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 01-10-2020, 10:40 PM   #61
Agemegos
 
Agemegos's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
What's the corresponding pistol action? Colt Paterson revolvers?
Ooh no! the Dreyse Model 1835 needle-fire breech-loading single-shot pistol!
__________________

Decay is inherent in all composite things.
Nod head. Get treat.
Agemegos is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-10-2020, 11:17 PM   #62
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
I envision ontogenically engineered pseudo-plants that produce a papery PET capsule with a base, with pseudo food bodies in the base producing strands or thin rods of propellant inside the capsule. When it is ripe it can be harvested for processing, but you can divert the ripe capsules for use as charges. Just put the thing into a muzzle-loader with the capsule end towards the breech, the base acting as a wad, and ram down a Minié bullet in front of it. Half-cock, attach primer to lock, Robert is your mother's brother.

It would only look like loading a musket with a bird's-eye chilli.
Unless I'm mistaken, the bullet would need paper (or similar) wrapped around it as well in this case; one purpose of the wad was to hold the bullet in, and this is doubly important for a sub-caliber (prior to the expansion of the base from firing) bullet like the Minié.

The visual image of shoving (what looks like) a chili down a muzzleloader and blasting someone is pretty awesome, though. And here I thought ghost peppers packed a punch!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
Yeah. One way to do it would be to drill a flash tube somewhat wider than you need, tap it, and then screw in a tubular fitting with a nipple on the outside for the cap to go on and a sharpish spur on the inside to tear open the charge-wrapper as it is forced past.

Or, as you say, you could stick a bodkin or spine through the touchhole before fitting the cap, as a routine part of loading.
I wonder it it would be an option to design the percussion "caps" so that they have a sharp point that extends into the barrel, penetrating the cartridge-chili. I've envisioning a percussion cap that looks somewhat like a push pin, but probably with a longer needle. I'm concerned the needle would be blasted off when the cap detonates (or when the smokeless powder ignites, although perhaps if this happens it's likely to be flung out of the barrel along with the bullet? If not, shooters might regularly tilt their weapon down and give it a quick rap to knock the loose pin out between reloads.

If this is doable, I suspect it would speed up reloading a good deal. Indeed, you may be able to get away with attaching the wrapped bullet to the top of the cartridge-chili, letting you ram the whole thing in at once. Normally, a caplock muzzleloading rifle using a paper cartridge and Minié bullet would take 20 seconds to load, 16 with Fast-Draw (Ammo), while a caplock muzzleloading rifled pistol in the same situation would take 10 seconds to load, 8 with Fast-Draw (Ammo). Not needing to tear open the cartridge is going to save some time; perhaps these times become something like 15/12 and 7/5?
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-10-2020, 11:23 PM   #63
Agemegos
 
Agemegos's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Unless I'm mistaken, the bullet would need paper (or similar) wrapped around it as well in this case; one purpose of the wad was to hold the bullet in, and this is doubly important for a sub-caliber (prior to the expansion of the base from firing) bullet like the Minié.
Good point.

Quote:
I wonder it it would be an option to design the percussion "caps" so that they have a sharp point that extends into the barrel, penetrating the cartridge-chili.
Ideally the smokeless chilli¹ would be a bit narrower than the bore, and its capsule just strong and tight enough that it would reliably split when forced against the breech by ramming. But I don't like my chances of making such a system reliable.
____________
Postscript:

¹ Do not load your rifle with chipotle — it produces too much fouling.
__________________

Decay is inherent in all composite things.
Nod head. Get treat.

Last edited by Agemegos; 01-11-2020 at 05:49 AM. Reason: Adding a silly pun.
Agemegos is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-10-2020, 11:47 PM   #64
Sam Cade
 
Sam Cade's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Down in a holler
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I've envisioning a percussion cap that looks somewhat like a push pin, but probably with a longer needle.
The real world version was the moderately successful pin-fire cartridge, ca.1835 so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinfire_cartridge
__________________
Doin' what I can with what I got.-Burt Gummer

http://www.jpfo.org/
كافر
Sam Cade is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-11-2020, 12:02 AM   #65
Agemegos
 
Agemegos's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Unless I'm mistaken, the bullet would need paper (or similar) wrapped around it as well in this case; one purpose of the wad was to hold the bullet in, and this is doubly important for a sub-caliber (prior to the expansion of the base from firing) bullet like the Minié.
Minié bullets are cast with a few bands around them to engage the rifling when they obturate, and grooves in between. Perhaps some sort of lubricated gasket in one of the grooves, such as a few turns of waxed thread, would do the job.
__________________

Decay is inherent in all composite things.
Nod head. Get treat.

