Making special ammunition

[Black Leviathan]

For a baseline I'd say that it's not very tough to make ammunition. I've met a lot of folks that pack their own ammo, and while I wouldn't say they're not smart, they're often not very technical people but they're very successful at making reliable ammo. I'd say making a normal bullet is a straight armory roll with a +1 for a proper reloading bench. I think it uses it's own specialization of armory because the work is distinct from building or maintaining firearms.

I would say using exotic materiel for the bullet, like silver, would be -1 to your skill (And you'd need a Whitesmith skill roll to smelt and pour bullets most likely.). Ammo with a modified bullet shape like hollow-point or jacketed rounds would probably also be just -1. Bullets with multi-part composition like armor piercing rounds, bean-bags, tungsten core rounds would be -2 and take twice the time and have associated skill rolls for constructing the parts. Bullets that have a carriage projectile like Glaser safety rounds or flechette rounds or tracker rounds would be -3 to skill and take.. longer? Have multiple skill rolls to construct the needed parts.

[Anders]

How about things like APDS or HEMP?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

For a baseline I'd say that it's not very tough to make ammunition. I've met a lot of folks that pack their own ammo, and while I wouldn't say they're not smart, they're often not very technical people but they're very successful at making reliable ammo. I'd say making a normal bullet is a straight armory roll with a +1 for a proper reloading bench. I think it uses it's own specialization of armory because the work is distinct from building or maintaining firearms.

Do they actually make bullets? Or do they buy bullets (and buy or re-use cartridge cases) and make cartridges? The latter seems more normal from my internet research but I don't know people who do either.

[DaosusLeghki]

Most people assemble cartridges from pre-made components (bullets, cases - often reused, primers, powder). This is not hard, as you're essentially following a step-by step procedure. You're basically what would be called a "machine operator." There is some technique in developing a recipe and testing it (called a "load").

A small subset of these people also make bullets by casting them out of lead. This is also not hard, but does require a bit more experimentation.

An even smaller subset makes their bullets by turning them on a lathe. These tend to be precision shooters firing large cartridges for long distance shooting (.50 cal and .338 cal) and often make their cartridges out of brass or copper.

Most bullets in use are composite bullets -- they are made of more than one material. It is possible to make composite bullets at a small scale, but it would involve custom tooling that does not exist for small scale production. Designing and manufacturing this tooling would be a H/VH skill at least. IRL, toolmakers are a distinct, but related, group to machinist.

Case manufacture would also require customized tooling that is not available at a small scale. There are people that make cases from other cases (called Wildcatting), which is why there are so many "related" cartridges. For example, 30-06, 308, 7mm-08, and 6.5 Creedmoor all have the same bolt face (I believe). This is because they are made from the same, or related, parent cases.

Edit: after small scale production tooling is developed and manufactured, producing bullets or cases would be about on the level of difficulty of assembling cartridges, so long as you could get the raw material in the appropriate form (a bundle of copper wire does you no good if your machine relies on receiving 1/2" wire rod, etc)

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Anders

How about things like APDS or HEMP?

Both much harder, almost impractical without industrial tools and workshops. APDS projectiles are precision shapes, and the sabots that fit around them also need to be made precisely. HEMP requires precision shaping of high explosives, as well as metal.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Both much harder, almost impractical without industrial tools and workshops. APDS projectiles are precision shapes, and the sabots that fit around them also need to be made precisely. HEMP requires precision shaping of high explosives, as well as metal.

HEMP also requires a fuse, and fuses are not something one can just make at home, and nor are they an over-the-counter purchase.

[benz72]

I want to see a 3D printed projectile.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

I would say using exotic materiel for the bullet, like silver, would be -1 to your skill (And you'd need a Whitesmith skill roll to smelt and pour bullets most likely.).

Molten silver requires a temperature a thousand degrees F. hotter than molten lead. Then even if your mold still worked under that temperature difference lead and silver have diferent expansion/contraction properties in regards to heat.

That means that even if you do get lead and silver bullets out of molds made to have identical dimensions the cast bullets will not have identical dimesnions after they cool. So if you want a mold that will cast a .357 silver bullet for your magnum revolver it has to be custom made to the right dimensions for silver and these dimensions are not the same as for lead.

"Requires custom made tools" is probably worse than a -1. Making functional silver bullets is not at all simple. Find the right episode and you can watch the Mythbusters fail at it.

[lwcamp]

Here is an account of an author going the extra mile to actually make a working silver bullet for a .444 Marlin to see how hard it would be for her character to do so.
http://www.patriciabriggs.com/articl...rbullets.shtml
It was apparently quite a challenge, but after a considerable amount of effort, she finally got it to work.

Luke

[Agemegos]

Here's a video on YouTube that shows what happened when two blokes who didn't know about the difficulties attempted to melt some silver scrap (.900 fine US silver coins), cast 9mm bullets from impressions in sand, load those into 9mm parabellum cases and fire them out of a Glock.