01-20-2020, 11:05 AM | #71 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
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Roll onto your back, hold the musket between your knees bracing the butt with one foot, reload per normal until its time to prime the pan/place the cap on the lock, then roll prone to finish the reload sequence. You lose some time due to having to roll and due to the unfamiliar posture, but not that much. Should be improvable as an Average technique. But, from a tactical point of view you don't want to be lying belly-up reloading a musket which takes 15-30 seconds to load when it's only accurate out to 50 yards and your enemy might be able to charge to contact before you can reload. Even worse, reloading prone means that you can't see what your enemy is up to in the meantime. |
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01-20-2020, 11:17 AM | #72 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
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Useable rifle scopes would be TL6 technology, decent ones TL7, and good mass-market ones, especially reliable variable-power scopes, TL8+.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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01-20-2020, 11:29 AM | #73 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
Are machine tools and improved materials allowed?
If so, you rapidly get TL6-7 quality weapons at TL4-5, with greatly reduced prices. Presses which produce swaged bullets and scales capable of measuring fine weights effectively reduce the cost of match-grade ammo and save riflemen from having to DIY. Modern blackpowder rifle saboted ammo reduces lead fouling in the lands while giving the same gas seal as a Minie' ball. That eliminates much of the powder and lead fouling associated with sustained shooting of a BP weapon. Sub-caliber ammo might give better long-range ballistic performance than a regular Minie' ball. Pre-made TL8 alloy stainless steel barrels and lock parts are stronger and much less susceptible to corrosion than lower TL steels. No real game effects, but shooters will appreciate reduced cleaning time. Furthermore, there are lots of little design improvements built into TL6+ guns, especially at TL8. Better trigger design, better balance, more ergonomic design, kinder recoil behavior. Take a look at modern black powder hunting rifles for real-like examples of 21st c. engineering applied to 19th c. technology. All that said, don't discount what TL5, esp. late TL5 technology could do. I've got Victorian era microscopes which have tolerances as good as anything I'd expect from a modern firearm accessory. The main difference is that TL8 machines can do the job way better and faster than an 1840s machinist working with hand tools. Riflemen of the period could and did use optical sights (they date to the late 18th c.). Modern niceties like night sights and ranging reticules would be welcome additions, however. In game terms, modern optics on a TL5 rifle might boost the maximum Acc bonus for Aimed shots or Precision Aiming. |
01-20-2020, 02:00 PM | #74 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
Yes, but they are difficult to amortise where there are no regular market supplies of machinists, literate & numerate high school graduates, electrical power, uniform high-spec materials, ready-made standardised components (e.g. screws), where there is inadequate transport infrastructure to deliver your inputs and distribute your outputs, where the institutions that are supposed to ensure timely delivery and payment (e.g. commercial courts and contract law) are ineffective, slow, or corrupt, and where a warlord's or revolutionary's thugs might show up several times per month to confiscate, redistribute, draft, or execute your stock in hand, plant and equipment, and skilled workers.
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Anyway, suppose that you could manufacture cheap AR-15s in the Sheffield of 1820. What about the Khartoum of 1800?
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 01-20-2020 at 09:20 PM. |
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01-22-2020, 04:17 AM | #75 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
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Precision tools and measurment tools are going to be huge game changers in firearms manufacturing even with total and effective bans on importing weapons and weapon technical information. Interchangeable parts become easy when you can measure them. |
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01-22-2020, 08:46 AM | #76 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
Even today the gunsmiths in Af/Pak/SE Asia make smallarms with hand tools because those are what they can afford, and wages are low.
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"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 |
01-22-2020, 09:14 AM | #77 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
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Better fitting breaches with tighter tolerances are only part the Dreyse's problem Imported firing pins made from some very tough UT metal look very good. The inspectors might not even recognize them as parts of a weapon. Tell them you're importing super-durable needles for punching holes in the native leather or something like that.
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Fred Brackin |
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01-22-2020, 01:12 PM | #78 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
Yes, in places where fancy machines don't make economic sense, they can produce 20th century smallarms by importing ammunition and just making the weapons themselves. So in Brett's setting, where they don't have access to machine-made brass cartridges at all, how does that make the fancy machines more viable? He has mentioned gengeneered cartridge-bushes but it sounds like those produce a propellant not a hard case.
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"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 |
01-22-2020, 01:53 PM | #79 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
With the right gauges and measuring you can use files and other hand tools to get to very high degrees of accuracy. My old boss had a cube on a 45 that as an apprentice he hand filed the whole thing to with in 0.0005" of square and true. The measuring tools are in many ways more important than the cutting tools to high precision machining.
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01-22-2020, 01:57 PM | #80 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders
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I think there are lots of ways that a small volume of high tech could make breach loading far more practical even without drawn brass casings. |
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