What Guns in Production Today Will Still Be in Production 100 Years From Now?

Railguns and directed energy weapons will be de riguer, as our tech base of knowledge doubles every 8 months or so. We'll have the power source figured out by then.
Civilian ownership depends on us, but if trends continue, the US and some other countries may have almost unregulated ownership while a UN dominated world attempts to cut us off from the rest of the world. But the pendulum is swinging back the other way for personal firearms ownership in the US. Africa may collapse entirely, and be the worlds only producer and user of the venerable AK pattern. We'll have combat matches of classic pistols of the 21st century, such as Glock and 1911, and I can hope my beloved CZs, but it will be a hobbyist thing.

 

1903 The Wright brothers achieve powered, controlled flight at Kitty Hawk.

1904 The Wrights start flying the Flyer II and ultimately make 105 flights.

1905 The Wrights fly the Flyer III, the world's first practical airplane.

1906 Lieutenant Frank Lahm wins the Gordon Bennett Cup.

1907 The Aeronautical Division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps is formed.

1907 Paul Cornu makes a short free flight in an experimental helicopter.

1907 Louis Blériot flies the Type VII, the first aircraft with a tractor engine, enclosed fuselage, a rear-mounted tail, and a two-wheel main undercarriage with tailwheel.

1907 Curtiss Motor Vehicle Company, the first U.S. airplane company, is formed.

1908 Flight trials of the Wright military plane begin.

1909 The first Gnome rotary aircraft engine appears.

1909 Henri Farman becomes the first to fly a distance of 100 miles.

1909 Glenn Curtiss wins the Gordon Bennett Cup with a speed of 47 miles per hour.

1909 Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin founds Delag, the world's first commercial airline.

Tinpig

 

S & W Model 10 (in some form)
1911
Reminton 870
Colt Model P

Another question, maybe, would be what firearms that exist today will be servicable as weapons in 100 years and beyond in quantity. My bet is that a massive number of SMLE's, AK's, Mausers, Garands, Mosins (to name a few) will be on firing lines.

 

As someone else posted, in 100 years, guns of today will be relics and non-shooters displayed in museums. Any NWO will have eliminated them and some form of energy-pulse will be the standard for LE and military use, not civilian

 

I'll add another vote that the primary weapons being used in 100 years will be non-firearms. Currently Coil-Guns are being built very small and as batteries and electronics get smaller their capabilities are going to continue to increase. Also Lasers can be built to be very dangerous and the same laws of limitation apply to them.

Alternately I would like to add the Einstein quote that I think is appropriate: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." I think its someone's sig line.

Anyway On-Topic
- AR-15 platform will maybe last as long as Muzzle-Loaders have
- Glocks
- AK-47 Platform Rifles
- Not sure what model but Bolt-Action high-power rifles, those are going to last till the end of time.

 

Again, those of you thinking that a power source will be the hangup, we're not talking about ten years from now. We're talking about a HUNDRED years from now. When you tout the advantages of chemically-powered weapons, you are forgetting to consider that with an energy-based weapon, you will have few if any moving parts, you won't have to worry about feeding and ejecting, or even wind.

And I agree that the government will try to find a way to make sure that soldiers can have them but citizens can't.

 

I can't imagine the Ruger blackhawks and like single actions not still being made a hundred years from now. For some one who wants a simple, durable, rugged, reliable handgun and doesn't need or want high capacity, speed reloading or fast firing, they are hard to beat.

When it comes to the Glocks I don't think they will survive in their current configuration for much longer. They are a 20+ years old design that today is surpassed in ergonomics by many newer polymer frame handguns. ( They are kind of blocky ) I have heard rumors of a new generation of Glocks coming out but we will have to wait and see.

 

I make 3 predictions regarding the state of the art of personal arms over the next 100 years:


1) No ray guns. There simply isn't enough energy density to power a sidearm in the foreseeable future.

2) Nanotech weapons. Some exotic future sidearms will be more like nano projectile launch platforms, laser target designators for wasplike flying things that deliver chemical, electrical, kinetic, or explosive payloads. Think of summoning a swarm from the trunk of your car.

