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 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
The problem when french erderly used to make its own black powder, was not the making of the powder.

It was that you can't just fit any powder in any cartridge safely, and they had no real idea if their mix suited the falibrr they were making.

Resulting in frequent guns breaking under overpressure, sometimes injuring the shooter.

So even if you can make powder, unless your group has got a Vihtavuori or Nobel sport engineer, it'll be hard to get THE powder.

It sounds like they had too much variance within the powder they were making, which is a problem. If one does make powder, it is crucial that it be consistent. Once you have that baseline established, calculating the amount is relatively easy. Black powder weapons come with such instructions ("use so many grains of X type powder") and the rule of thumb for using muzzle loaders is to start with a few grains and work your way up.

Many cartridges still in use have the black powder strength right in the name: 45-70 is a .45 caliber bullet with 70 grains of powder. Same for 32-20, 30-30, etc.

Going back a bit, anyone notice that Mad Max (like so many films) relies solely on manually cycled weapons? Break-action shotgun, revolver, bolt rifle.

All very easy to use with down-loaded blanks.

To make auto-loaders work, much more preparation has to go into the weapons and/or ammo.

Of course as we saw with a certain on-set incident, even with manually cycled weapons, safety is crucially important.

Isn't the reason for it mostly that bolt and pump action weapons are just that badass?

I’m guessing it’s down to the overall design being easier to maintain. The fewer worky bits, the more forgiving it is in a time of limited resources for cleaning and maintenance?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The fewer worky bits, the more forgiving it is in a time of limited resources for cleaning and maintenance?

Absolutly.

Got a revolver over a semi auto pistol really just for the joy of recocking the hammer after each shot

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Going back a bit, anyone notice that Mad Max (like so many films) relies solely on manually cycled weapons? Break-action shotgun, revolver, bolt rifle.

All very easy to use with down-loaded blanks.

To make auto-loaders work, much more preparation has to go into the weapons and/or ammo.

Of course as we saw with a certain on-set incident, even with manually cycled weapons, safety is crucially important.

Yeah, but I think there is also a somewhat incorrect idea that in a post-apocalypse that making jury rigged self-loading guns is unrealistic. They'd be more prone to jamming just down to being bodged together but in terms of just making them its not out of the question(see the Luty gun). The more plausible reason to not make them would be ammo consumption which was the main reason it took so long for self-loading firearms to be adopted historically.

Pretty much took WW2 before everybody realized that auto-loaders were necessary and you should be a little less tight fisted with the ammo budget. From a purely technical perspective, everybody could have had repeating rifles(bolt actions or lever actions) in the mid 1800s and semi-autos by the turn of the century. But it wasn't till after WW2 that bolt actions were truly dropped.

Post Apocalypse, depending on the scale? One simply may not require particularly rapid firing weapons.

Indeed, if it’s something like Walking Dead, where your targets are…

A) Human, but super few in number

B) slow Zombies with a pleasing lack of interest in taking cover

Precision is going to be your friend? Make every shot count, because with the ongoing rarity of pre-made ammo, powder smiths, bullets and casing manufacturing, “spray and pray” seems a right fool’s game.

Well the ammo surplus just evaporated. The rumored reasons seem to be mostly stuff we don't discuss here. If you don't have enough ammo to meet your near future needs I'd get it soon, especially 5.56mm M193 and M855. Most of the stuff I buy went up over $100 per case.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m guessing it’s down to the overall design being easier to maintain. The fewer worky bits, the more forgiving it is in a time of limited resources for cleaning and maintenance?

Consistent power load, as well. Semi-autos are reasonably tolerant about the pressure to cycle them (some more than others, admittedly), but if you have a range of loads from hot to not, your gun is going to be beating itself against buffers with some rounds, and failing to fully cycle with others, and both are going to lead to stoppages and obstructions.

 Slowroll wrote:
Well the ammo surplus just evaporated. The rumored reasons seem to be mostly stuff we don't discuss here. If you don't have enough ammo to meet your near future needs I'd get it soon, especially 5.56mm M193 and M855. Most of the stuff I buy went up over $100 per case.

As in it is being bought up by certain nations, for certain nations, or people fear the apocalypse so canned food and shotguns are on the shopping list?

