"Fantasy" Question For Gunsmiths

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  • JTC3400

    Member
    Nov 14, 2017
    5
    Hi, first I hope this is in the right spot, and does not violate any rules. I'm not sure where else I could post this question here. I wanted to ask people who know how build guns this question. The basic question is how hard would it be to build guns and bullets from almost scratch?

    I got into a discussion with a friend at work about a game, (Fallout series) He says there are too many guns and bullets in the game, I say there are not too many, and there would be a lot, given the scenario described:

    World War 3 happens, nukes are thrown all over. There is a 10 year war BEFORE it goes nuke, so guns are of course even more mass produced than they already are in the USA before the world is destroyed. Not every area/city takes a direct hit but the fallout, sun being blocked out etc all happens. Many people escape to giant vaults (which house technology) or their own shelters. 200 years pass - most of the world is in ruins (we focus on the USA) but towns pop up and there is electricity in some areas (Hover Dam survived for example) and some tech is left... Think "Book of Eli" but a lot more time has past, and while there are still tons of killers and raiders around there has been some rebuilding and society.

    I say there would be PLENTY of guns. First off, if a gun is kept out of moisture and cleaned it should be good for 1000's of rounds, correct? I assume make shift lubricant could come from many sources.

    I think there would be people who could manufacture new barrels. Not every factory would be gone, the blue prints (I assume) are wide spread for say, the AR-15, and even if the steel industry is gone you can find tons of metal and melt it down. Maybe it won't be as good of a barrel but it should still work for a few hundred rounds?

    A lot of people know how to reload (We had a guy at our office who did it, but he went to a new location) I do not know how hard it is to make gunpowder... I hear its charcoal, salt peter and sulfur, but I have no clue where to find those, also that is old black powder, I do not know how hard it is to make modern powder.

    I assume, as business will be with us as long as there at least a few humans left, someone will figure out how to manufacture or build replacement parts AR-15s, AK-47s, Glock 17's or whatever and make ammo for them. Therefore, guns would be wide spread and anyone who had essentials to trade could get guns and ammo.

    My friend disagrees, and says guns and bullets would be super rare, and only a few who hoarded them would have them. He argues 100-200 years have past, the materials can't be gathered and anyone who could make more bullets or guns wouldn't give any up.

    Anyway, I would like to hear a viewpoint from anyone who can build guns and reloads/makes ammo on this subject.
     

    zoostation

    , ,
    Moderator
    Jan 28, 2007
    22,857
    Abingdon
    Google "Khyber Pass Guns" and you can probably find lots of information. They even use things like old railroad tracks for gun metal stock and old film for propellant.
     

    balttigger

    Ultimate Member
    Oct 15, 2008
    3,051
    Middle River, MD
    Factories run on this wonderful thing called: Electricity. When the nukes go off, the EMPs will destroy the electrical grid and most, if not all the generation stations; plus all the electronics in the modern lathes, drill presses....pretty much anything with an electric motor will be toast.

    The Fallout series is a great game, but it isn't seated too awful deep in reality.
     

    Biggfoot44

    Ultimate Member
    Aug 2, 2009
    32,877
    Read the 1632 series by Eric Flint ( and other authors and co-authors in a tightly controlled shared universe , with extensive historical and technical research .) The basic premise is a 1990's small town in WV transported en mass to 1630's Germany , and a major theme of late 20th cen ideas being applied with 17th cen technology . ( Along with judicious use of uptime items.)

    Yes , plenty of firearms being mfg, but not in today's formats. Yes modern style primers are the sticking point.

    Flintlocks most common, with rifle muskets using minie balls the mass millitary arm . Basic c&b revolvers being introduced for civillians with $ , but limited availability of percussion caps .
     

    Rambler

    Doing the best with the worst.
    Oct 22, 2011
    2,162
    Factories run on this wonderful thing called: Electricity. When the nukes go off, the EMPs will destroy the electrical grid and most, if not all the generation stations; plus all the electronics in the modern lathes, drill presses....pretty much anything with an electric motor will be toast.

