Thread 63807550

In a hypothetical SHTF scenario you have an acquaintance who is a local mechanic and you have given him misc firearms manuals for him. Realistically, with only his basic tools and limited resources, what firearms could he make for a local community or small group?

>>63807550 (OP)
>pipe SMGs
>printed glocks
>single shot tube shotgun
>1911

>>63807550 (OP)
short term bolt action rifles like picture
the most efficient weapon in the very long term are flintlock rifles

>>63807550 (OP)
You tell me

>>63807550 (OP)
If you are scratch building them, basic open bolt SMGS and shotguns. Past that, you’re going to need to talk about heat treatment for barrels, and you need either someone who know how to do it (not a mechanic) or a reliable supply chain
>>63807646
Printed glocks and 1911s are both a retarded waste of time in that scenario.

>>63807646
>printed glocks
There will be no 3D Printers

>>63807646
Printed glocks are a nogo without kits. 1911s too unless he wanted to pinoy them by hand. Pipe subguns, shotguns and pistols are gonna be it unless he has a very specific type of autism

the biggest limitation is going to be barrels. making barrels requires specialized tooling and there are only a few companies in the country that have them. at best you could be making pistol sized barrels with a button. beyond that you're limited to shitty smoothbore pipe guns.

>>63807550 (OP)
a shit ton of open bolt SMGs and shotguns, and maybe some single shot rifles, it could all mostly be done with drills, dremels, and some welding and i personally know how to rifle barrels using equipment i can put together from scrap parts.
the middle east is a prime example of why simple SMGs are so easy to make, where they make tons of "carlo" guns.
bolt actions are difficult to make in comparison, and autoloading rifles require locking systems that need to be carefully machined
wouldn't bother with trying to make traditional pistols.

>>63809617
allow me to preach to you the holy gospel of homemade rifling
https://files.catbox.moe/r4901d.mp4

>>63807550 (OP)
Why would I give a mechanic such a task when I am a machinist?

Realistically if you are trying to produce simple things, the anons who have been suggesting tube SMG’s are correct to an extent, but good luck making magazines that function.

>>63809963
>good luck making magazines that function
this is the real bottleneck, each mag would have to be carefully handmade and hand fitted to the gun, and unless each gun is made precisely the same your mags arent gonna be interchangeable
hell, in a world like that where only improvised guns are available, i imagine a good magazine that works would fetch for more than the guns they're made for

>>63809943
oh yea one more thing i was gonna add, the benefit of having guns chambered in rifle calibers for accuracy is gonna be pretty lost on homemade guns, so any smg you make is gonna have about the same effective range as any amateur made bolt action. sights will also be difficult to zero due to a lack of adjustable parts, best bet maybe would be sort of like an AK style sight post where you have a chunk of metal that you can slide left or right and tapped for a bolt or screw, and you'd weld on a little sight post on it or file it down.

>>63807550 (OP)
You need a machinist not a mechanic

Only tangentially related to the thread, but I remember their being a small community that makes/used to make homemade Mauser 93s and 98s, where people would fabricate literally every single part themselves. Does anyone else remember something like this?
>>63807663
>the most efficient weapon in the very long term are flintlock rifles
If you can start production of or otherwise obtain primer compounds in the future, then repeaters and automatics are easily on the table.
>>63809617
Not really. You might not be able to get high quality CHF chrome lined barrels, but people have been making full length rifled barrels at home/in small local industry for ages, and new technologies and methods like ECM make this easier.

>>63810160
>>63809963
I'm aware of that, but this is for a SHTF scenario for a small local community or neighbourhood where there are more likely to be local mechanics

>>63809968
Think you are over playing this too much, tolerances don't have to be that tight for magazines if you have sturdy locking mechanism and a feed system designed around lower tolerances
Modern weapons have strick tolerances which is why magazines tend to be a sticking point

>>63807550 (OP)
what tools would they have?

I know of a local mechanic with a cnc machine and a lathe, but I am sure most don't have access to those kinds of tools.

Do they have a 3D printer? Could at least print out the mags with a spring inside, it's not hard and I have done it. Even if your mechanic doesn't have one they should be easily found, plenty of hobbyists have them.

>>63810220
the russians couldnt even make two drum mags fit into the same gun, you think some retard with a dremel and no firearms knowledge aside from what you explain to them can do it without spending hours on it?