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Slowroll wrote:
Well the ammo surplus just evaporated. The rumored reasons seem to be mostly stuff we don't discuss here. If you don't have enough ammo to meet your near future needs I'd get it soon, especially 5.56mm M193 and M855. Most of the stuff I buy went up over $100 per case.

As in it is being bought up by certain nations, for certain nations, or people fear the apocalypse so canned food and shotguns are on the shopping list?

There was an accident at the Hornady ammo plant, and someone was killed in the fire/explosion. Additionally there is a RUMOR that the Lake City ammo plant (Winchester, Federal, and other brands) has been ordered to suspend all consumer sales for "reasons" adjacent to your first two guesses. Quite a lot of domestic US ammo comes from those places, especially Lake City.

There seems to have been a run specifically on cases of 5.56mm M193 and M855, but I couldn't tell you who bought them, as it doesn't take much to touch off a round of panic buying these days.

All 3 of my usual places to buy ammo online have increased prices across the board over the weekend, and have few if any cases of M193 and M855 for sale at the new prices. That said, at the moment the online prices are still a lot cheaper than buying at the local stores, but bear in mind that the prices have gone up again since I posted that message yesterday.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Isn't the reason for it mostly that bolt and pump action weapons are just that badass?

There is some truth to this. The racking of the shotgun, the thumbing the hammer back on the revolver - all of these serve to create dramatic tension that doesn't really translate well to autoloaders. I guess you can release the safety catch on your Browning ominously, but it's not the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Slowroll wrote:
Well the ammo surplus just evaporated. The rumored reasons seem to be mostly stuff we don't discuss here. If you don't have enough ammo to meet your near future needs I'd get it soon, especially 5.56mm M193 and M855. Most of the stuff I buy went up over $100 per case.

This is partly because of previous experience, partly because the vendors are pushing it. I get e-bulletins from some of them and they were all going BUY NOW BUY NOW BUY NOW and explaining that the people who bought first last time, came out best.

Of course, if you've already got stockpiles, you can take it in stride.

ominous bolt catch release intensifies

HK slap is pretty dramatic.

 Flinty wrote:
HK slap is pretty dramatic.

Right, but what does Glock have to offer that would be the dramatic equivalent of thumbing the hammer back on a S&W Model 29? I mean, you can shoot yourself in the leg with it, but those videos are legion these days. It's almost a trope.

In other news, I skimmed some of the online sites and I don't think there's an actual ammo shortage so much as a massive backlog of orders that has vendors limiting what you can buy at the moment.

Honestly, if you were wanting lots of 5.56mm or 9mm, you should already have piles of it what with the rebates and discounts over the summer. I know there are people who need to have that "extra 10,000 rounds" because the 50,000 they have buried in the back yard might not be enough, but most gunfights tend to be fairly short, sharp affairs.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
HK slap is pretty dramatic.

Right, but what does Glock have to offer that would be the dramatic equivalent of thumbing the hammer back on a S&W Model 29? s.

Well, they work.

OOF Kayback... why so savage..

Gun design that don't work on a structural or regular basis are not that common as far as i am aware, especially revolvers. Don't really get the joke there.

Kayback wrote:


Well, they work.

Do they? The problem with using autoloaders as prop guns is that you have to either modify it to take the blanks or use heavier loads to make it cycle, increasing the risk of harm on the set.

For a low-budget film, manually cycling weapons make more sense.

Plus, Glocks are ugly.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:


Plus, Glocks are ugly.

wood and steel for the win


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I find glocks to have got a special vibe to them though, although its not really my taste because i'm not very into the "spec ops larper" aesthetic.

My biggest pet peeve with Glocks are the guys that insist on having a "Gucci Glock". They'll dump $2000+ into a sub $500 pistol for minimal performance increases.

 cuda1179 wrote:
My biggest pet peeve with Glocks are the guys that insist on having a "Gucci Glock". They'll dump $2000+ into a sub $500 pistol for minimal performance increases.

I find Glocks ugly and I hate the trigger. Hate it.

And the same things that make Glock ideal as a weapon make it the worst possible prop gun. You can't dramatically thumb back the hammer, nor can you lower it as a sign of easing tension. You can't snap the safety off nor cautiously put it back on.

