Non-steamed steampunk guns

[Captain Reech]

Caught the last few minutes of a Lee Van Cleef western yesterday.

Lee Van Cleef? Got to love him! Which film was it? (I don't think I have one with a drum full of pistols in my collection!)

[MWBailey]

Smoothbore guns are grand unless you're planning to hit something.

That's why we load them with shot - you don't just hit something, you hit everything! 

Which is the whole point of teh boat/rail guns (I wonder if "punt" gun is just another name for teh same weapon?)

[Hey Joe]

Here is an interesting gem for you.

Spoiler: ShowHide

This is the Walch Navy .36 caliber 12 shot pistol. There were only 200 of these pistols ever made. It had two loads of powder and ball in each chamber. The shooter would fire the front loads using one side of the trigger and hammer, then switch to the other trigger and hammer to fire the back loads.

[Captain Reech]

My experience with smoothbore weapons is limited to an old 12 bore "Kinmount" side by side, English Civil War Matchlocks and the First pattern long land firelock (Or 'Brown Bess'). Accuracy depends on what you want to hit and how far away/how fast it's moving. Matchlocks are pretty useless for target or game, but the 'Bess' is great as long as what you want to hit is walking towards you in a blue coat! (Or Red Coat if you're playing a Jacobite as I usually do!)

After that my only experience of anything remotely Steam Punk is the Mauser Model 1898 which is a magnificent piece of kit at up to 1000 metres (and superior, in my opinion, at long ranges to most modern military shoulder arms. Different horses for different courses as they say!) There's something incredibly satisfying about a good bolt or lever action rifle from the turn of the century, they just feel so much more solid and dependable than the modern 'tinker toy' weapons.

[JosephR]

You have to bear in mind that the smooth bore musket was not intended to be accurate.  It was designed for the linear tactics of the day, which involved masses of troops firing simultaneously, filling the air with lead like a huge shotgun at similarly massed troops.  The paper cartridge containing powder and somewhat loose-fitting ball made it quick to load, unlike the rifle, which required a tight-fitting ball wrapped in greased cloth.  A trained soldier with a musket could get off nearly four shots a minute where a rifleman would do well to get off two.

[Hey Joe]

Thought people might be interested in this.
http://www.hobbytron.com/BoltActionSpringMauserKar98Replica300FPSAirsoftGun.html

[tophatdan]

i first saw one of thees in a guns and ammo magazine, there are 3 or 4 of them that have been authenticated and sold at international auctions for large sums of money, but litterally thousands of fakes out there, they all work off of an original text found in the handfull of authentic kits which reads:

This box contains the items considered necessary for the protection of persons who travel into certain little known countries in Easter Europe where the populace are plagued with a peculiar manifestation of evil, known as Vampires... Professor Ernst Blomberg respectfully requests that the purchaser of this kit carefully studies his book. Should evil manifestations become apparent, he is then equip ed to deal with them efficiently... Professor Blomberg wishes to announce his grateful thanks to that well known gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plombeur, whose help in compiling of the special items, the silver bullets,etc., has been most efficient. The items enclosed are as follows...

1. An efficient pistol with its usual accoutrements
2. A quantity of bullets of the finest silver
3. Powdered flowers of garlic (one phial)
4. Flour of Brimstone (one phial)
5. Wooden stake (Oak)
6. Ivory crucifix
7. Holy Water (one phial)
8. Professor Blomberg's New Serum


most kits, authentic or fake contain guns made by one Nicolas Plomdeur,  a gunsmith from Belgium, this one contains atleast most of the standard items with stakes, mirrors, a gun with silver bullets, crosses, a Bible, holy water, candles, garlic and Professor Blomberg`s New Vampire Serum. lol, that's a great one right...


we should all get an 'efficient pistol" and build one... dint forget the paper label in the box that reads as above...


you can read more here; http://deeplyblue.com/bluetea/labels/museums.html i got my information from guns and ammo, but that site is pretty un-bias... enjoy

[Captain Reech]

You have to bear in mind that the smooth bore musket was not intended to be accurate.  It was designed for the linear tactics of the day, which involved masses of troops firing simultaneously, filling the air with lead like a huge shotgun at similarly massed troops.  The paper cartridge containing powder and somewhat loose-fitting ball made it quick to load, unlike the rifle, which required a tight-fitting ball wrapped in greased cloth.  A trained soldier with a musket could get off nearly four shots a minute where a rifleman would do well to get off two.

