Older weapons

[GrampaAllen]

I can not find my copy of trans dimensional TMNT, do any of the other books cover historic firearms and artillery.

One of my neighbors has a Hotchkiss 2 pound mountain gun which I thought was fairly unique. Until he had a BBQ after some event and I met his circle of aficionado friends making half a dozen of them that owned various historic Guns let alone their friends who act as crew. Since that clearly is not the whole of this community.

Makes you wonder.

[azazel1024]

Not really.

You wouldn't generally want to use black powder weapons against zombies. Non-rifled weapons are not accurate enough for a head shot, and even rifled, non-breechloading weapons are just too slow to fire unless you are only facing 1 or maybe 2 zeds. Other downside, they tend to be louder than cartridge weapons.

As for damage, they tended to run from about 3d6-6d6 damage, generally the higher end of things (big bullets, even if moving slow).

I forget the exact PB rules, but Flintlocks can be fired and reloaded once every 2 melees and percussion cap once per melee basically. Can't be doing anything else other than concentrating on it.

I could see maybe trying to use something like a sharps or other breech loading black powder rifle, but frankly it isn't all that much easier to make reloads for one of those than it would be just to reload spent brass for a cartridge weapon, less chance of weater being an issue, less barrel fouling, faster firing, etc, etc with the cartridge weapon.

Also it isn't that easy to make quality black powder if that is what you are thinking of. Corned powder is a multistep process that thats some tools to make. Non-corned powder fouls really badly, is a bit more dangerous and also doesn't produce as much power, and also still isn't the easiest to make (finding sulfur laying around isn't too common, and salt peter isn't exactly suppper common in a post apocalyptic survival scenario).

I could maybe see it in the case of a safe haven community with access to the required resources to make black powder, but other than that, for joe or jane survivor it just doesn't make sense.

[azazel1024]

Unless it just blow the head off. Then you have an undead head trying to chomp things that get too close.

[Ronin Shinobi]

Only other book that would have Blackpowder weapon is Roadhogs but only for one the villains who uses a buffalo rifles as his weapon of choice.

[GrampaAllen]

Mostly looking for artillery and grapeshot is a shotgun on steroids plus some.

[glitterboy2098]

the rifts SB4 "cannons" are technowizard devices that shoot fireballs. no help there.

at the moment, the only source of stats for blackpowder weapons are the ones in TDTMNT. and those have some flaws and gaps (experianced soldiers of the time could reload twice as fast as the book limits you too, and the damage for the big cannons is rather weak compared to what they could do in real life...so the normal palladium problems.. likewise there is no details on the use of civil war era muzzleloading percussion rifles with minie balls..this despite the existance of a civil war period adventure!)

[Zamion138]

Forba solid lead ball ball shot, id say if its head on its dead..damedge wise id say a 1/4 of a modern tanks damage. (2d6x10 is my sujestion) Use the modern weapons guide. And black powder isn't hard to make modern smokeless powder yeah much harder. 2 pound solid ball id say blast radius of maybe 10trade feet for the shock wave......the cool thing wouldn't so much be grape shot...but chain shot, fired at the right hight and angle you could easily behead a dozen plus zombies.

[azazel1024]

With some limited tools you can reload your own rounds, and you CAN use black powder. Now making percussion caps is harder, but not impossible. Frankly I think the best way to go in a "society has ended" world is something like a sharps carbine with flint lock firing mechanism using fabric cartridges. Not super, super easy to "make" reloads, but frankly not all that impossible and you can do it with very basic tools and supplies.

However, considering the plentifulness of modern bullets and cartridges, it should be easy enough with basic tools to make reloads from other calibers if you needed to (remelt the bullet in the new bullets mold, reload spent casings from other cartridges powder). Should last you a ridiculously long time.

