Do you remember the Belgian FN Telgren riflegrenade? The one with bullet thru principle of firing? The one that can be fired with any type of ammo, from ball, incendiary, tracer to AP?

How does bullet thru work? I've been reading that it uses some king of method of catching gunpowder gases, letting the bullet to pass thru the centerline tube thru the grenade. Then I found that the bullet hits and penetrates thru a polycarbonate plug that gets closed after the bullet penetrates it (IDR No.12, 1986.). How is this done? Polycarbonate is not known to have any elastic deformation as rubber does. Do they use rubber instead?

BTW, what happened to this great weapon. Who used it? Is it replaced by grenade launchers today or not? I see that the British used M16A2 rifle grenade that looks just like Telgren - are there any differences?

Thanx in advance, Sebastian

The FN Bullet-Thru grenades are still listed.

No-one else seems to use a similar system. Apart from any patent issues, I suspect this may be because it requires a hole all the way through the centre of the grenade, which could mess up a hollow-charge warhead, complicate fuze design etc. Most modern grenades either use a Bullet Trap system or have a bullet deflector in the base, so they can be fired using ball rounds rather than requiring a special blank cartridge.

I was seeking info about Telgren RG, and found this:

http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/Rif...ndgrenades.html

The Horror...

I recall reading some long time back that one of the limitations of the through-bullet design was the complication in finding a usable training area. There just aren't many bases in Europe that have training grounds and/or ranges that are large enough to permit firing of a full caliber rifle round at 30 - 45 degree angles. Bullet-trap designs can be used on much smaller ranges.

-Mark 1