In the 80s, Magnum p.i. used a 1911, and it worked well - he loads it, chamber it and when he has to, you can actually hear the safety coming off. (Tom Selleck was an Army NCO before becoming an actor.) In the first couple of seasons, they had failures to cycle because of weak blanks, and Selleck manually cycled it without losing a beat. Very cool.

There's no escalation or de-escalation with a Glock. Presuming you don't shoot yourself in the leg on the draw, you just point and it shoots. Lame.

Gucci guns can be fun just for the giggles from tinkering assuming you're swimming in enough money to afford the process.

Gucci Glocks are for people who want to feel like they are making some super custom thing, but aren't dropping real $ on either the gun or the upgrades. They're paying for the experience of having a suped up gun, but not really having to invest a ton.

Or they are just Glock fan bois who are more into the brand than any sort of real performance.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Gucci Glocks are for people who want to feel like they are making some super custom thing, but aren't dropping real $ on either the gun or the upgrades. They're paying for the experience of having a suped up gun, but not really having to invest a ton.

Or they are just Glock fan bois who are more into the brand than any sort of real performance.

This is correct. It's like buying a Laugo Alien on the installment plan without actually getting a Laugo Alien. Or a vintage Colt Python, etc.

By the time all is said and done, you end up with a second firearm that lacks the trigger group, but you still paid for it. It's a brand thing.

If I'm going buy a ton of replacement parts, why not use them to restore a vintage historical piece? Yeah, collectors may spurn it, but it's also something you can shoot without guilt for that period feel. The "gunsmith specials" have much appeal for me.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
My biggest pet peeve with Glocks are the guys that insist on having a "Gucci Glock". They'll dump $2000+ into a sub $500 pistol for minimal performance increases.

I find Glocks ugly and I hate the trigger. Hate it.

And the same things that make Glock ideal as a weapon make it the worst possible prop gun. You can't dramatically thumb back the hammer, nor can you lower it as a sign of easing tension. You can't snap the safety off nor cautiously put it back on.

In the 80s, Magnum p.i. used a 1911, and it worked well - he loads it, chamber it and when he has to, you can actually hear the safety coming off. (Tom Selleck was an Army NCO before becoming an actor.) In the first couple of seasons, they had failures to cycle because of weak blanks, and Selleck manually cycled it without losing a beat. Very cool.

There's no escalation or de-escalation with a Glock. Presuming you don't shoot yourself in the leg on the draw, you just point and it shoots. Lame.

Unless you are on The Walking Dead. They've been shown taking the safety off their Glocks for some time now, lol.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Unless you are on The Walking Dead. They've been shown taking the safety off their Glocks for some time now, lol.

Yeah, I never got into that.

Funny that you mentioned it, there is an aftermarket gadget for the Glock that is a safety to keep you from shooting yourself in the leg when you draw it. Not sure how that would work in a film, though. Maybe have the character glance down and have his thumb hover over the gizmo while he debates shooting himself in the leg.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Unless you are on The Walking Dead. They've been shown taking the safety off their Glocks for some time now, lol.

Yeah, I never got into that.

Funny that you mentioned it, there is an aftermarket gadget for the Glock that is a safety to keep you from shooting yourself in the leg when you draw it. Not sure how that would work in a film, though. Maybe have the character glance down and have his thumb hover over the gizmo while he debates shooting himself in the leg.

Yeah, nothing quite beats the Dirty Harry camera angle. Looking down the barrel of a gun as the hammer is slowly, yet deliberately pulled back, watching the cylinder rotate and lock in place. So iconic.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Yeah, nothing quite beats the Dirty Harry camera angle. Looking down the barrel of a gun as the hammer is slowly, yet deliberately pulled back, watching the cylinder rotate and lock in place. So iconic.

Don't forget the extreme closeup of the hammer being thumbed. I love those, because you can see how old some of the prop guns are - even in the 80s they still have firing pins on the hammer. Seriously vintage stuff in the prop vaults.

Kind of like George Lucas plundering 20th Century Fox for Sterlings and Lewis guns. He's making this space movie, you see...

Gosh, it seems I understood the concept of Gucci firearm incorrectly, I stand corrected