Indeed, I can only get about three off with the Bess these days, but I don't have the practice anymore, I've seen guys who drill all the time who can do 4. As you say, the Rifle man would be lucky to get off 2, but the chance are he'd be in light skirmish formation and would fall back before the Muskets were within range....

"There's thirty shillings on the drum, for them with us will freely come, 'tis volunteers will win the day....... "

; )

[S.Sprocket]

What is meant by the OP in regards to "non-steamed steampunk guns"?

To me this seems like I should move it into steampunk threads as this seems pretty on-topic.

[Sir Nikolas of Vendigroth]

I think he means ones that are A: Unintentionally steampunkish, with regard to B: In that they don't have candlesticks soldered to them, and un-necessary fiddly bits and C: Are actually functional.

[tophatdan]

guns that look steamy, but are not created 'for' the genre

[mdarkpoet]

The lovely guns belonging to Roland from the Dark Tower series

Here's my logic of how this fits into this topic.

See Roland is a fictional character, his guns are Steamy, being more or less from the era, however him being a fictional character and his guns also being fictional, make this work. But here's a picture of the guns from the series.

http://www.thedarktower.com/gallery/data/537/novguns.jpg
Novice guns for novice gunslingers

http://www.thedarktower.com/gallery/data/537/App_guns1.jpg
Apprentice guns

http://www.thedarktower.com/gallery/data/537/Dgun.jpg
And finally, Roland's guns <333333333333

[Captain Reech]

Here is an interesting gem for you.

Spoiler: ShowHide

This is the Walch Navy .36 caliber 12 shot pistol. There were only 200 of these pistols ever made. It had two loads of powder and ball in each chamber. The shooter would fire the front loads using one side of the trigger and hammer, then switch to the other trigger and hammer to fire the back loads.

I think this is one of those 'lovely idea but...' inventions which are so typical of the era (Probably the reason for the whole 'Steam Punk' Genre, there was so much speculation and innovation going on at this point in time it makes a wonderful basis for a 'What if...' novel!) A novel solution to the problem of the six shot precussion revolver's biggest problem, which was the time it took to manually recharge the cylinders and fit new caps (To quote Steve Earle 'Shoots as fast as lightning but it loads a mite slow' and 'It can get you into trouble but it can't get you out')

The down side of these babies is, of course, what happens if you accidentally fire the back load first. If you got involved in a gunfight, firing rapidly, and had a missfire on the front charge you would have have to ensure you either cleared the front chamber or avoided firing the rear charge on that cylinder. The arrival of faster loading cartridge revolvers, followed quickly by the semi automatic pistol, made this concept a dead end for development, along with the massive 8 shot revolvers and 'Ace in the hole' guns like the Le Mat with it's extra 'Grape shot' barrel.

[tophatdan]

i own a couple of those revolvers, as i am a HUGE black powder enthusiast, and the way we do it with competition shooting, street shooting, target shooting, and the will bill Hickok did it was to keep a couple of extra drums on you, preloaded and ready to go.

also one of the advantages of the later model colt navy revolvers, that's pre-conversion. is that they were able to 'side eject' an unfired ball through the back of the drum v ery quickly by swivelling the load assist lever over and screwing the nipple out of the back with a small wrench that was in some models, even contained in the butt of the gun.

i wish i could have found a blueprint or something of a gun like this online, the only examples i have ever seen are in museums and at shoots where you often see other black powder enthusiasts with some very strange and rare guns.

the point being, they tried to solve those problems you mentioned, but before they had solutions professional gunfighters and the like had simply purchased spare drums, a forerunner to today's 'speedloader' to assist them when they had a misfire...

of course if you read the legends of bill Hickok, you will note that a misfire is never mentioned... as he reloaded his guns twice a day if he needed to or not, just to be sure nothing had shaken loose.