>>63809617
Anon, people made rifled barrels before the industrial revolution and without electricity.

>>63807550 (OP)
>>63810191
If you want an honest answer you need to be more specific. Exactly what skills, tools, and materials are available? Is ammo available or are we making that too? What ammo? Specifics matter a great deal.

For example, a pipe shotgun is very easy to make, but if you don't have shotshells or access to the right kind of pipe fittings then it's useless. Someone who had blacksmithing skills could make a barrel from scrap metal, but that would be a stupid waste of time if you had access to something you could re-purpose as a barrel instead. Your available materials would suggest what kind of ignitions systems you could build. If you had a lot of electronic components at hand then perhaps electronic ignition would be easiest. OTOH if you had none of that but access to caps for toy guns you could use those. Do you have access to things like blanks or nailgun cartridges or are you forced to try and make your own propellants? Some gun designs would be very hard to make without machine tools, but if someone has a lathe in their garage, even an old manual one, now lots more things are on the table.

>>63807550 (OP)
>lutty/sten/fgc-9
You are obviously limited by materials and ammo availability which favors the above weapons and similar. while full auto is not necessarily what you want you do want the autoloading feature over single shot.
bolt action rifles are also achievable, as is full production of firearms, but it depends on the capability, equipment and materials of your machinist.

>>63810360
Some small rural town where a large proportion of residents have guns ranging from modern assault rifles to more traditional hunting rifles and shotguns. The two most quantifiable ammunition sizes are 223 and 308
>>63810221
Local small town mechanic, something like this

>>63810421
>Some small rural town...
In the situation you just described there's almost zero reason to waste the mechanic's time making weapons. It sounds like there's already plenty of guns and ammo to be had.

A mechanic's shop like that probably has a couple lifts, multiple floor jacks, a hydraulic press around 25 tons, tire machine, tire balancer, and maybe a brake lathe. The press is useful, not much of the rest is, at least for building weapons. Hope they do exhaust work, then they'll have a bender and welders which would be super useful for general fab, but not all that useful weapon-wise. Unless the situation is strange I think you're much better off having the mechanic do things like fix vehicles and machinery rather than spend lots of time making guns worse than the misc. stuff people already have.

>>63809954
you're still limited to pistol size barrels. why do you think even big companies don't use this method to make rifle barrels?

>>63810181
>people have been making full length rifled barrels at home/in small local industry for ages
the traditional way requires a ton of skill that even modern gunsmiths don't have anymore.

>>63810332
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTy3uQFsirk
can you do this? can your local mechanic?

>>63810934
>why do you think even big companies don't use this method to make rifle barrels?
the rifling quality just isnt as good or accurate as normal made rifling, but its more than adequate for a homemade gun. and you're not at all limited to pistol sized barrels, the military ran some tests and were able to do it to a whole ass naval gun

>>63810934
>>the traditional way requires a ton of skill
No, it doesn't. The procedure is well documented. It requires some specialized tools like what I posted in my pic. 500 years ago that was a tightly held guild secret. Today it's well known, books talk about it, there's videos of it online, etc. All that's necessary to make the tooling is basic woodworking tools (saw, chisel), and simple blacksmithing to make the single-point cutting tool. It's not like there's some big mystery regarding how to use the tool either.

>can you do this?
Unironically, yes.

>>63810952
ECM rifling is also very slow compared to modern industrial processes. Hammer forging and button rifling is very quick. Even the old mechanical Browne & Sharpe machines cut faster than ECM.

>>63807663
>>63807550 (OP)
shotguns and fowling pieces would be the easiest things to make due to the low pressures and lack of rifling. I think even the flips managed to make like zipgun shotguns in mud huts during the japanese occupation during WWII.
If you aren't fighting other gun using humans and don't give a shit about having to track wounded animals until they die a shotgun is pretty good bang for your buck

>>63810979
>No, it doesn't. The procedure is well documented.
can you do it? can anyone you know? if I watch a bob ross video does that make me capable of painting landscapes that don't look like shit?

>Unironically, yes.
prove it. hell you don't even have to make a barrel. just record a clip of yourself throat singing. there's videos of people doing it so it must be easy right?

