What are the absolutely longest lasting guns out there in terms of round count and ease of repair without specialized parts or equipment?
What guns are you buying right now so that your descendants can tote them around the wasteland circa 2220, blasting mutants with their ancestral firearm passed down through 10 generations of your family? What guns do you have that will outlive you?
Other urls found in this thread:
youtube.com
en.wikipedia.org
twitter.com
What elese you want?
That's not a gun
Break action shotguns are most likely the longest lasting ones
Stainless steel .22 rifle.
.22 is too low pressure to shoot out the rifling (or so I've heard).
why worry about rifling at that point, just get a shotgun
any shotgun for that matter
A bolt action is probably tougher than pump action, as well s simpler but rifling on a bolt action will wear off a lot faster than any action will break with intended use.
In terms of simplicity and ease of repair it's either a break action or an open bolt SMG.
In the far future of the 2220's, there is only rocks.
Muskets were occasionally centuries-old by the time they were retired/exploded in the hands of some Afghan goatherd shooting them at Ivan. And that was with using inferior blackpowder. If you use modern powder, they'll probably last a millenium, if you use a good wood for the stock.
You just need to bring enough for the whole neighborhood and carve a drill manual into golden plates and you'll gift your descendants the art of civilized warfare.
Maybe put a few trumpets in the cache for signalling purposes while you're at it.
Good question, and OP wasn't a faggot and actually put round count in, because many firearms are immune to age with simple proper care. The 22lr bolt action is a good one, as other posters mentioned, barrel will last forever, tens of thousands of rounds, I've heard there can be a loss of accuracy at 200,000 shots, but does that mean loss of match accuracy or functional accuracy? Either way it sits easily at the top of round count consideration. With modern gun steels and good parts, it may not need repairs or major replacement of anything for an extremely long time.
As a technical note, even a high pressure round for rifle can be handloaded to lesser pressure, even very low pressure with lead bullets especially. If one keeps the pressure low enough, barrels may theoretically last, again, hundreds of thousands of rounds with careful light handloads. A Mauser with a claw extractor to help control headspace, or a rimmed or truly belted cartridge, will help these rifles maintain headspace even with a high round count with even high pressure standard rounds. The components are tough and will last just as long as a 22lr counterpart.
Break actions are good, solid guns, but wear and recoil can eventually cause the gun to "get off the face" and have potentially serious problems. A gunsmith with simple hand tools and knowledge can fix these, however, and keep them running if that's an option. They are tough and reliable, and a good consideration.
Single shot falling blocks like the Ruger 1 or Winchester 1885 are potentially surefire choices. They are often chambered in large cartridges well suited, if not originally intended for, blackpowder. They are the strongest action, very simple, not much to go wrong. How many rounds through my Uberti 1885 45-70 with lead bullets and low pressure loads would it take to wear it out, or destroy the barrel if no mercuric primers and/or blackpowder is used? Perhaps, again, hundreds of thousands, with a rimmed cartridge to help headspace to boot. This might be your answer.
Magazine fed levers have too many parts, too much to go wrong, in my opinion. At least many can be simply loaded and fired single shot if other parts break in many cases. Probably not the best choice.
One might get good service from a pump rifle, and many pump shotguns seem to have incredibly high round counts without major issues. The guns can get sloppier and looser, but they still work. Desert Punk's 1897 might be a bit more fragile, but modern guns like the Ithica design or the R870 or M500, when built right with good steel, might last you an unbeliavely long amount of rounds fired. Simple, stupid, with shotguns low pressure and no headspace or rifling to worry about, this is a good choice.
Automatics are always a questionable choice, parts tend to fail and break on them, critical things they need, sometimes parts that can't be made by hand or rigged. Plastic handguns will eventually fail due to age rot, if not this century then eventually. Some steel handgun automatic frames will crack with high round counts, both require certain parts at round counts to function reliably. Some assault/battle rifles MIGHT have things as bad as receiver failures, and they too eventually need parts for reliable function. Even if the gun in total isn't worn out, they are reliant on parts and repair at high round counts.
