Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 08-21-2018, 03:18 AM   #21
The Colonel
 
The Colonel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: musket ball costs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaware View Post
Not to mention, you look at something like an arrowhead, which is only 20x cost for something that honestly, should take more work compared to just make a ball out of it.

It seems super janky that you get to looking at a musket ball made of silver that takes up less specialized work, costing astronomically more than an arrowhead that takes more specialized work.
Where did the arrowhead price come from again? IIRC some of the pricing around Fantasy and similar things can be a little arbitrary...
The Colonel is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-21-2018, 03:25 AM   #22
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: musket ball costs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaware View Post
All of its is for me as the GM, not one of my players even uses guns.

Mostly, I was trying to do all of this because the cost-per-shot multipliers were brutal.

For example, I have a werewolf hunter who uses silver bullets.

The 50x price of a musket ball that is already unnaturally expensive for whatever reason, you end up with a single musket ball that costs ~50-~90 or more G$

Which pound for pound, is more expensive the silver it would require to manufacture it.

I would throw in some + or - x, because they would take be made specially since silver melts at such a higher temperature than lead.
But, as there is copious amounts of magic in the setting, I wouldn't imagine manufacturing costs to be that much more. For an least shape metal spell or the like. Or something as simple as a create fire spell to reach those temperatures etc.

Not to mention, you look at something like an arrowhead, which is only 20x cost for something that honestly, should take more work compared to just make a ball out of it.

It seems super janky that you get to looking at a musket ball made of silver that takes up less specialized work, costing astronomically more than an arrowhead that takes more specialized work.

As for the players just want to play? we play once a week. And I'm getting this ready so they know what they sell for and what they can buy them for. Or thereabouts.
Well, of the 0.15 lb for a round of Musket ammunition in GURPS Low Tech, about 0.10 to 0.12 lb is the shot and the rest powder (1/3 the weight of the shot in powder and 1/2 the weight of the shot in powder were common rules of thumb). Silver costs G$1000/lb in GURPS, so a lead musket ball should cost G$100. I would throw in the powder and wadding and priming for free.

Arrowheads can be as light as 1/100 lb.
__________________
"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper

This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature
Polydamas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-21-2018, 03:39 AM   #23
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: musket ball costs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaware View Post
All of this is nice and everything and we'll thought out and the what not.

However.

Back during those days, guns didn't have interchangeable parts.

Therefore one couldn't just go out and "buy yourself a pound of shot for your "~.53 caliber musket" because every musket was different."

That was why people historicallyrics made their own. Especially during the revolutionary war and even up until after the civil war.

That is why I wouldn't charge the price of labor to format said shot, since that's more than likely what you are having to do yourself.

Since the book eyeballs powder at around 20$ a pound and you get ~40 shots per pound, one can just ignore powder values since you would be buying it separately.
Well, the cost per shot and weight per shot in GURPS books include everything you need, so you have to compare like with like (and for a matchlock, you need coarse powder and priming powder and lead and match and wadding ... do you really want to track all of those separately? "I am sorry Bob, you spent an hour waiting in ambush, mark off an extra 10 feet of match.") The ball will be lighter and less expensive than the whole round.

The prices for black-powder ammunition in High Tech are for pre-made paper cartridges (and percussion caps if necessary). GURPS books don't give the price for 'just the bullet.'

But if you look at historical prices, and the prices of powder and shot in GURPS Low Tech, somewhere between G$5/lb and G$20/lb is reasonable.
__________________
"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper

This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature

Last edited by Polydamas; 08-21-2018 at 04:05 AM.
Polydamas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-21-2018, 09:21 AM   #24
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: musket ball costs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post

Doing further research, I came across the fact that the Tower Pound was 12 oz to the lb instead of 16, and that the weight of a Tower Pound was actually 5400 grains. This was in 1266. In reality, a lb of mass as we measure it, would be 7,000 grains,
This is (more or less) the difference between the Troy ounce (480 grains) and its' acompanying pound (12 oz or 5620 grains) and the avoirdupois ounce (437.5 grains) and pound (16 oz or 7000 grains) of US customary measures,

Gurps uses the 7000 grain pound in all cases and the prices of silver and gold in constant Gurps $ are taken as givens and constants for the purpose of simplification.

Just to add to the confusion, in cases where I have been able to pin the facts down traditional "pounds" of lead have been the Troy pound of 12 ounces. So lead has more in common with gold and silver than just being soft and dense.:)
__________________
Fred Brackin
Fred Brackin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-22-2018, 02:51 AM   #25
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: musket ball costs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
This is (more or less) the difference between the Troy ounce (480 grains) and its' acompanying pound (12 oz or 5620 grains) and the avoirdupois ounce (437.5 grains) and pound (16 oz or 7000 grains) of US customary measures,

Gurps uses the 7000 grain pound in all cases and the prices of silver and gold in constant Gurps $ are taken as givens and constants for the purpose of simplification.

Just to add to the confusion, in cases where I have been able to pin the facts down traditional "pounds" of lead have been the Troy pound of 12 ounces. So lead has more in common with gold and silver than just being soft and dense.:)
Yeah "is this pound/cubit/penny the same as that pound/cubit/penny" is one reason that using historical prices is a lot of work.

I considered reworking the price lists for my Bronze Age campaign, then realized that I was putting a lot of work for something that only I cared about and used Basic Set + Low Tech prices with a few tweaks ($1 became 1 QA of barley, the barley-copper-silver exchange rate was tweaked ...)
__________________
"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper

This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature
Polydamas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-22-2018, 03:13 PM   #26
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: musket ball costs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post
Putting this in perspective for that time period? If an average laborer earned approximately 12 pounds (unit of money) per year, that works out to 1 pound or 240 pence per month.
The sources I looked at had wages for a general laborer bouncing around from ~20-25 Pounds from ~1700 to 1750.

It's obvious that the really expensive bit in a musket cartridge is the gunpowder, which makes sense given the time and trouble required to collect the ingredients and make the powder, plus the difficulty of storing it.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-22-2018, 03:15 PM   #27
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: musket ball costs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
I have the impression that in the Jacobean period, a shilling a day was a good income for a worker in town.
That's a good estimate for an ordinary laborer's wage through much of the 18th c.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-22-2018, 03:22 PM   #28
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: musket ball costs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaware View Post
Not to mention, you look at something like an arrowhead, which is only 20x cost for something that honestly, should take more work compared to just make a ball out of it.
In either case, you'd be using cast silver. Depending on the nature of the arrowhead (e.g., something like a bodkin point) the difference in mass of silver used to make an arrowhead might not be that different from that required to make a musket ball.

Time and effort required to make a mold for either an arrowhead or a bullet won't be comparatively that different, especially if you have a model part you can take a cast from, nor would clean-up of the cast parts.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
bullet cost, lead, low tech, musket

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:43 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.