3) Chemically propelled cartridge arms will continue to be important.
.......3A) Designs will stabilize around an ideal, which I think we're approaching now: lightweight single and double stack autodecocking double action autoloaders with triggers that are consistent from first to last shot.
.......3B) Methods of manufacture will be radically different: expect stronger/better polymers, and possibly even molecular fabrication.


So, in conclusion, we'll have something that looks very much like a Glock...but isn't.

The most popular "legacy" designs will still be valid and produced.

 

I have not forgotten this. What you have forgotten, it seems, is that battery technology is something that has been around, and been developed for over a hundred years already, and we are still not appreciably closer to a battery that can make an electric car more practical and more versatile than an internal combustion engine that we were a century ago when the first generation of electric cars disappeared from the roadways for this very reason.

It's simplistic to say "our tech base of knowledge doubles every 8 months or so, so we'll have the power source figured out by then" because if that statement applied to battery technology, we'd already have a power source capable of providing the energy for a hand-held energy weapon, and we're clearly nowhere close yet. We haven't got a battery that will give electric cars the range of a gasoline-powered car yet either, despite a century of trying to come up with one. That's why hybrids made their appearance; it was an attempt to compensate for the shortcomings of electric vehicles -- shortcomings imposed by the limits of battery technology.

Remember, it's not enough to have something that will do the job. It has to do the job better, or at least as well, as the thing it's replacing before it takes over from the previous technology. Again, look at electric cars. Sure there are practical ones. Plug in electrics with a 300 mile range that you can plug in to recharge every night when you go to bed, and commute in all day the next day. But can you hop in the things and take a long road trip? Not really, they don't go as far as gas-powered cars. And when your gasoline-engined car's tank runs dry, it takes you five minutes to fill it back up again, not the thirty minutes to several hours it will take you to fully recharge the battery on an electric vehicle. Until electric cars offer drivers the convenience and versatility of internal combustion engine cars, the ICE cars will still be on the road. And I remind you, even after a century of development, this is a nut they still haven't been able to crack, and the sticking point is battery technology.

You won't see energy weapons replacing conventional firearms any time soon for the exact same reason. And before they do, they also have to offer users at least as much convenience and versatility as the current technology does. They may, possibly, develop some sort of battery that will power a laser for a few shots. But if that battery is a so large you have to wear it on your belt and connect it to your weapon with a cable, then it's going to be less convenient, and the weapon will not replace guns. To do that it has to be no larger than a pistol magazine, provide the user with as many shots as a pistol magazine, and be as quick to replace as a pistol magazine, and then on top of all this, it has to do this for no more than the cost of a pistol magazine and the bullets inside it. We have a long, long way to go before we see this.

 

We interrupt this broadcast...

How apropos to this thread.

I just received it and here is part of one of the articles in it:

* * *
Popular Mechanics Magazine
January 2010 Issue
Page 13

A Million Times More Powerful Than An Ordinary Battery

Engineers at the University of Missouri recently unveiled a nuclear-powered battery that is about the size of a penny—and they hope to produce one thinner than a human hair...
The batteries harvest electricity from the emissions of decaying radioactive isotopes.
* * *
Okay, so I’m going back and forth. In an above post I said six pounds of gasoline has more energy than 400 pounds of battery. Well, that’s the present day batteries.

If they do get one as thin as a hair and it gives only 1/10 volt, a 1 inch stack in series will put out 100 volts. If the current is only 1 milliamp, 100 stacks in parallel will put out 1/10 amp. This is enough to charge a capacitor to a healthy state. Recharge time will depend on the internal resistance and permissible current flow of the batteries, unavailable data at this time.

Just for grins I once built a capacitor with two rolls of aluminum foil and two rolls of plastic wrap around a wooden dowel. It made a package about 2 inches in diameter and 12 inches long. I charged it with 120 volts AC through a rectifier bridge. It packed enough wallop that I decided I didn’t want to fool with it anymore. The reason for doing it was a bit off the wall and not germane to this discussion.

This indicates to me that a power-pack powerful enough, small enough, and light enough to be carried as a backpack as a laser power supply is feasible. Not right now, but down the road not many years.