Revolvers might be another great choice, there are many high grade revolvers that have survived 100k+ or far more round counts. Its not the longevity of the gun in terms of rounds, in fact in handguns it might be king, the problem is these guns "get out of time" and need to be refit. If this fits OP's major work or repair consideration, this alone may keep the revolver from being a super great choice.
...
It's simply not possible, OP. You can preserve a firearm for proper maintenance for years to come, centuries even, but a firearm is inevitably a tool, not a living organism. It can't repair itself, so every time you fire it, it loses just a little bit of its lifespan, even with proper care. Eventually you'll have to replace parts. If you want to leave a firearm encased in synthetic preservative oil for a century that's fine and it will still be good at a later date (even the ammunition can last for half a century if preserved correctly), but if you don't at bare minimum have it on display or use it, your children or your grandchildren will inevitably get rid of it or rat its existence out since they won't understand its true value, and what is really the value of a tool that's been kept hidden away never to see its use? That's disrespectful to the gun.
You shouldn't want to preserve a gun for your offspring eight generations away. You should train your own offspring to understand every nook and cranny of the gun making it a family tradition so that they will understand the importance of firearms and grant your grand children that knowledge, etc. Have lots of children to ensure that if a few of them turn into soy boys, it won't ruin your goal. The only other thing you can do it prepare the necessary instructions on how to build firearms and ammunition, archive it in about 100 different spots, and hope that at least one working copy will survive. Another option is something like the AR-15 since its an operating system of firearms and thus can be translated with other parts even after the original parts are long broken or gone, but this is just a short-term solution that will only last as long as that particular gun is in use. Unfortunately unlike the video games, the only guns that will be used in post-apocalyptia or what have you are the guns that were made for that time-span or for maybe the previous generation or two.
Any descendants we have will probably be autists, so making noises is no problem for them
Oi perkele, I remember when that was made. I was the one who suggested political assassination.
I miss 2015-early 2017 Zig Forums.
This tbh. I suggested the suicide bag, which got turned into "gas yourself".
I love you fuggers.
Mate that's not how it works. They bite the dust after 20k rounds, 50k if you're lucky. If you immerse it in lubricant it can be stored indefinitely but every time you use it, its inevitable death is inching a bit closer. This actually applies to literally everything, not just firearms, the difference is that firearm is a very complicated, precision designed piece of equipment which absolutely requires serious industrial capacity to manufacture even in simplest form (matchlock muskets), whereas something like a bow can be made using the things you can find innawoods.
THE RIFLE IS FINE.
RIFILING GONE? USE THE BAYONET LIKE A REAL MAN. BAYONET BREAK? NOW YOU HAVE A SERGEI SIMONOV APPROVED WAR CLUB.
Maybe the best option is a smooth bore gun, something like a shotgun (mentioned before).
But thing will eventually wear and break, so you need parts for repairing as well, and ammo shortage may be a factor as well.
That said, one option can be air powered rifles, pellets are easily obtainable, low weight and you can carry lots of them. They aren't a powerful option, but they might be ok for hunting small animals as they are quiet and missing isnt too much of a deal. Air guns tend to lose pressure, but they can be made from scrap materials so parts are not a problem.
As said, guns eventually break down, so the best thing is to have at least one real gun in extreme cases, and some pipe gun for general use. There are plenty of plans on the internet, automatics and stuff, if you want something fancy.
I think that if there is a wasteland, by real guns will be a luxury item (depends on the part of the world) and most people will have to rely on pipe guns.
Look at rental range reports for round count. Battlefield Vegas is one of the big ones and posted about them for a while till they got too busy to keep up on posting the info. Off hand I remember they claimed they haven't replaced anything on a particular SCAR since they opened (not sure if that includes barrel) and that AKs started to crack their receivers at high round count (critical failure, gun is fucked) while beyond barrel wear ARs only needed spring, BCG and gas tube changes.
