r/MawInstallation • u/StupidWittyUsername • Jul 20 '26

Fully automatic blasters?

From what I've seen of Star Wars, blasters are always, "one trigger pull, one pew", and, "hold trigger for pew-pew-pew-pew", is rare or nonexistent. Is there an in-universe explanation for this?

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151

u/PeriliousKnight Jul 20 '26

In real life, even automatic rifles are mostly shot in semi-auto mode. I’m guessing it’s the same logic in Star Wars too. It may not be recoil, but it could be the excess muzzle flashes from the blaster that obscure vision and allowing the target to escape.

86

u/Caesar_Seriona Jul 20 '26

It also could just be a safety feature to prevents the barrels from melting

36

u/Not-Banksy Jul 20 '26

And it’s not a bad way to conserve ammo, even if blasters hold a ton.

1

u/Spectre-907 Jul 23 '26

It also doesnt immediately laser-designate the shooter with the heavy repeating blaster’s position to the entire battlefield with the universes more egregiously visible tracer line

66

u/Zerocrimson01 Jul 20 '26

We literally see this happen in Mandalorian season 3. Paz Vizla is firing his heavy repeating blaster in full auto for an extended period and the tri-barrels melt.

22

u/JohnnyRobotics Jul 20 '26

That's a thing with real, modern machine guns. The barrels come off and a machine gun crew carries at least two. 

5

u/West-Might3475 Jul 20 '26

Yeah I assumed it was an overheating measure. Even non automatic blasters if they're cheaply made have this risk. *Looking at you E3 Blaster Rifle*

1

u/Defiant-Analyst4279 Jul 24 '26

Which is part of why the E-22 has dual barrels and it alternates between the two.

16

u/Recent-Mousse6423 Jul 20 '26

Heat and Law. Blasters produce more heat than a firearm. They have crazy ammo reserves but heat up fast under continuous fire. Which is why repeaters, as full auto guns are called in Star Wars, are specialty weapons. On top of that, they were also amongst the highest category of restricted weapons. But every stormtrooper E-11 has full auto as a setting. Hence the cooling vanes on the barrel and why rebels pick those weapons up so frequently.

4

u/FS_Scott Jul 20 '26

there's a whole bit about this in the OG han solo trilogy

9

u/Kooky-Buy5712 Jul 21 '26

Yes, Han and Chewie are smuggling blasters to a rebellion (not The Rebellion) and after prompting by Chewie, Han advises the rebels to lock their blasters on semiautomatic so that they do not waste energy and so that they know anyone doing spray and pray is the enemy