What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

I asked a question on this thread about firearm prices post-apocalypse that got me wondering more about what kinds of firearms people would start making a generation or two after the kind of civilization shattering events described in [AtE 1 and 2]. My question is only tangentially related to the one in that thread, so I decided to ask it in a different place.

The [AtE] line assumes that people would initially stabilize at about TL4 in terms of what kinds of new equipment groups could responsibly produce after a civilization ending catastrophe. So what kinds of firearms do you think people would start predominantly making at this point? Do you think they would make muzzle loaded rifles, or would they start with breech loading designs? Would anyone bother with smooth bore muskets, or would rifles with minie balls immediately be re-adopted? What about more complex designs, like the first cap lock revolvers--potentially usable in rifles (I would assume), but definitely TL5 tech? This is not a criticism of [AtE], it is a world-building question for trying to make a plausible, consistent feeling setting using the [AtE] rules where people are again making firearms with some regularity.

Some considerations behind my question:

Breech loading rifles were invented very early (TL4 according to [LT]), but never really caught on until much later. My basic understanding is that it was difficult at TL4 and 5 (and therefore expensive?) to make a breech loading rifle with a strong enough seal to not occasionally fail when firing, so the benefit of much faster loading did not outweigh the risks and cost. Would such a drawback continue in a post-apocalyptic TL4 situation given that people would know, at least in theory, that it is possible and preferable to make a reliable breech loader?

What about cap-lock revolvers verses single-shot? Would it be too difficult to regularly make weapons with tight enough tolerances to be a revolver, or would they be a fairly common newly manufactured style of firearm?

Lastly, what about cartridge bullets? Is it really that difficult to cast casings with tight enough tolerances and strength to work in a pistol or rifle, or would an essentially TL4 gun smith be able to do it relatively consistently given that the idea has already been invented?

I look forward to people's thoughts!

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

Well, I found an answer to one part of my question. Apparently it really is almost impossible to make bullet casings without some sophisticated processes or a lot of time and waste. It seems that they are not cast, but instead are either repeatedly pressure stamped and annealed or turned on a lathe (which is time consuming and wasteful). I guess using surviving brass or cartridgeless methods such as muzzle loaders, caplock revolvers, etc. would be the order of the day until civilization can be somewhat rebuilt to a higher base TL.

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

I suspect the most common item will be improvised hand cannon made by rubes who don't know much beyond how to weld and how to make simple explosives. These will probably have matchlock style firing mechanisms.

Real gunsmiths will probably make TL 5 stuff (still muzzleloaders), and I suspect you'll see a lot of civil war type stuff with miniballs, percussion caps, and so forth.

Remember the tech in ATE isn't actually TL4 -- that's wealth level and what a wander can keep in use.

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

[QUOTE=phayman53;2001195 So what kinds of firearms do you think people would start predominantly making at this point? [/QUOTE]

Rifles with minie balls are possible, though precise rifling with homemade tools would be a challenge.

Caplock anythings require primers. Primers require a certain of precision while working with a fussy and toxic high explosive and will be difficult. you basically have to make a machine (even if hand-powered) that will automatically place the right amount of explosive in a bit of copper sheeting and form that into a primer.

Anything done with cartridges basically requires primers too.

Flintlock revolvers are possibly but work dubiously and are seldom seen before tL5 anyway.

A lot of your questions boil down to "If people are limited to TL4 why don't they just do TL5 stuff instead?" and the answers amount to "If they could they'd be TL5."..

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

Well, my first, and main, questions were really about breech loaders and rifles versus muskets, which all are TL4. I asked the other questions more as a conceptual afterthought on what would be possible with TL4 tool manufacturing capabilities but with higher tech concept already know to be possible and preferable. For instance, black powder does not really require other TL3 methods and technology to make, but nobody really discovered it until then historically, so we call it TL3 in GURPS (same goes for 3 field farming and later methods of crop rotation, germ theory, basic vaccination, etc). Conversly, computer circuit boards require a bunch of other TL7 tech to make possible, so they cannot be made without a large technological base. So I was wondering, really, how large a technological base certain kinds of firearms require versus the accident of when the idea was historically thought of.

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

My views on the subject.

In any post-apocalyptic, or crash, setting, you have three inputs.

• Availability of resources.
• Availability of knowledge.
• Availability of free labor. Free, as in not committed to other survival needs.

I was going to give some scenarios, but they were all contrived.
Even if you don't have to scramble for food, (say, you're living on the coast, where winters are mild to non-existant, and sea-food is abundant.) Even if you have all the education resources of the late 80's (you have to strain your eyes looking at a microfiche through a magnifier, but hey, it's doable.) You don't have all the right materials to reproduce the full breadth of modern conveniences.
What can you "mine" close at hand? Sulfur? Potassium Nitrate? Charcoal? Good, you can do blackpowder.
Can you cook up nitric acid? Can you grow cotton? Well, guncotton Might be easier to produce. (Modern guncotton is, as I understand it, manufactured from wood pulp, but the classic is probably easier to reproduce.)
Do you have ANY source of mercury to make the classic mercury fulminate? Can you cook up a substitute? Yes? Percussion caps are for you. No? Sorry, you're stuck with flintlock or matchlock.

