Alright, imagine this: Ultimate SHTF. No ammo. No barrels. No Nothin.

[paradoxbox]

What would you guys do if things went to total $h!t and you no longer had access to ammo, rifled barrels, shotgun ammo, etc.?

First of all - what kinda gun would you make? A pistol? Rifle? Shotgun? Muzzle loading rifle? Or Muzzle loading musket? A hand cannon? Something else? Sten guns come to many people's mind but ammo and magazine making/springs are the problem..

I'm assuming most people could get/find access to a lathe, and MAYBE a mill or they could build a mill using a drill press, and a drill press is easy enough to make, and the parts for a drill press are easy enough to come by even in the crappiest of countries or worst of situations.


But... What would you do for your ammunition?? Forget about machine stretched/hardened brass casings for rifles, it's not going to happen. Do you have a 50,000lbs press plus dies for stretching the brass cups and hardening the cases gradually? Didn't think so. So I guess options are limited

Paper cartridges? Plastic? Steel? Cast brass? Lathed brass? Other?

Would you lathe your own brass casings and primer cups?
Time consuming for sure, but the scrap can be collected and melted down in a charcoal furnace and reused.

What about your primers?
I think I would resort to either a match-based powder (i.e. regular matchbooks + the scratchy stuff on the back mixed into a powder) or perhaps mercury fulminate, depending on availability of chemicals and lab equipment. I have seen videos of people in the Philippine wilderness making match-powder from matchbooks and matchboxes and using it to hunt monkeys, so I know it works, though it's time consuming and there is huge trigger lag like a matchlock rifle from the 1700's.

How about your actual powder?
Would you go black powder? Would you make the effort to make nitrocellulose/guncotton/smokeless powder? Would you trust your homespun cartridges to handle the pressures of a DIY smokeless powder?

How about rifling - would you go smoothbore or would you actually rifle a barrel?

And how about the barrel itself? I'm assuming you'd still be able to find rods or pipes somewhere, but drilling is a hard business. Would you do this on a lathe? Would you build a drilling machine for the purpose? Would you go old style and forge an iron wrought barrel? Or even older and just cast a piece of bronze around a mold like a ship's cannon?


I like to think about these kinda things when I'm way out in the middle of the mountains - there's virtually nobody around for miles and I often wonder about these kinda weird things Not so realistic but kinda fun to think about

 

[2ndsojourn]

I'd use my bow.

 

[g.willikers]

^^^^
Absolutely, the bow and arrow.
No question.
Simple, easy to make and very effective.
Of course, you would obviously have to know how to use one.
Remember the old adage - It's nearly impossible to acquire new skills in the middle of a crisis.

 

[44 AMP]

#1) I cannot imagine any creditable scenario where you would have access to power tools (lathes, mills, etc) AND the power to run them, where you would NOT also have access to other things like guns, ammo, and their parts.

If you are looking at the kind of firearm and ammo you could make with the most primitive tools, then a flintlock muzzleloader is the highest sustainable tech.

#2) and most important, we don't do SHTF threads on TFL as a general rule. Nor do we do the zombie apocky-clips... plenty of other internet sites for those discussions.

closing this one.