[Baron von Landau]

Spoiler: ShowHide

i first saw one of thees in a guns and ammo magazine, there are 3 or 4 of them that have been authenticated and sold at international auctions for large sums of money, but litterally thousands of fakes out there, they all work off of an original text found in the handfull of authentic kits which reads:

This box contains the items considered necessary for the protection of persons who travel into certain little known countries in Easter Europe where the populace are plagued with a peculiar manifestation of evil, known as Vampires... Professor Ernst Blomberg respectfully requests that the purchaser of this kit carefully studies his book. Should evil manifestations become apparent, he is then equip ed to deal with them efficiently... Professor Blomberg wishes to announce his grateful thanks to that well known gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plombeur, whose help in compiling of the special items, the silver bullets,etc., has been most efficient. The items enclosed are as follows...

1. An efficient pistol with its usual accoutrements
2. A quantity of bullets of the finest silver
3. Powdered flowers of garlic (one phial)
4. Flour of Brimstone (one phial)
5. Wooden stake (Oak)
6. Ivory crucifix
7. Holy Water (one phial)
8. Professor Blomberg's New Serum


most kits, authentic or fake contain guns made by one Nicolas Plomdeur,  a gunsmith from Belgium, this one contains atleast most of the standard items with stakes, mirrors, a gun with silver bullets, crosses, a Bible, holy water, candles, garlic and Professor Blomberg`s New Vampire Serum. lol, that's a great one right...


we should all get an 'efficient pistol" and build one... dint forget the paper label in the box that reads as above...


you can read more here; http://deeplyblue.com/bluetea/labels/museums.html i got my information from guns and ammo, but that site is pretty un-bias... enjoy

I encountered one such kit, in person, a few years back. Really is a marvelous item, and most useful, I'm sure, when traveling "into certain little known countries in Eastern Europe." By the way, I can attest to the fact that the text posted by Mr. Tophatdan is entirely accurate, including the bit about Professor Blomberg's New Serum. If I recall correctly, the serum was meant to be taken as a precaution against joining the ranks of the undead, should one be bitten by a vampire (though how they expected you to do so is beyond me... "please Mr. Dracula, would you be so kind as to stop chewing on my neck a moment while I inject this serum?" XD).

Assuming it's still where I saw it, it can be found a little ways in from the entrance of the Mercer Museum in Pennsylvania. If any of you happen to be in the area, you really should stop by; aside from hosting the vampire hunting kit, it really is one of the steamiest places on Earth.

http://www.mercermuseum.org/

[JosephR]

Spoiler: ShowHide

i first saw one of thees in a guns and ammo magazine, there are 3 or 4 of them that have been authenticated and sold at international auctions for large sums of money, but litterally thousands of fakes out there, they all work off of an original text found in the handfull of authentic kits which reads:

This box contains the items considered necessary for the protection of persons who travel into certain little known countries in Easter Europe where the populace are plagued with a peculiar manifestation of evil, known as Vampires... Professor Ernst Blomberg respectfully requests that the purchaser of this kit carefully studies his book. Should evil manifestations become apparent, he is then equip ed to deal with them efficiently... Professor Blomberg wishes to announce his grateful thanks to that well known gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plombeur, whose help in compiling of the special items, the silver bullets,etc., has been most efficient. The items enclosed are as follows...