[GrampaAllen]

old school artillery was seriously effective against static or slow moving targets zombies should be easy

[Zamion138]

(edit)

[Zamion138]

With some limited tools you can reload your own rounds, and you CAN use black powder. Now making percussion caps is harder, but not impossible. Frankly I think the best way to go in a "society has ended" world is something like a sharps carbine with flint lock firing mechanism using fabric cartridges. Not super, super easy to "make" reloads, but frankly not all that impossible and you can do it with very basic tools and supplies.

However, considering the plentifulness of modern bullets and cartridges, it should be easy enough with basic tools to make reloads from other calibers if you needed to (remelt the bullet in the new bullets mold, reload spent casings from other cartridges powder). Should last you a ridiculously long time.

As some one who deos reload I can tell you 1000 primers for center fire rifles and pistols is super cheap. powder is more and bullets arent bad.... but cast bullets dont work well in simie auto weapons or anything that feeds up a rail. but 1000 rounds for an AK is about 300 bucks, similar pricing with an AR so for a person to get more ammo than they can carry is relativly cheap. A "life time supply" would be in the range of 20k but youd have to go back to your stash often to re up.

[azazel1024]

That would involve "knowing it is coming" and/or being really paranoid.

I don't disagree with availability and how cheap it is. Its more a question of being able to stash it, get to it and/or carry it around. Last I checked, with plastic mags, 10kgs of AR15/M-16 mags is around 20-22 magazines for 20rnds mags. ~600 rounds isn't bad, but that is a lot of weight to carry around in a post apocalyptic world if you are limited to hoofing it. Especially with another 3.5kgs of rifle and I am assuming a rifle cleaning kit. Plus possibly scope and light. Side arm, ammo for that and a melee weapon (axe, machete, etc).

Then you take in to account survival gear, food, water, etc. I know soldiers regularly carry 80lbs on their backs when all is said and done. Also surviving in a post apocalyptic world doesn't mean you need to be constantly hoofing 20+ miles a day.

That said, if you want to be able to cover a reasonable distance in a reasonable amount of time and if you need to do it for several days, 80+ lbs is not resonable for 98% of the people (even soldiers are going to get burned out after more than a day or two of 20 mile marches on decent paths and fairly level ground with 80+lbs on their backs).

A more reasonable weight allowance is up to about 50lbs total. That is basic backpacking gear, a pistol and a few magazines for it, a baseball bat, machete or axe and a light rifle or carbine of maybe 5-7lbs and probably no more than 5-8 magazines for it at most. That is still going to get you in a position where you are going to have to go light on the water/food that you are carrying around. Especially if you can source dehydrated foods, as those weigh a lot more. Canned foods, fresh(ish) foods etc that you are scaveging are going to weigh a lot more. 2 days worth of canned and fresh foods are probably going to weigh around 8lbs where as dehydrated survival/backpacking foods/meals for 2 days is going to weigh more like 3-4lbs.

[azazel1024]

Of course that doesn't really touch on reloading. For a settlement that was trying to make it long term and "rebuild", other than scaveging ammo, if they want to make their own, they aren't likely to be able to easily make new percussion caps let alone primers nor make cordite or newer smokeless powders. Black powder is pretty basic, though the resources may not be "in town" to do it without some kind of geographic control, or at least luck (sulfur is not around every bend, nor are decent sources of saltpeter though you could "make your own" of the later).

With good pre-planning and some luck, you could have modern ammo for dozens of people for "years" with hundreds of thousands of rounds or more. Though that would take a fair amount of pre-prepreperation and a lot of financial resources to manage.

Of course you could luck out and hit a well stocked national guard armory or military base that either hadn't been picked over had its ammo "used up" by a unit(s).

Again, I am talking larger scale settlement type long term surival and use. Something like a gun store, walmart, etc should have plenty for an individual if not picked over ot sold out in the run up to everything falling completely apart. For a large settlement or group, even a few thousand rounds isn't going to last super long unless lucky and/or in an area pretty devoid of zombies.