was sarcasm and move on.

You're going to have water on hand anyway for life support / neutron shielding / reaction mass / whatever. Put a thin little shell around the barrel and receiver, abuse the fuck out of capillary action to keep the water in contact with the metal, capture any steam with a one way valve and condensing reservoir, use another one way valve to refill the water jacket, and there you go.