Actually speaking of which, the barrel will always wear out the rifling and that often requires specialized parts and equipment. Your options would be MGs with quick change barrels, browning action pistols (need specialized parts), shotguns and maybe 22lr stuff.
So what you're saying is we need to begin hoarding the machines and resources to make firearms and have the capacity to produce them ourselves.
A gun wont last 200 years if you have to use it frecuently
The Taliban handmade decent guns in the Khyber Pass. Ought to look into their techniques.
Stone age warfare was more advanced then what we give it credit for.
Think about martial arts for example, while there are always little changes and variations it has been the same shit for millenia, because there is only a limited number of ways the human body can move.
Get yourself a muzzle loader, a matchlock if you want to max out on your parameters there. The tech/design is well past the point where anyone who can do basic DIY can repair and maintain it for as long as they have 30 minutes a year and a few dozen PoundEuroDollarShekels to throw at the over-the-counter parts you'd need to keep it fully operational. If you doubt their utility and longevity then explain how there are still ~17/18th century build Jezzails still serving their purpose in the hands of Afghan/Pathan tribals.
I want Reddit to leave.
he said firearms you dumb beaner
Yes I know he didn't design Mosin-Nagant It's literally named for its designers it's suposed to be continuation of adventures of Chesnokov.
it depends on how backwards things get.
if its a simple grid down
if there is massive devastation
if I am the last person alive except that one hot mutant chick who kind of likes me.
They assemble them from spare parts. Absolute minimum equipment needed to make a gun includes a lathe. Making guns with complicated mechanisms like AK also involves a mill. You can cast a cannon and it's going to be good enough to fire grapeshot, but a gun It's not something you make without power tools.
My nugget was made in 1943 so it's almost a century old already. It probably wouldn't be too hard to preserve it another two. Even if my descendants shot out the bore, the rifle would still go boom. If guns are so rare in the future that they must resort to hoarding archeotech, I'm sure a gun that shoots at all is already very good even if it isn't super accurate at 700 meters. But who am I kidding, even if by some stroke of luck I had kids they'd be mixed to hell by later generations anyway.
There are lots of guns civvie and mil designed for rugged reliability. Individual models can be found easily. As far as generalizations, I'd say repairing almost all firearms would require the ability to precision machine steel. If you can do that, it doesn't make much difference which gun you have, outside of exceptional overcomplicated things like the kraut space magic gun. I'm sure people will figure it out if it's important and they got nothing but time. But if you can repair you can also make guns so your theme falls apart. If you cannot machine steel, then guns become non renewable resources, and how long they last is more governed by chance than make and model. In that case the smart technobarbarian will not get attached to any one super reliable gun but constantly look out for opportunities to trade up. They will accept that no gun will last forever and expect to be constantly replacing them.
But generally I would say the classes that last longer would be smoothbores and revolvers due to simpler constructions and lack of rifling to wear out. Muskets, blunderbusses and the like might be good, because their ammo is more versatile. Generally black powder opens up interesting possibilities: Potentially any metal tube can be a barrel. On that note older cannons don't even have moving parts and are arguably more useful than infantry weapons. Weren't there cannons made from wood? Maybe wooden arquebuses?
The problem with your imaginary scenario OP is ammo. There's not a big technological window between making your cartridges and making your guns. Black powder seems like the way to go, unless you also leave a shipping container full of ammo.
However if we're talking far future, I think it's more exciting to consider some as yet uninvented non firearm, like a self charging laser, would come on the market before things go south.
It doesn't seem realistic to shoot that many rounds, even across generations, if you just get two guns and practice with the beater one only. If you killed 100 people with 10% accuracy, that is still only 1k shots. And even people in lawless areas/times rarely have such KDRs. But in Mad Max world you couldn't get enough rounds to shoot out the rifling, even if you found a cache you couldn't carry it with you.
