The Ember Lock Gun

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

I'm now imagining a king's bodyguard/agent with an Emberlock Power 6, 6-shot revolver. A fearsome foe for any traitor or assassin! (also a fearsome assassin, but we don't talk about that)

I think you could get by with just Power 1 unless you want ROF 6. ROF 6 would definitely take 6 barrels and is more like a volley gun than revolver. Or perhaps a Gatling but you'd need a clockwork mechanism. That'd still be 6 separate Enchantments.

Power 6 takes 16,000 pts of energy with the last point taking 8000 mage-days of S&S all by itself.

An alternative to Power Enchantments is exclusive Powerstones. 3 shots per day isn't that big a limit for a gentlemans' holdout piece. Such a weapon would seldom get fired and reloaded more than 3 times a day. If the setting were High Mana (very attractive to least Spells generally) You could put in a 2 pt Powerstone and get 6 shots per day out of it.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You don't actually get that drab army thing until somebody invents both rifling and the Minie ball. Reliable muskets might just mean the King's Musketeers used their muskets some of the time.

Rifling is actually pretty old, possibly as early as the fifteenth century. The Minie ball is of course much newer, but sling bullets with ovoid shapes are ancient, and could possibly have a similar enough effect on battlefields. Probably not, but it is plausible, at least.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Rifling is actually pretty old, possibly as early as the fifteenth century.

Yes, but with early rifling the projectile did not engage the rifling through obturation. Rather it was engraved with the rifling during loading as the projectile was pushed down the (very long) barrel with the ramrod and a small hammer. This was very slow and not very battlefield ready.

From the beginning of rifling to even the Pennsylvania/Kentucky rifle took centuries of work and development. Just because you've heard of rifling doesn't mean you're most of the way to the 1853 Enfield.

Those oblong sling bullets would have spun as they flew but it would have been 90 degrees away from the sort of spin you get with rifled bullets and used to reduce wobble on high arcing trajectories. It's literally orthogonal to rifled bullets.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Yes, but with early rifling the projectile did not engage the rifling through obturation. Rather it was engraved with the rifling during loading as the projectile was pushed down the (very long) barrel with the ramrod and a small hammer. This was very slow and not very battlefield ready.

This is partly why breachloaders became a thing. Of course the tech required to seal a breach is pretty high so probably beyond your typical TL3 fantasy world.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Those oblong sling bullets would have spun as they flew but it would have been 90 degrees away from the sort of spin you get with rifled bullets and used to reduce wobble on high arcing trajectories. It's literally orthogonal to rifled bullets.

It might give a very clever Gadgeteer the idea to spin them the long way, but yeah, otherwise it's the wrong kind of spin. Could be interesting for grapeshot out of cannon though...

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

Add in that it would probably take months to create one gun, then this will be a specialty weapon;

Why do you say it would take months to make one gun?
The quick & dirty enchantment for ember would only take a few minutes. Also, the actual pieces for the gun should not take months. Swords didn't & neither did crossbows. Therefore, I can think of nothing about the gun manufacture that would require months.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Why do you say it would take months to make one gun?
The quick & dirty enchantment for ember would only take a few minutes.s.

One hour. No more, no less. Then about an hour's resting time if all the energy came out of the Enchanter's FP.

[Tinman]

As to the drab clothing & trench warfare issue:

Unless the guns gained a lot more accuracy than muskets you're not going to have to worry about that.
The accuracy would require rifling as has been pointed out & while it's true that it was around from early on it was exclusively used on expensive hunting rifles. Rifling is hard to do at low tech & therefore very expensive.
Also is the issue of getting the fit of the bullet to the bore to be snug but not too tight. This tight fit will also significantly slow down reloading.

All of which is why real world armies didn't use rifles except in small specialized units of skirmishers.

All of which is to say, I think it would lead to typical 18th century musket warfare, if they have bayonets & Pike & shot warfare if they don't. However, they would have a significantly higher rate of fire if they are using breach-loaders.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Unless the guns gained a lot more accuracy than muskets you're not going to have to worry about that.
The accuracy would require rifling as has been pointed out & while it's true that it was around from early on it was exclusively used on expensive hunting rifles. Rifling is hard to do at low tech & therefore very expensive.
Also is the issue of getting the fit of the bullet to the bore to be snug but not too tight. This tight fit will also significantly slow down reloading.

I could see a very expensive Emberlock rifled pistol or carbine being produced for a master assassin. You would only have time for one shot, so reloading in the field wouldn't be required and thus the slow reload time of rifled bores wouldn't matter. This means you would carefully measure out your powder charge and load the gun ahead of time so the bullet could take the rifling well. Emberlock means you could leave it prepped and loaded until the target presented itself at your predetermined ambush point. Then you fire your single shot and run away. A less confident assassin could invest in a double-barreled arrangement.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kale

This is partly why breachloaders became a thing. Of course the tech required to seal a breach is pretty high so probably beyond your typical TL3 fantasy world.

Breachloading long-arms didn't become a big thing anywhere before the Minie ball came along and solved the rifle muzzleloading problem. Did they?

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Kale

This is partly why breachloaders became a thing. Of course the tech required to seal a breach is pretty high so probably beyond your typical TL3 fantasy world.

That's not true.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Breachloading long-arms didn't become a big thing anywhere before the Minie ball came along.

That's not entirely true.

There were breachloading cannon as early as the 16th century.
"There were actually breech loading cannon on board the “Mary Rose” which served the British from 1511 to 1545"
https://www.quora.com/What-were-some...oading-cannons