    The Fallout series is a great game, but it isn't seated too awful deep in reality.

    At the Tuckahoe Steam and Gas Association Machine Shop Museum, there is a functional overhead line shaft machine shop. The machines are driven by leather belts on pulleys. The overhead shaft now is driven by an electric motor for ease of demonstration. However, putting it under power with a steam engine would not be terribly difficult. Scrap metal can be re-purposed without having to melt and re-cast it. Guns were made manually and with very little in the way of modern machine tools for many years. The easiest gun to make would be something not firing fixed cartridge ammunition. Muzzle loading or with a breech that opens does not matter, just made and loaded differently. The simplest form of priming is via a touch hole (like a cannon or a match lock gun). There are more steps to making a firearm of more modern design and the precision required is finer. But the technology is still roughly the same. If you have the tools and materials, you just need skill and time.
     

    Bullfrog

    Ultimate Member
    Oct 8, 2009
    15,152
    Carroll County
    I have no experience in this, but I would suspect in such a world you would have a lot of hand made or hand-repaired firearms falling into two distinct groups.

    It is not terribly difficult to make an accurate long-range, relatively slow firing weapon with low technology. Think Kentucky rifles, flintlocks, percussion caps, etc.

    It is also not difficult to build a rapid firing, relatively inaccurate short-range self defense weapon... in fact I believe I remember someone stating it's easier to build a full-auto weapon than a semi-auto, especially open-bolt designs like the PPSh, Sten, and M3. For reference, check out the Luty SMG (see below quote & link), made with hand tools (files, hacksaw) and parts you could get at Home Depot (metal pipe and angle iron). As stated by others, the difficulty would be in finding or producing reliable ammo for something like the Luty.

    What would be difficult in a tech-limited environment, purely IMO, would be to build a semi-auto that is accurate at long ranges.

    Phillip A. Luty was a Briton who took a hard philosophical line against gun control legislation in the UK in the 1990s. In response to more restrictive gun control laws, he set out to prove that all such laws were ultimately futile by showing that one could manufacture a functional firearm from hardware store goods, without using any purpose-made firearms parts.

    Luty succeeded in this task, designing a 9mm submachine gun made completely from scratch with a minimum of tools.


    https://www.forgottenweapons.com/weapons-as-political-protest-p-a-lutys-submachine-gun/

    So lots of muzzle loaders, breech loaders, falling block type rifles for hunters and snipers, and lots of Luty type SMGs, handguns like the Liberator (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator) and (eta after reading bibitor's link) sh*t-shovel AK's. Not as many Ar10/15s IMO... unless they were preserved and not used hard.
     

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    G O B

    Ultimate Member
    Nov 17, 2007
    1,940
    Cen TX
    Any reasonably smart 5th grader with exposure to hand tools should be able to make a musket. SHTF and amazing improvised weaponry will happen just like it does in every sh*t hole today.
     

    JTC3400

    Member
    Nov 14, 2017
    5
    Thank you to those of you who made serious replies - bibitor and Bullfrog especially, very interesting stuff.

    I had not thought about how tough the primers would be... although keep in mind, in this scenario, people saw this coming and so a lot of this equipment for making primers and such would have been in the underground vaults or a hardened factory. Balttrigger... did you read the post, or have you played the series? 1) nukes didn't blanked the USA, a lot missed or were shot down... Vegas for example was 100% spared. 2) There were underground facilities with stocked fuel and generators. 3) 200 years have passed and people have built new (although much smaller than we have today) power stations and grids.. 4) Its just a story... assume SOME power stations and factories survive.

    Also you are never too old for video/computer games... I am almost 40, I was playing as a kid I'll play at 59, and until death... fun is fun, I liked guns at 10 and I like them now.

    Now that it has been established that people could build repeating guns and the primers would be the hard part, how do you go about making them? Assuming people dragged the equipment for making them into a bunker, how hard would it be to make propellant and gather the materials for it?
     