Perhaps laser guns aren’t that far away after all.

 

We'll see, but just to keep things in perspective, I have a copy, somewhere upstairs, of a 1991 Popular Mechanics featuring the Moller Skycar. The inventor had a full size vehicle already constructed, and there were photos of it in the article, as well as photos of him actually flying his earlier testbed vehicles. Reading the article, you'd have thought a working car was no more than a couple of years away. Yet here we are, nearly twenty years later, and Mr. Moller is still perfecting his vehicle, and they are still nowhere close to going on the market.

Such a battery would be revolutionary in so many ways, and would affect so many technologies, it could change things almost as much as the automobile or the personal computer did -- and given this, I'd expect to have heard about such a battery in more than a single article of PM. I hope they have developed such a battery, but I'll believe all the claims when I see it work.

 

Billy Shears,

The reason the Moller Skycar hasn’t succeeded is because it has not been able to get off the ground with 2-1/2 tons of chain. (That’s how much chain it takes to keep the average “volunteer” aboard the thing should Moller ever try to take along a passenger.)

However, I must agree with you that sometimes a very promising technology seems to become unpromising in just a little while. Then there are times when it is just too far ahead of other technology to succeed.

Radio: The principle of electron emission from a heated wire was known to Edison in the latter 1800s when he developed the light bulb. It was an annoyance to him. We were well into the 20th Century (wasn’t it about 1914?) when DeForest used that phenomenon to invent the vacuum tube.

Transistor: The principle was known back in the 1800s, IIRC, and was even used, after a fashion, for the crystal set radios. Then Bell Labs learned how to control it and from then on it was off and running.

Sometimes it just takes a while. The Land Anchor, however, was a flop. A spear-like device which attached to the rear axle and plunged into the ground should your brakes fail.

 

I'll bet none, but I will let you know.

Jim

 

Regardless of what whiz bang future tech competitors arise our current batch of firearms will survive just they fill their niches so well. Many folks still prefer revolvers even when auto loaders are a later technology. A good analogy I think is books have not disappeared even with the internet and these new e-books? Why? They are inexpensive, portable, brilliantly simple and always works when you pick them up.

The original premise was what here today will still be in production. I think the answer will depend more on politics and social realities much more than technology. Our current arms have many virtues of low cost production, reliability, and utility.



5 shot 38 special revolver

pump action shotgun like 870

bolt action rifles especially savage

 

Great point. Pens, pencils, knives, handsaws, wheelbarrows, bicycles, and boat paddles are still in common use too, even though those technologies have been eclipsed by modern advancements.

Les

 

I will never make 100 years.... damn

 

But those items do not, in the opinion of certain political groups, pose a threat to mankind the way that guns do.....

 

The Pen will.

Les

 

Ma Deuce. No batteries required, still works when the power goes out.

 

im thinking Ruger single six, there will also be many different companies making 1911's, AK's and 12g pumps, but i think the single six will still be the "Ruger" single six in 100 years

 

I'm thinking a large part of why firearms will never fade completely is because of advancing military tech.

Some we already have, to limited extent: EMP emitters.

I don't care how well something is shielded, unless we find an inert superconductor, it will always be possible to fry electronics.

In an age of electronic weapons without chemical propellants, whoever could guard against and set off an EMP blast first would unconditionally own the battlefield.

 

I would say, Colt SAA and M1911. The former because of cowboy movies and the latter because it's so iconic and American. Heck, Honor Harrington uses a 1911 2000 years in the future to kill some evil pirates, because it doesn't have an electronically-detectible power supply. Of course, that's from a space opera which takes place in a different universe from the one in which we live.

I do think our country is turning into the People's Republic of Haven.

 

Right now, "fotay" = 40 S&W
In the future, "fotay" = Phased plasma rifle in the forty watt range

 

AK-47 or some variant
AR-15
M1911 (its just too good to die)
Glock will probably still be around
M2 .50 cal, shes brought us through WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and both Iraq wars

 

I follow the Keith Richards diet-meat, cheese, alcohol and cigarettes. Every day when I wake up I check the internet to see how Keith is doing.

If he's alive I figure I am still alright.