If you're playing with Mercury or blackpowder, you better expect to clean your guns. Both are corrosive in one way or another, (blackpowder attracts moisture.)

Do you have the necessary resources to know, or even figure out how, to make these things? Knowing smokeless powder is better than blackpowder means nothing if you can blindly stumble your way to a good mix of blackpowder, but don't have the first clue on how to derive nitric acid from any source, (urine, probably). Guncotton isn't known for being stable, so unless you can ALSO figure out how to synthesize nitroglycerine (ref. double-base powder) , you might be BETTER OFF sticking to blackpowder.

And even if you can do All these things yourself, do you have the manpower to send one party collecting urine, another party pulling cotton, another party putting it together...

Now, on tolerances.
If you have the preserved knowledge to produce a decent lathe, say from an old instructional manual, and you've preserved all the lessons on mistakes, and superior techniques, you might well be able to turn out a gun in any form you wish, but again, let's talk labor.
How much SIMPLER is it to make a muzzle loader than to get all the fiddly bits Just Right, to make a modern breech-loader? Do you have enough people that you can dedicate a complete workforce Just to making guns? If you can afford the labor, you can jump to things like interrupted screw, and similar, which requires machining not just one block of metal.

Basically, if you have the preserved knowledge, the availability of labor, and can trade for ALL the materials you need, sure, go for a modern, (TL6-7), rifle. Otherwise, muskets are better than nothing.


That said. There's no reason you wouldn't adopt the Good ideas, that work with what you can recreate, ahead of their adoption in the OTL. As you point out, a minie ball doesn't require you figure out how to make a superior rifle before it works.
But you don't want to try to shoot a machine gun with old-school blackpowder. The fouling will quickly become a ...problem.
And you can't really do a cartridge anything until someone reinvents a way to make drawn brass cartridges.

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

Problem is 'regressed TL 8' isn't really the same thing as TL4.

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

A number of people worked with breechloaders. But no one could get a model working people were satisfied with. So just because a concept exists doesn't mean someone will get it right or that an attempt to put it into practice will be accepted.

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

For my game, I'm going with the assumption that most villages can produce rifled muzzleloaders firing minie balls with black powder: that's all straight TL4 tech (except for the minie balls, which are obvious once you hear about them) and doesn't require a gunsmith who can work at fine tolerances. Rifled black powder weapons are at least as good as crossbows, and a lot easier to learn to fire than bows. There's also a fair number of muzzle loading black powder cannon, and at least some interrupted thread screw breech guns (which aren't that much harder to make, if you have access to asbestos for the obduration ring, but are somewhat more accurate and easier to fire. Warships would definitely want them).

Towns and wealthy villages make single or double shot breach loaders: there's lot of different ways to do that, from trapdoor rilfes to Alvin conversions of the muzzleloaders. Some people are even making manual action rifles and shotguns with magazines, though they're comparatively rare: there's more moving parts, you need to be able to make stronger springs for the magazines, and not everyone can do that. Same with fully recuperating carriages for field cannon: too much hassle for not a lot of benefit.

I'd expect commonly used technology to top out around that level. A pump shotgun based on a Remington 870 pattern is a pretty versatile gun: you can load it with rifled slugs for accuracy or buckshot for close range firepower or birdshot for hunting birds from turkeys to doves. It's a manual action, it's easy to recover your brass, and you can load it with black powder if you need to.

A semi-automatic rifle is objectively a better gun, but it's harder to make and much harder to make ammunition for, so most people don't bother. It's clearly better to have all 50 members of a village militia armed with knock-off Spencer or Martini-Henry rifles than to have 10 guys armed with Garands: sure the Garands have a better rate of fire per gun, but they lose out in overall weight of fire, and more guys can cover more locations and absorb more casualties.

Re: What kinds of firearms would people start making [After the End]?
 

That you believe the above reflects your knowledge base.

There are actually many fiddly little things required to turn powdered saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur into even serpentine powder much less the advanced blackpowder that historically went with the minie ball era..

As a simple example even though you can find saltpeter crystals under manure piles what you get that way will be too wet to use without extensive drying and I don't know how that works on any sort of detailed basis. It'd probably require weeks or even moths of experimentation to find out.

Charcoal burning was once reckoned a skilled profession too. There's large quantities of practical experience that has to back up theoretical knowledge.

If you want a high tech magic trick where little more than knowledge is needed the Heimlich maneuver might be your best bet. Turning natural petroleum into a jellied incendiary that you can probably call "Greek fire" might be your next best bet. Making powder and guns will require skilled hands and not just a head full of knowledge.