1. An efficient pistol with its usual accoutrements
2. A quantity of bullets of the finest silver
3. Powdered flowers of garlic (one phial)
4. Flour of Brimstone (one phial)
5. Wooden stake (Oak)
6. Ivory crucifix
7. Holy Water (one phial)
8. Professor Blomberg's New Serum


most kits, authentic or fake contain guns made by one Nicolas Plomdeur,  a gunsmith from Belgium, this one contains atleast most of the standard items with stakes, mirrors, a gun with silver bullets, crosses, a Bible, holy water, candles, garlic and Professor Blomberg`s New Vampire Serum. lol, that's a great one right...


we should all get an 'efficient pistol" and build one... dint forget the paper label in the box that reads as above...


you can read more here; http://deeplyblue.com/bluetea/labels/museums.html i got my information from guns and ammo, but that site is pretty un-bias... enjoy

I encountered one such kit, in person, a few years back. Really is a marvelous item, and most useful, I'm sure, when traveling "into certain little known countries in Eastern Europe." By the way, I can attest to the fact that the text posted by Mr. Tophatdan is entirely accurate, including the bit about Professor Blomberg's New Serum. If I recall correctly, the serum was meant to be taken as a precaution against joining the ranks of the undead, should one be bitten by a vampire (though how they expected you to do so is beyond me... "please Mr. Dracula, would you be so kind as to stop chewing on my neck a moment while I inject this serum?" XD).

Assuming it's still where I saw it, it can be found a little ways in from the entrance of the Mercer Museum in Pennsylvania. If any of you happen to be in the area, you really should stop by; aside from hosting the vampire hunting kit, it really is one of the steamiest places on Earth.

http://www.mercermuseum.org/

Siiiigh.  I can see now I'm simply going to have to make one of these...

[tophatdan]

considering that an "authentic" kit can cost up to 20k at auction, yes you would have to make one, as i said, most of them that are for sale are simply "reproductions" using a collection of antiques, so if one wanted they could easily hunt up the antiques to make one, or go entirely with modern materials, the gun and silver bullets are the only things i think would be expensive.

[JosephR]

The gun I already have.  I also have plenty of silver, though I'm not sure I'm willing to risk damaging a bullet mold to cast bullets out of it - the melting point of silver is almost three times that of lead.   

And I just realized I needn't bother.  Silver bullets are for werewolves, not vampires.

*facepalm*  DOH! 

[Captain Reech]

Depends on the nature of the mold, all of the molds I have handled for 12 or 16 guage shot from the 18th Century are of good quality steel and would easily handle the heat of molten silver, still casting perfect shot nearly 300 years after they were made! I once designed a 'Multi Purpose' round for dealing with the undead (For a 'Call of Cthulu' RPG I hasten to add!) Take a B.A.R. loaded with a mix of Silver hollow points (Holy Water filled with wax over the tip) and every 5th round incendary/tracer. At 300 rpm with a .30/06 round that should sort just about anything up to a zombie Rhino!

List of heroes: Samuel Colt, John Moses Browning, Mikhael Kalishnikov and Eugene Stoner!

[Sir Nikolas of Vendigroth]

Wouldn't the force of acceleration down the bore adversely affect the wax, deforming it away from the tip of the bullet, causing the holy water to escape?

Plus, firing .30-06 bullets made of silver at 300 rounds per minute'd be bloody expensive to reload for! 

[tophatdan]

The gun I already have.  I also have plenty of silver, though I'm not sure I'm willing to risk damaging a bullet mold to cast bullets out of it - the melting point of silver is almost three times that of lead.   

And I just realized I needn't bother.  Silver bullets are for werewolves, not vampires.