Air guns are an interesting idea. Probably most are shit quality and wouldn't last, but the best ones might be pretty effective. However at that point why not just use a crossbow or something?
You can make a musket without a lathe, you just get a lovely octagonal barrel/round barrel if you enjoy swage blocks and learn the joys of manual drilling the bore, and that goes for rifling too if you have that end figured out.
You can clearly see they're using a lathe.
Good luck producing a bore with any degree of radial and linear uniformity without using a lathe. You gonna need it, considering that you'd have to go through fucking up dozens of billets before you get a barrel of acceptable quality.
Most guns don't actually live nearly that long, rifled barrels could wear out before making 5k shots. You could still fire such gun, just don't expect good accuracy and downrange performance, but its action will break eventually. Shotgun barrel probably wouldn't wear significantly at all but other parts will. Automatic and pump action shotguns have complicated action liable to untimely failure, break-action is simpler but still fails.
In Mad Max world your gun would fail rapidly due to abrasion, because you have nothing to lubricate it with.
Yeah I heard of a wooden cannon. It was made from an ancient oak (or something) and had 1" barrel or thereabouts. I also heard that it exploded in battle and considering that dried up wood doesn't exactly has great tensile strength it's more than believable. Mythbusters blew one up, too.
Laser doesn't produce power, only transforms one type of light into another. To make it deliver a lethal blow, you'd basically need to produce a flash with several megawatts intensity, you'd have to rely on some sort of pyrotechnic charge, because storing several kilojoules of energy in other fashion is just impractical.
Any vegetable oil or rendered animal fat should provide at least some lubrication.
That fireclean stuff was basically crisco, after all.
Guys in the bush were getting a deviation of .0005" with their tools, and that was creating a gun that could knock a man dead at 250 yards accurately.
That is a bore drill you savage.
I'd go for an AK. Lasts tens of thousands of rounds before breaking, has loose tolerances and generally hueg parts, meaning some environment debris isn't going to phase it (which is why you get sandniggers merrily firing them to this day), and they're rather simple in construction, meaning replacing the parts (or manufacturing them, if you have the proper tech) shouldn't be too difficult. And I know I'd rather have a beaten up AK in the wasteland than a fucking musket, like some suggest ITT.
Fucking kids today.
To fit the point of the thread nicely, I have a 1913 built 1897 Winchester pump shotgun, same as ol Desert Punk in OP's reference. It wasn't even taken care of all that well for parts of its existence, yet its perfectly functional despite age. That's why we aren't talking about age of wood and steel guns, there are 500 year old matchlocks and wheelocks still around and even being fired, much less my 106 year old pump shotgun or your spring chicken "nugget". Truth is its very difficult to say what is an "old gun", because wood and steel age so gracefully they never go bad with care, and modern gun designs have not advanced much to make many designs obsolete. The 1911 has been around since 1911, the S&W Model 27 has been in continual production since 1935, the Model 10 (with changes) has been in constant production since late 1890's. This is why OP's point is relevant and why he had to ask about round count, its also why gun controllers want all guns to be plastic so they will age degrade.
You are right in the fact that cartridge making is the most problematic issue. Bullet molds can last almost forever, if man can find lead and well maintained steel or cast iron bullet molds he can easily make the bullets. Blackpowder itself can be made and effectively used in many smokeless cartridges in Mad Maxland. But how does one draw brass, a complicated industrial process, and manufacture primers? This alone might put an end to cartridge guns in Mad Max, if nobody can make brass or steel cases eventually even reloaders will wear out their brass by constant use. Primers are another difficult thing, but theoretically could be made with materials by some people of some skill.
Muzzle loaders will always be around, they are too simple to produce and simply work to well, as you and others pointed out. Simple matchlocks can be built with steel pipes and simple wood. Anything can be used in a pinch to make a matchlock fire, does not need to be good match cord. Blackpowder and simple projectiles can be nigger rigged. If you use a good piece of modern steel for a barrel it will never, ever blow up or wear out unless you fuck up bad. Flintlocks could be made still with simple hand tools, simple hand lathes without industrial power. Even nipple guns if one can remember how to make mercuric primers. Continual manufacture of 1830's rifled muskets may still continue unabated.