Last edited by Agemegos; 01-11-2020 at 12:06 AM.
Agemegos is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-11-2020, 12:52 AM   #66
Rupert
 
Rupert's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Unless I'm mistaken, the bullet would need paper (or similar) wrapped around it as well in this case; one purpose of the wad was to hold the bullet in, and this is doubly important for a sub-caliber (prior to the expansion of the base from firing) bullet like the Minié.
Minié balls didn't use a patch. The ball's base expanded on firing, creating a solid seal. The grooves were generally filled with grease, to help lubricate the bullet and soften fouling.

If these guns are using a form of smokeless powder, which is sounds like they are, fouling won't be a big deal, so patches will be even less necessary, and the bullets can be made closer to the bore's actual size, improving accuracy.
__________________
Rupert Boleyn

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
Rupert is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-11-2020, 05:28 AM   #67
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agemegos View Post
I have been given to understand that prone shooting in battle wasn't usually practical until the introduction of breech-loading rifles, because it is awkward and difficult to reload a muzzle-loader while prone.
Good point. I was thinking of skirmishers, who might well wait in the prone position for a target to come into range, but would then withdraw before reloading.
johndallman is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-11-2020, 07:52 AM   #68
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
Minié balls didn't use a patch. The ball's base expanded on firing, creating a solid seal. The grooves were generally filled with grease, to help lubricate the bullet and soften fouling.
My concern is that, with a sub-caliber munition, there's nothing really holding it in - angle the rifle down and there's a risk of your bullet falling out, or at least getting shifted some distance from the powder load (particularly if the weapon is shaking, such as if you're moving around a good deal). Would the (likely-lubricated) grooves catch on the rifling well enough prior to expansion that this wouldn't be an issue? Agemegos' suggestion of a lubricated gasket could also work (it doesn't give enough resistance to make ramming the bullet home difficult, but does give enough to hold the bullet in place; I assume it would be destroyed by the heat and expansion associated with firing the bullet.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2020, 10:01 AM   #69
night-hunter
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

It's in High Tech as the Accessory Rail, page 161. It's noted as TL7, but I suspect it would be doable at TL5 or so; if your firearms are standardized enough that identical models can use each other's bullets (as opposed to the user needing to cast his own bullets), I suspect you have the sort of precision needed to be able to make rails. Whether there's a real market for it may be a different question (those shooters who import fancy accessories may be well-served enough by just having their local gunsmith install the accessories).[/QUOTE]

Prior to the picatinny rail was the simple dove-tail rail on the receiver, which allowed the early versions of scopes, which had decent optics. Fixed as well as collapsible telescopes were one of the major early technologies (First telescope in1608 built by Hans Lippershey in the Netherlands.) Scopes were in fairly common use by the 1860s. Note the Berdan riflemen of the US Civil War.
night-hunter is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-20-2020, 10:51 AM   #70
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: High/ultra tech sights/accessories on muzzle-loaders

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Possible original reason for the tech: improved nitrogen fixing plants for fertilizer. There's a reason fertilizer plants explode.
Good for fantasy, not so good for hard SF.

N is highly water soluble and at high gradients it "burns" plants by messing with their osmotic balance. That's the reason that your grass dies when your dog pees on it. High N urine gets taken up by the grass, which then causes some or all of its cells to lyse.

If you could solve the problems of keeping the plant from dying due to high N levels, you then have the problem of how to keep all that concentrated N from leaching back into the soil. Perhaps it would get concentrated as ammonia/water mix stored in water-resistant nodules. That's not unrealistic, since plants and cells isolate similar harsh, but simple, organic molecules.

Of course, since free N is scarce in nature and vital for plant growth, a plant has every incentive to use the N for itself. If it needs N for its offspring, better to coax some heterotroph into eating seeds which pass through the critter's gut and end up in a nice pre-made pile of urea, carbon, and trace minerals.
Pursuivant is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
flat black

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 05:55 PM.


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