*facepalm*  DOH! 

at the risk of getting off topic;  no where in historical wearwolf legends does a 'silver bullet' or "silver spear" appear, instead it is allmost an entirely 20Th century invention that wearwolves have a severe allergy to silver.


however for hundreds of years the holy roman empire maintained that "silver was the purest of metals" as Leo the X said, meaning that  when properly marked and blessed, a silver weapon can be used to dispel all manor of unnatural, undead and unwanted creatures from the depths of hell.....



this is a belief that held strong in most of eastern Europe for centuries, and indeed in Romania as late as 993 a mob burned a suspected witch, but not until after binding her with a silver chain...

as a result, a properly made accompaniment of silver bullets would infact be necessary for a vampire hunting kit.... i suggest before making such a kit, one should infact obtain a copy of Professor Blomberg's book...

[quantumcat]

Since the spiritual active ingredient is free for the asking (holy grace) and the chemical properties of silver do not mandate an expensive grade or amount of the element,one could face hellish beings with faith alone,holy water alone,colloidal silver or cheap silver jewelry/utensils fired in the same manner as pebbles or rock salt.

(Salt would also have spiritual significance as would intact portions of the Host.)

Holy items would be toxic to evil and,at the least,would retard the unnnatural healing of an ordinary injury to limbs,vital organs and the like.

Alas,supernatural ordnance works only on the purely demonic portion of the victim.

Anything with a salvageable soul could have mortal wounds (no pun intended) but the power of God would work to try healing that soul and reconciling it to Heaven rather than annihilating it.

There would also be the risk that the angels might seek to preserve a monstrous foe long enough for him to repent-even at the expense of an heroic opponent.

That being the case,there'd be no need to make ammo out of fine silverware,punchbowls,coins,jewelry and the like.

Lesser grades of the precious metal and certain efficacious plants could augment prayer and conventional assaults quite well with destruction of the central nervous system and fire being the most effective attacks.

(The same holds true for those creatures vulnerable to cold iron,etc.)

I'd add colloidal silver to the holy water or even just let a silver item soak in the water or hold the water prior to the fluid being loaded into the bullets or any other projectile.

A mere homeopathic dose of silver et al could suffice-especially if fired at the eyes,down the gullet or  in a consistent,supplemental assault.

[Agamemnon Magillicutty]

The gun I already have.  I also have plenty of silver, though I'm not sure I'm willing to risk damaging a bullet mold to cast bullets out of it - the melting point of silver is almost three times that of lead.   

And I just realized I needn't bother.  Silver bullets are for werewolves, not vampires.

*facepalm*  DOH! 

at the risk of getting off topic;  no where in historical wearwolf legends does a 'silver bullet' or "silver spear" appear, instead it is allmost an entirely 20Th century invention that wearwolves have a severe allergy to silver.


however for hundreds of years the holy roman empire maintained that "silver was the purest of metals" as Leo the X said, meaning that  when properly marked and blessed, a silver weapon can be used to dispel all manor of unnatural, undead and unwanted creatures from the depths of hell.....



this is a belief that held strong in most of eastern Europe for centuries, and indeed in Romania as late as 993 a mob burned a suspected witch, but not until after binding her with a silver chain...

as a result, a properly made accompaniment of silver bullets would infact be necessary for a vampire hunting kit.... i suggest before making such a kit, one should infact obtain a copy of Professor Blomberg's book...

Another metal that was good for dispatching the supernatural, was Iron. Which can ward off demons, and can kill gods.

[Captain Reech]

I think Iron would a: Ruin the rifling on the weapon and b: run a good risk of fouling and causing a catastrophic 'Barrel Crash'! Silver may not be of any significant use against a Werewolf in terms of being a fatal substance, but it would deform nicely and make a lovely big hole!

Who worries about expense when fighting the Undead?

(Wax plug in the tip of a hollow point works fine in test with a mercury core, just don't ask me to explain how I know!)

[JosephR]

Granted one wouldn't want to use iron bullets but I don't believe that's what AM means.  The Sidhe (whether seelie or unseelie) cannot abide iron: sometimes it's mere presence is sufficient to ward them off, and a steel knife, be it only a Swiss Army knife, is an effective weapon.  

But for werewolves, vampires, zombies, etc?  Not so much.