Why a Flintlock maybe what end up with in the apocalypse.

[FlSwampRat]

If you can scrounge up a copy, there is a pretty good discussion of such in an old science fiction book--Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.

One of my faves, Boom. Nice to see another fan.

 

[boom boom]

One of my faves, Boom. Nice to see another fan.

H. Beam Piper is still rated one of the top S/F writers by people that remember him. Jerry Pournelle, who knew Piper fairly well, said Piper himself was a "Cavalier" and considered himself a bit out of place in the later twentieth century.

 

[WestKentucky]

Why a smoothbore? If the apocalypse starts I'm looking at a rifled barrel for better accuracy. I can see later on when people are making their own that a smoothbore would come back into existence, but rifling is a known advantage and some would look to still incorporate it.

Loading for a rifle is pretty well limited to bullets specific to that bore size. Loading for a smooth bore can be bore size, or it can be whatever random bits of hard stuff is laying around.

 

[Dunross]

If you can scrounge up a copy, there is a pretty good discussion of such in an old science fiction book--Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.

H. Beam Piper was a noted firearm collector and wrote a mystery called Murder in the Gunroom that directly taps his knowledge of firearms (you can find that on Project Gutenberg for free).

Those were good stories, though it's been a right long time since last I read them. Thanks for the Project Gutenberg tip.

 

[boom boom]

Those were good stories, though it's been a right long time since last I read them. Thanks for the Project Gutenberg tip.

A lot are being reprinted as most of Piper's work is now in public domain. I think that some other places have it in perhaps a more readable format. His memorial page with links to Gutenberg is found here including Murder in the Gunroom. http://h-beampiper.com/index.php

 

[Armored farmer]

Don't discount the value of the Girandoni air rifle brought on the Adventure by Meriwether Lewis.

Yes you are correct.
That air rifle played an important role on their adventure. They used it to full advantage to impress the natives. They also didnt mention that they only had one.

 

[bassjam]

For a couple seasons there was a TV show on called Revolution. In short, an event happened that caused electricity to not be able to be created. What machinery that was used was steam operated. Applying that to real life, we'd still be able to produce brass cartridges loaded with smokeless powder using steam tech. And if we couldn't, there'd be enough rounds available to last several generations. What I'm sitting next to right now in the basement could easily last me (and my children) many lifetimes if I came down to it.

A flintlock is not unbreakable, and they were largely handmade so replacement parts would need to be custom created. So you go to a blacksmith? Or you make those parts yourself with your forge and tools. But if things are so dystopian that factories aren't making 9mm Luger and .223 Remington don't kid yourself that your electric shop tools are still going to be useful for anything other than metal stock. Or that your gas/diesel generators are going to be running for more than a couple months. Even modern compound bows and crossbows aren't going to stand up to constant use. Nope, I'll keep my 10/22's, AR15's and 870 Expresses with interchangeable parts and rapid fire ability over a flintlock.

 

[buck460XVR]

With every Apocalypse there is always mass die off/extinction. Who's to say there will even be a need for any type of human made weapon? Those animals that survive may be perfectly happy with just their claws and teeth.

 

[Texasgrillchef]

Long been my assumption, and gripe for near-term post-apocalyptic fiction. There's a hell of a lot of ammo around. Even in fairly gun-free countries, there are armies, police forces, game wardens, etc.

If it's such the end of the world that there's no manufacturing better than what you have at home, there are no people either. So lots of the current inventory to go around. Think that wars cause all ammo to be used up? Check out how much (say) WW2 production stuff is still available and functional, 80 years on. Starting to dry up, in a civilized, supply-chains, shooter culture, just sorta now.

Someplace like the US where everyone has guns, you could scavenge ammo a half box at a time from every other farmhouse for decades, even if you didn't manage to find a case —or pallet — at an abandoned base, or the back of a truck at some fight location. If you don't practice anymore, how long does 800 rounds of 5.56 last you? A long, long time even if you hunt periodically. Some is probably passed down to your kids.

Ammunition lasts /forever/ under even remotely reasonable conditions. Hard agree that if everyone disappeared from earth today, you could wake up from your cryo freezer in a couple hundred years and almost all the ammo not actually underwater or on fire at some point would work.


And the airgun point is also a very good one.

I never meant to imply that our modern ammunition would “spoil” and go bad, just that without anyone producing ammunition, it’s a finite commodity that could very well be used up, BEFORE we humans are able to rebuild our society and start ammunition production back up in a steady organized fashion.