The other issue with ammunition and blackpowder to be noted, blackpowder can be stored indefinitely and may actually get better with proper aging. Make a magazine and fill it full of blackpowder for your great great great grandchildren, and if it doesnt' blow them up, might provide powder for generations of increasing quality. Smokeless powder's great problem is that its always degrading. It may work well for half a century, sometimes even a bit more, but if we are talking 200 years, no. A shipping container full of powder and loaded ammunition has the risk that the ammo and powder will simply go bad no matter what if time elapses. This is an edge to blackpowder, can be home made and stored. But remember the other problem, that blackpowder is corrosive, and if Mad Max dood of the future is using home made mercuric primers he is at double risk of his gun rotting away if he doesn't clean it well and often when shot. A lot of old blackpowder guns blew up from bad craftmanship and/or soft iron, but a lot went to fuck from corrosion and bad care.
...
Without micrometers. Yeah, bullshit.
Shiggy
Can you make this thing double barreled so that it takes less time per shit as you can reload 2 chambers at once?
Less time per shot, obviously. My apologies
Why not a Drehling then?
But for your question, there is no reason there can't be a multi chambered breechloader for blackpowder.
How does it open these latches that cover holes for powder? Doesn't powder/ball fall out of there if you don't hold it correctly? Otherwise it's pretty cool if it doesn't have the problems that en.wikipedia.org
Arent we talking about post industrial apocalypse?
You have to make do with pan ignition. If you can mass produce primer you certainly are capable of producing at least Maynard brass, which was just a case with a hole for the primer, in the literal sense.
And for revolver chambers, you can apply grease like the mutts did all the time.
You have to make do with pan ignition
Yeah, i was wondering how does this latch move forward and how does that gun ignites the charge.
Seems like it wasn't enough, as the revolver rifle was dropped hard enough to not do any attempts of making similar designs afterwards.
Of course, because big gaping holes and slits are always shitty without exception :^)
Still better to have another round ready with one thumb flip than jacking off, tbh
less complex, same effect.
Also can carry multiple of those. This one uses caps while that revolving thing is matchlock though. Neither are optimal, as the other poster said. The flintlock is.
I wonder if you can use something like firesteel in the place of flint though, could it make a more reliable gun? Also, what are some good and effective by modern standards(at least to some extent) black powder cartridges? 45 colt?
Let it be a dedicated repeating black powder firearms thread. it'd be pretty interesting to see a company that specializes on pre-industrially simple black powder firearms, yet designs them with modern understanding of ergonomics, safety, simplicity and engineering in mind, not just manufacturing centuries old reproductions.
Companies do. They're under the category of "inline" muzzleloaders. They're popular with hunters who want to take advantage of black powder season but don't care about historicity and felons who can't pass a background but are also too dumb to buy them off their local drug dealer, so they buy a gun that doesn't need a background check.
They come in several different flavors, There's the most popular being bolt action or break action guns. A few companies even make electric ignition guns. the CVA electra being an example. though they're not all that in demand.
I'm an idiot who forgot to post a picture
Oh, that's cool, thanks. Are there any of these that use simpler ignition systems like flintlock and parts that don't require to be fitted together that much? And how does a break action or bolt action muzzleloader work? How do you even operate them?
There are "modern" flintlocks, but other than having stocks made of polymer and using modern scopes or fiber optic sights, they're not all that different to older guns.
They're are fairly simple, they're just using spring tension to launch the firing pin onto the head of a percussion cap. some use old fashioned musket caps while others use modern shotgun or large rifle primers. the break action guns usually have a removable breech plug that makes it hell of a lot easier to clean. You could probably load them from the rear.
