FD Munitions was up in the NEXT area of SHOT Show. These are the small kiosks just outside the Press Room and often have some really interesting firearm development products at the show. FD Munitions is developing a caseless rifle. At least that is what they claim it to be. True caseless ammo does not have a metal container to hold the propellant. The FDM L5 rifle uses charge block ammo. It is a block of metal with five rounds in it. The block acts as one giant casing. The blocks are stackable and go into a giant magazine that is inserted from the left side of the L5 rifle.

The block above is the prototype but now FD Munitions is redesigning the block for a larger caliber. The blocks will be stackable like lego.

Below is a cut out of the “caseless” charge block to show where the propellant lays in the block.

The ammo is fired by a solenoid so even if you have a dud the gun will continue to work and you just pull the trigger to fire the next round.

After you have shot the last round in the charge block, it is ejected out the right hand side of the L5 and the next block is advanced into position.

Since the Charge Block Ammo has five rounds, there are five separate barrels. The barrels are not aligned but are set in parallel configuration. They recommend zeroing your optic on the middle barrel.

The L5 is battery operated and they are looking into a Faraday Generator (think of a flashlight that you shake to charge it up) and building it into the rifle. They are thinking of utilizing the gas of the rounds to power the Faraday Generator so in order to recharge the battery you just fire the L5.

FD Munitions claims the L5 design eliminates weaknesses in tradition firearm design. There are fewer moving parts and with the lack of cartridge cases, less chance of a malfunction.

Since this is basically a sci-fi type gun, it is electronically controlled and therefore programable. You should be able to make this full auto or volley fire. You could even program the rate of fire down to the milisecond split times between shots. Or you could program burst modes. The sky is the limit. Right now there is no word on when a production version will be available.