    Art3

    Eqinsu Ocha
    MDS Supporter
    Jan 30, 2015
    13,267
    Harford County
    This is a very interesting hypothetical. I haven't played the game, so I might be missing some of the details...I'm picturing a Road Warrior with a few BarterTown's scattered about...

    200 years is a long time. I'm sure properly stored weapons would last that long. I recently acquired a 130 year old rifle that seems to work just fine. Maybe plastic might not survive that long (like stocks and handguards)...and maybe springs may not be up to their full springiness, but I bet most of them would work for a while. I'm skeptical about ammo holding up. I've shot 50+ year old ammo that was fine, and 80 old that went off, but with tiny case ruptures. I don't use that now, but in a post apocalyptic scenerio with no other option, I'd use it in a heartbeat. But...200 years is a long time for components to stay active. I've heard of cases of 100+ year old black powder still working, but, as was mentioned, you have to get it to go off. Even if it was your intent to mothball components for a 200 year sleep, stored in the most stasis-like conditions, I just don't know if chemically active things like primer and powder would hold up (but, like I said, I don't know either way). Maybe a smart person could have preseverd the raw (and presumably more stable) materials needed to make the more active components?

    In terms of manufacturing ammo...supposedly, the mountain men made their own black powder out of charcoal, guano, and...something else :shrug: But you don't want black powder in an auto loader. I would think the precisely made smokeless ammo we're used to would take a good bit of infrastructure to be able to mass produce. You'd need a society working together to support that kind of infrastructure. I remember one of the Resident Evil games let you make your own ammo...but that was combining stuff that was already around. Unless some degrees of production have been maintained, I don't think you're even going to have diesel fuel after 200 years.

    I we're starting over, reinventing the firearms wheel but trying to jump over the first thousand or so years of development, has the knowledge to do so been passed down? Does anyone even understand how a self contained cartridge works, or would it been seen as ornamentation as they wait for Captain Walker? If the firearm knowledge and preconceptions we know went away, it may start over in a whole new direction.

    Maybe revisit Lewis and Clark's air rifle as a starting point :shrug:
     

    Art3

    Eqinsu Ocha
    MDS Supporter
    Jan 30, 2015
    13,267
    Harford County
    Thank you to those of you who made serious replies - bibitor and Bullfrog especially, very interesting stuff.

    I had not thought about how tough the primers would be... although keep in mind, in this scenario, people saw this coming and so a lot of this equipment for making primers and such would have been in the underground vaults or a hardened factory. Balttrigger... did you read the post, or have you played the series? 1) nukes didn't blanked the USA, a lot missed or were shot down... Vegas for example was 100% spared. 2) There were underground facilities with stocked fuel and generators. 3) 200 years have passed and people have built new (although much smaller than we have today) power stations and grids.. 4) Its just a story... assume SOME power stations and factories survive.

    Also you are never too old for video/computer games... I am almost 40, I was playing as a kid I'll play at 59, and until death... fun is fun, I liked guns at 10 and I like them now.

    Now that it has been established that people could build repeating guns and the primers would be the hard part, how do you go about making them? Assuming people dragged the equipment for making them into a bunker, how hard would it be to make propellant and gather the materials for it?

    I just had a thought about this part...maybe, by this time, we are no longer using pressure sensitive explosive primers at all? Maybe we're using some sort of electric ignition, like model rockets or Metal Storm? :shrug:
     

    rseymorejr

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 28, 2011
    26,002
    Harford County
    200 years?
    In 200 years we have gone from hand making flintlocks to mass producing polymer framed pistols and spitting ammo off an assembly line by the millions. As long as some of the knowledge and technology is retained it should be a piece of cake, if people are properly motivated.
     

    Mark75H

    MD Wear&Carry Instructor
    Industry Partner
    MDS Supporter
    Sep 25, 2011
    17,172
    Outside the Gates
    What is more important than any particular item like primers, is the basic machine tools for making other things. If you have the furnaces, drills, presses, lathes and milling machines - ANYTHING else is possible in DAYS at most.
     

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