>>63810979
>also very slow
of course, but it doesnt too much skill in comparison once you get it set up.
and given its low cost, you could have like a dozen of these running all week with just a guy or two monitoring them, and wind up with shit tons of barrels for guns to hand out to every man woman and child in a compound. hell, you could probably even ECM other gun parts with the right setup.
that way, for bigger groups in an shtf situation, you can give all the nicer factory made guns to the people who need it while still keeping everyone armed.

>>63811548
>can you do it?
Easily. I made more complicated woodworking projects in high school.

>if I watch a bob rosss
>throat singing
We're not talking about artistic creativity here, we're talking about following a blueprint. I can't paint creatively for shit, but I can certainly color within the lines. And you can too. Building a gun from scratch or building a rifling machine requires zero artistic skill, it just requires basic tool use. It's tedious, but it's not some huge unknown.

>>63811683
blacksmithing is a skill that requires significant practice, just like painting or singing. you probably think that you could use a lathe to make a part just by "following the blueprint" too.

>>63811973
>blacksmithing is a skill that requires significant practice
I know, I taught myself the basics learning by trial-and-error when I was a teenager and the internet didn't exist yet. I couldn't make anything fancy, but I absolutely could make a hook type rifling tool. All you're doing is making a little bump on the end of a rod, hardening it, and filing it into shape. Anyway, these days there's no need to rely on guesswork or experience for hardening things which is honestly the only tricky part. Cheapo electronic thermometers make that easy these days.

> you probably think that you could use a lathe to make a part just by "following the blueprint" too.
Yes, I used to own a machine shop. I don't do it for money anymore, but I do have three lathes in my garage. But that's besides the point. Using a lathe isn't difficult either. It used to be taught to retards in high school shop class. If you don't know how to use one it's a matter of reading books or watching videos online. Using a lathe to make parts is like programming. It seems like magic at first but it's just breaking things down into very simple operations, none of which require intuition or artistic talent, it's just taking measurements and following numbers.

You could use a lathe to make a part by following the blueprint. I'm confused why you think you couldn't. Sure, as a noob you'll make some fuckups but it's not some impossible skill to learn. It's actually pretty simple.

>>63812030
ok so what was the point of apprenticeships if you can learn advanced skills just by reading a book or watching a video? can you fly a f16 by reading the manual?

>>63812127
NTA, but you're hyperbolizing. Is the guy gonna be a master machinist overnight? No obviously not. But with a bit of training under someone experienced or through a less time efficient method of independent research and trial and error, a novice absolutely could turn out more usable parts. Then over time they learn new setups/fixturing for stuff with more complex geometries and little trucks to make the process easier or more efficient. Its just like with the work the mechanic from OP would be used to doing. Yeah pretty much anyone with Google/YouTube could sucsessfully muddle through just about any car repair by following the steps. It's just a seasoned mechanic is gonna be a lot faster and "better" at it.

>>63812219
you are completely overestimating how easy it is to learn difficult skills. someone with zero blacksmithing ability isn't going to suddenly be able to make a rifle just because he watched a video. I couldn't do it even after getting a degree in modern gunsmithing.

>>63807550 (OP)
Toob

>>63812377
Blacksmithing maybe not, but I was more referring to machining. To go from zero to being able to make basic parts on a lathe or mill isn't all that difficult. I know because I've done it. I'm definitely not a machinist by trade but I can and have made simple parts within reasonably tight tolerances (+- >.001") without that much formal training. It's just a matter of taking it slow and having some attention to detail. All I'm saying is it wouldn't be a huge leap to take someone who's mechanically inclined and teach them how to make gun parts without months or years of training.

>>63813165
Agree, it's not easy, but you get used to it, especially if you have related prior skill

>>63809417
Why not? They're extremely common today.

>>63807550 (OP)
Aren't bullets the actual hard thing to make?

>>63807550 (OP)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuEoBnYhsas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz_S59v7HJ8

>>63818516
a better way for a shot gun trigger like that would be to have the hammer hit a spring loaded pin instead, and then have a proper block of metal that goes behind the shell through which the pin can slide through

>>63815272
Depends on what you're after specifically. Cartridges with primers and modern powder require a good deal of expertise, but a single shot ambush weapon can use ammunition any 12 year old boy could make from scratch.