Making more ammo stuck on a low tech world.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Kfireblade

well, sounds like as long as I get the supplies I can start production in limited quantities. Now, given the time and resources what would it take to produce ammo on a large scale?

You need a chemistry plant to make your nitrates and such, and then eventually turn them into nitrocellulose and mercury primers. The first industrial plants for producing ammonia and nitric acid look like they took 1-2 years to build in the early 1900s.

You're also going to need a factory to make bullets. Again, you're probably going to spend 1-2 years just building the physical plant.

You're going to spend a couple of years training the machinists and chemists necessary build all the parts you're going to need to replicate all your machines so they can build and run the chemistry plant and factory.

Like Sir_Pudding alludes to with the book reference, this is a multi-decade process. Your PC may know how to do all of this stuff, but to industrialize it, you've got to pass that knowledge on to a lot of different people and that takes a lot of time and effort.

You may want to scale back your goals: you can build a cartridge blackpowder repeating rifle, and while it's not as amazing as an M-16, it's better than any hand weapon available at TL4-TL5. Black powder mills aren't easy to build either, but it's somewhat less work than a smokeless powder plant.