Even if ammunition did “spoil” for some reason. You could still rebuild it to make it fire safely without to much effort. You would in the least have more brass and projectiles to use, even if the primer and powder went bad for some reason.

However you are correct in that our current supplies of ammunition would last us many many years. Of course how long it last depends on the Apocalyptic circumstances as well obviously. If there was a war, how long the war lasted, as well as how many humans are left as well.

My only point is that ammunition as we know it is finite. Unless we rebuild society quickly, to get manufacturing back online again soon, there will come a point where we will eventually run out. Reproducing all of the components needed to make modern ammunition can be done in a DIY situation. However not easily by the average person without specialized equipment.

IF we were to run out of ammunition, flintlocks, matchlocks would be the easiest to make some form of ammunition for. A lot quicker and easier then making a 9mm, or 45 colt, or 7.62

 

[Texasgrillchef]

Why a smoothbore? If the apocalypse starts I'm looking at a rifled barrel for better accuracy. I can see later on when people are making their own that a smoothbore would come back into existence, but rifling is a known advantage and some would look to still incorporate it.

i agree, if people had to make their own, smoothbore is much simpler. However, I am under the belief that we will have guns, and barrels for a very long time. I am sure we would even figure out a way to take a rifled 45-70 barrel if needed and make it into a flintlock or matchlock fun as well. Even if rudimentary tools I don’t think it would be to hard to do.

I believe it will take a lot more time to “use” up our guns then our supply of modern ammunition. Especially when their are modern reproduction flintlocks made in stainless steel.

 

[Texasgrillchef]

I don't think many of us would blast through our existing ammo supply at the same rate we do now. How long would 5000 rounds last if every cartridge had a purpose other than target shooting?

View attachment 913203

Absolutely! Every shot we take or make would be well considered.

Our cartridge guns and ammo would last quite a while. Longer for some who have larger stashes.

However, unless we are able to rebuild society quickly and get manufacturing back online, there will come a time when we run out of modern ammo, and making modern ammo is the home by most average people without specialized equipment won’t be an easy task to accomplish.

There’s also a possibility that while your out hunting your dinner, that your remaining 4500 rounds left back at home could very well get stolen by groups of raiders as well. Better to keep it well hidden and well protected and never leave it alone if possible.

one reason why I have a good protected and hidden stash at every house and property I own!

 

[Texasgrillchef]

For a couple seasons there was a TV show on called Revolution. In short, an event happened that caused electricity to not be able to be created. What machinery that was used was steam operated. Applying that to real life, we'd still be able to produce brass cartridges loaded with smokeless powder using steam tech. And if we couldn't, there'd be enough rounds available to last several generations. What I'm sitting next to right now in the basement could easily last me (and my children) many lifetimes if I came down to it.

A flintlock is not unbreakable, and they were largely handmade so replacement parts would need to be custom created. So you go to a blacksmith? Or you make those parts yourself with your forge and tools. But if things are so dystopian that factories aren't making 9mm Luger and .223 Remington don't kid yourself that your electric shop tools are still going to be useful for anything other than metal stock. Or that your gas/diesel generators are going to be running for more than a couple months. Even modern compound bows and crossbows aren't going to stand up to constant use. Nope, I'll keep my 10/22's, AR15's and 870 Expresses with interchangeable parts and rapid fire ability over a flintlock.

Your absolutely correct, that in our current society, we have such massive stockpiles of ammunition, that under normal apocalyptic circumstances it could still last several generations before we run out. Hopefully too, it wouldn’t take that long to get manufacturing of any sort back online and our society rebuilt within only one generation or less. We also have now the capability to easily produce electricity without using any fuel as well. Wind/water power generation as well as solar power as well. So unless their is a powerful EMF burst somewhere to destroy electrical items. We will and should always have electrical power. Even so, like you said we will have steam power as well. As long as enough people survive it shouldn’t take much time to rebuild.

The point I was originally trying to make, is that if it comes to the point where we have not rebuilt society, and have run out of modern ammunition. Flintlocks/matchlocks maybe the average persons only option of a firearm.

I know, while I can reload ammo. I do not have the equipment or expertise to make brass, or primers to continue making modern ammunition. Once I run out of primers, and use up my brass, that will be it for me. Although to be honest, to use up my supplies of ammo, plus my reloading supplies would take several lifetimes especially when one is using apocalyptic rationing.

