I'm not from the 'states so I don't know that much about guns, but wouldn't this cause the powder detonation to stress the casing in uneven ways, and thus be much harder to manufacture safely? As opposed to a cylindrical design where the force would be distributed evenly on the cross section?

I assume that this could work but has literally no advantages over just making it round and therefore there is no reason to do it

THE SQUARE BULLET HOLE MURDERS

I've heard of triangular ammo used in a mag fed revolver.

Basically the cons of weird ammo shapes are cost of manufacturing vs very little advantages.

Only advantage I can see here is it would pack up a little neater in a box/ammo can.

During the age of sail some navies experimented with square shot because they thought it might be easier to manage them on a rolling ship. But it turned out that making the bore for the cannon square was way harder than just stacking round shot carefully the way they had always done

Regardless of their shape, the issue is that bullets are being used to perpetuate white genocide in South Africa, along with depleted uranium, crossbows, deepfakes, hot sauce, and anything else that can be used to murder or humiliate white people. By debating the shape lf the bullets, not only are you putting the spotlight on only one of these weapons, but you are ignoring their use in white genocide. This will not stand.

Cartridge alignment is one less concern when you're stuffing the cylinder into the round hole?

The G11 (successful project that it was lol) had square ammo and its performance issues don't seem to have come from square ammo.

Notes on other people in this thread:

• The casing during firing acts as a seal for the chamber, which can very safely contain the detonation of the round (which is more of a slow burn, no worries of material damaging unpredictable shockwaves).
• Alignment might be an issue, but it would be coming out of a magazine in a predictable manner. There aren't really mechanical forces imparting spin on the round until it is fired.

Idle thoughts:

• In order to have the same structural integrity, the case would have to be thicker, though not much more so given a round has plenty of strength for supporting itself in a magazine.
• It might reduce friction in a magazine, allowing magazines to be longer. Stacked round bullets impart quite a lot of the magazine spring's force off into the side of the magazine.
• It might allow a greater volume of the magazine to be propellant, allowing for either a shorter magazine for the same ammo count or a larger magazine.
• It would be more difficult to manufacture. Circles are where its at for manufacturing.
• It would be specialist ammunition for one make of firearm. Not insurmountable, but does make it cost a lot for not much benefit.

I propose hexagonal telescoping casings for double stacking tiny magazines.

they don't know bout my hex ammo

because the rifling is what makes well, rifles so powerful and accurate. bullets come out of the muzzle with a stabilizing spin.