You don't even need to use loose powder with these, it's common to see pre measured pellets of some black powder substitute along with modern jacketed bullets in a plastic sabot
Oh, well that seems to be awfully inconvenient unpractical for anything but hunting, not that durable compared to older muzzle loaders and they'd be useful almost exclusively as a source of parts for a better gun in a scenario we're looking for. Their actions are fit together pretty tight, largely reliant on turning parts on a lathe, they use percussion caps and have screwing in breech plugs. They are a mix of manual actions like bolt action with all the bolt actions' downsides and none of the advantages there could be if you were using an actual cartridge, while retaining the inconveniences of a muzzleloader in the process. I an disappoint.
That's the sum of it for anything commercial. nobody is making a "perfect" shtf musket because it'd just be easier to make a cartridge rifle.
Smokeless powder would put more stress on the gun than BP because of higher pressure and temperature, TBH.
I can't find the video on youtube of the guy who made the electric blackpowder pistol that can be loaded with many shots.
It was pretty cool in design.
I have a Finnish M39 Mosin with a Hex receiver that is from 1896.
Therefore the rifle has approximately lived 6.83 times longer than the Soviet conscript it was originally issued to, after it was plucked from his cold dead hands and reborn by the Finns.
If any of my guns will outlive me, it will be that one.
Is this it?
what if we made the barrel from some undestructible graphene/titanium/carbon fiber shit?
We already make our barrels from the most indestructible steel with specialized coatings like nitride ones. Carbon fiber barrels' main purpose is light weight, while titanium is only stronger than steel if compared for a certain weighted amount of them, steel will be more durable in general.
Graphene is unlikely to be useful since its main features are its conductivity, thin layers and their tensile strength for a measure of weight and isn't really that good for high temperatures or pressures.
Oh, good find. I also recalled it but couldn't find this one.
I'd been trying to find that video for years thanks user
buy whatever you want and put it into deep storage and save it for when you need it,chances are if you're wondering the waste land like desert punk you'll either run out of ammo or have your head blown clean off by the time you need to worry about replacing a barrel or anything like that.
if you're trying to arm future gens of your kin, buy a number of guns,spare parts and maybe some armor and other goodies and bury that shit in the appropriate manner, create a family heirloom, give it some value but not enough to be worth much if pawned or anything.transcibe the location and how to access the deep storage on the heirloom, when you go to die give it to the most alpha male in your immediate family and instruct them to do the same when the time comes for them…..
the guns aren't meant to be range toys or even self defense like the rest, those ones are for arming your great great grandchildren if the need should arise.
basically don't shoot the gun you want to be using for doomsday, until dooms day…well beyond doing some initial break in and reliability testing.
that said, look at some lever actions,shotguns and revolvers, there are simpler designs out there but they use straight walled cases and can be loaded with black powder by hand, if you go with something like a lever gun include the tool to maintenance it….
also a general rule of thumb for me is to not buy bullshit, there's a lot of guns on the market, a lot of shitty guns, don't buy them, save up the extra few dollars and buy something legit, you've already saved this much and put this much aside for a gun, might as well just run it out a bit longer and buy the real deal/quality version instead of the discount one…the cheaper knock off versions are fine if you just want a range gun or something to pretend you're playing commando with but there's also a reason no one fields hipoints..even though they are actually better than some of the shitty guns put out by higher end manufactures…which happens often as well….but hopefully you've done enough research to know that design is shit regardless.
Your numbers are low or your only experience is with trash guns. Maybe for the barrels, but I know that the M16s used in Army basic and the 1911s the Marines use for competition are all well, well, well beyond that. Lots of AR-15s out there are surpassing those numbers easily as well. Receivers last a long damn time. There are trap shotguns with round counts of 20k. Lots of IPSC and three gun guy are hitting 50k with Glocks before the slide cracks but the frames keep on chugging indefinitely.
HAPAS ARE SUPERIOR TO WHITES
HAPAS ARE SUPERIOR TO WHITES
HAPAS ARE SUPERIOR TO WHITES