 

[BullRunBear]

boom boom, Dunross, and FlswampRat just cost me some money. I just ordered a copy of all the Paratime stories by H. Beam Piper. Should be here next week.

This has been a fun thread. I've seen discussion of the most versatile firearm in extreme situations when little or no technology could help. Strictly fantasy. A smoothbore flintlock or fowler was the general favorite choice. Coming to that conclusion took some serious mental review of various firearms styles and systems. It was an interesting exercise.

Jeff

 

[Ernie Bass]

I hope Rats really do taste like Squirrels.

 

[MistWolf]

No matter how many apocalypse mankind has experienced, technology always moves forward

 

[MedWheeler]

Starship Troopers took place sometime in the 23rd century, which places it between 2201-2300AD. Cartridge firearms were still the staple of small-arms weaponry even then, so I think we're good for a while.

 

[4v50 Gary]

How about a flintlock that takes a minie ball. Fast loading like a musket, can take a pig sticker and a range of 500 yards.

 

[chicharrones]

 

[Outlaw75]

If you can scrounge up a copy, there is a pretty good discussion of such in an old science fiction book--Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.

Robert Adams did the same sort of thing in the Castaways In Time series.

 

[boom boom]

Robert Adams did the same sort of thing in the Castaways In Time series.

View attachment 913309

I'll have to locate that one as I have never read it. Fortunately, Ebay is open for business even if the used bookstores aren't. Thanks.

 

[boom boom]

boom boom, Dunross, and FlswampRat just cost me some money. I just ordered a copy of all the Paratime stories by H. Beam Piper. Should be here next week.

This has been a fun thread. I've seen discussion of the most versatile firearm in extreme situations when little or no technology could help. Strictly fantasy. A smoothbore flintlock or fowler was the general favorite choice. Coming to that conclusion took some serious mental review of various firearms styles and systems. It was an interesting exercise.

Jeff

The Paratime stories are fun and the Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen is a spinoff from the short story series. Some less talented writers wrote sequels. But, if you like Piper, most are available free now on Project Gutenberg, just search for author.

 

[bannockburn]

Give me a Baker or a Ferguson Rifle and I will be all set with my flintlock weaponry! That is of course, if I already ran out of the hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition I have stashed away in my basement!

Always good to have a back-up plan!

 

[Goosey]

Ahem, http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2007/06/how-cartridge-brass-is-made/

If you have a small lathe and some brass rod, you can make cartridge cases though the process is labor intensive. Shotgun shells are easiest.
It is possible but not easy to make brass shotshells with a drill press, a file, appropriate drill bits and brass rod.
Flintlock smooth bores - Flintlock fowlers - were the first guns made in America. They are marvelously versatile firearms.

Unfortunately making your own brass the same as a factory is not practical unless you own a factory.

But there are actually companies which make CNC-machined brass cases. Which doesn't sound like a great idea to me, but apparently it works.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Give me a Baker or a Ferguson Rifle and I will be all set with my flintlock weaponry! That is of course, if I already ran out of the hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition I have stashed away in my basement!

Always good to have a back-up plan!

Fergusons were extremely fragile. A lot of wood was removed for clearance of the breechplug. They would always break around the lock or wrist. Suggest you go w/a synthetic stock (or at least laminated wood).

 

[GEM]

If we have wandered into literature and displacement in time, I might recommend:

1. Lest Darkness Fall by de Camp. A 1939 historian drops back to the end of Rome. Never gets guns to work but with other innovations saves the day.

2. The Island in the Sea of Time books by Stirling. Modern Nantucket into the Bronze age and they do deal with getting firearms manufactured again. Some interesting choices. One plot device was that almost all the modern guns were collected by the Sheriff for community something and a nut burned them up. This was obviously to make life difficult for the Islanders. I actually had a conversation with Stirling and said that would never happen if the displacement took place in TX. He acknowledged that.

He had spin off series - the Emberverse books where an alternate time line from ISOT had technology cease to function. I don't like them. They went off the rails for endless mystical, going nowhere stories.

As far as the discussion of our civilization falling and going Mad Max with a flintlock - I won't run out of modern ammo before I run out of medications and die.

3. This is a touch more obscure: The Shield and Beyond the Shield by Kataczinsky - Modern Israel gets dropped back into 1941 and has to survive. It's a good story.

Piper - gotta love the Little Fuzzy books and the Space Vikings stories.