Guns after the fall of civerlisation

[copeab]

Modern manual repeaters (pump, lever or bolt action, plus revolvers) are going to suffer less from a conversion to black-powder cartridges than self-loading firearms. Modern firearms, if well-maintained (and ones firing black powder ammo require much more frequent cleaning than those iring smokeless powder), can last for quite a long time, although some parts will eventually wear out.

[weby]

There are many places on earth where people make weapons in small workshops, both totally from begining or from parts of previously ruined weapons. Further making things like mortars and rocket lauchers is not that hard as the numbers of weapons needed is not that high as a given weapon will last quite a lot of use.

The real problem is ammunition. A single weapon can shoot out huge numbers of bullets over it's lifetime. Thus stockpiles of old ammunition will get depleted. Atleast for fairly long after you are out, you will have brass as recovering them will be of some(and raising) priority. Making a jacketed bullet is harder in high enough quantities, but simple bullets that are good enough are easy to make. Thus the problems are the smokeless powder and the primers. Both require fairly complex processes, so the availability and quantity of such depends on the surviving/recreatable chemical "industry". Primers is a slightly easier thing as you need a smaller quantity of material and if you are desparate enough you can use quite a lot of possible things as the primer(usually at a lowered reliability and such). Smokeless powder however is needed in larger quantities, thus making it by hand in small patches makes for a very limited ammunition supply. Replacing smokeless powder with black powder is certainly possible, but require reengineering of many weapon types. There are several problems, but the most immediate one is that black powder has way less explosive effect for same ammount, thus autoleaders will likely not cycle and such. Other problems are the increased fouling and so on, but with some time and knowledge such are ofcourse possible to overcome.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by copeab

Modern manual repeaters (pump, lever or bolt action, plus revolvers) are going to suffer less from a conversion to black-powder cartridges than self-loading firearms.

Note many of these models are old enough to have been *designed* for black powder cartridges, and many of the rest were designed to fire modern cartridges that are only partially filled, to mimic the properties of black powder cartridges so they could be used in those older guns. As long as the action isn't gas operated, and you clean it thoroughly every few shots, your gun will probably deliver pretty close to the same performance for its normal service life with black powder.

Incidentally, if you do end up unable to manufacture fulminate primers, I'm not so sure you end up with flintlocks. We know a lot more ways of striking a spark than TL4 gun designers did - phosphorus, perchlorates, cerium alloy sparkwheels, adiabatic compression, piezoelectricity - many of which aren't all that technically difficult.

[HuManBing]

I'd imagine shotguns would be easier to make, and their ammunition somewhat easier too. You don't need to be as precise when making shotgun shells, since it's just a load of pellets with gunpowder packed in behind it anyway.

If your nucleus of humanity survivalists happens to have some tech from before, it's possible to "swage" metal into the right shapes and thickness for bullets and casings. This is using pressure, not heat, to deform and shape the bullets. It's more reliable and less dangerous than heat and requires far less energy (important if fuel is an issue).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swage

[pawsplay]

I've seen someone make bullets. A family friend of ours was a gun nut. My mom didn't want me anywhere near it, but I was fascinated. There was a cannister of gunpowder, and a special kind of press that helped compress the powder.

Honestly, I was thinking about this recently, and the conclusion I came to was that it would be hard to keep firearms from reappearing all over the place. TL5 stuff would be a cinch, and you could get up to TL7 style long arms and ammo as soon as you have enough of a technical base to make precision tools.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by HuManBing

I'd imagine shotguns would be easier to make, and their ammunition somewhat easier too. You don't need to be as precise when making shotgun shells, since it's just a load of pellets with gunpowder packed in behind it anyway.

The shotgun's ancestor, the blunderbuss, could be loaded with pretty much anything that would fit down the muzzle (at least in fiction, anyway).

[TheGnome]

In such a world I could easily see communities going to war over people with gunsmithing skills. These folk would not be vary common and vary hard to come by. If one group had a gunsmith they would have a upper hand on others.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by TheGnome

In such a world I could easily see communities going to war over people with gunsmithing skills.

Only if they aren't very smart.

Buying training is a hell of a lot cheaper than a war. And if they already have a gunsmith and you don't, won't sell the information for less than a war would cost, and don't think the balance of forces is bad enough they can be intimidated into a deal by just the threat, well, the odds for winning a war to capture this knowledge with enough of your community left to benefit from it don't look so good.

[Green-Neck]

You may see a re-introduction of air rifles if powder and fulminate primers are difficult to manufacture. With a modern understanding of engineering and modern high quality metals that could concievable be recycled for some time to come, http://www.quackenbushairguns.com/air rifles with decent kinetic energy would make quite servicable weapons.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by TheGnome

In such a world I could easily see communities going to war over people with gunsmithing skills. These folk would not be vary common and vary hard to come by. If one group had a gunsmith they would have a upper hand on others.

In the short run there are lots of guns to go around without gunsmithing. In the long run, gunsmithing won't be any more a rare skill than iron age blacksmithing. There might be a period when gun stocks are low but gunsmith training hasn't been disseminated well, but I don't think the existing stock will run down fast enough for that.