I don't know how well this works in practice as I have never explored this area, but it makes sense in my mind. Someone please tell me if I'm wrong.

Yes the added mechanical disadvantage would slow the weapon back down under heavy load, which is why you need to have the more powerful ram.

I made a really (really) crude animation to badly demonstrate what I'm on about.

http://www.fileize.com/files/50d44066/abe/Flippers.swf

Again someone step in if I'm feeding false information, I'm learning too here.