Realistic gunsmithing: flintlock era

[randomtyper]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Firearm crafting in game currently is severely limited, and where it is not limited (flintlocks), it is... Not really realistic. The proper firearm making is a complex and long work, requiring specialised tools and many proficiencies (just watch the Williamsburg video), and in case of the more advanced firearms - requiring advanced tools. That said, the limits of what is possible with proper advanced tooling (unavailable for crafting without having high knowledge on the subject and often takes weeks to make even with knowledge present, easiest to get through salvaging and scavenging) are pretty high if you know what you are doing, setting the possibility limit for postapocalyptic gunsmithing at least on bolt actions, lever actions, pump actions and simple blowbacks, with simpler locking action selfloaders like AK designs as the potential maximum. No ARs and other weaponry requiring extremely tight tolerances, of course.

So, let me explain what a player would have to do to make his own, personalised blackpowder muzzleloader.

First, he needs a barrel. A waterpipe will do well for a slamfire, but would be utterly unfit for a flintlock that you plan on using for quite a while. The possible ways to make a smoothbore barrel are next:

1. Forging around a mandrel with a drop hammer. This way allows to make rifled barrels quickly in one recipe, but one will need to find a rifled mandrel set first. An unrifled handmade mandrel set (most likely will be a consumable) would be possible to craft if player has a lathe and access to tempered steel. Or a factory-made tungsten carbide set could be rarely found in gun shops and maybe on military bases.
2. Drilling out a long metal piece (shown in Williamsburg video). Can be combined with a crude mandrel (not to be confused with handmade mandrel set), which can be basically a rebar or any other metal rod. Drilling out requires a barrel drilling bench (stationary furniture, can be built in 24-48 hours from wooden beams, metal and chain, can be completed with either an electric motor or foot crank) and a drill bit set (consumable, to simulate drill bits breaking, made of tempered steel, one steel chunk is 25-50 charges). As consumables one would need lubricant like motor oil, animal oil or veggie oil. And some paper. Press drill would likely not fit a weapon barrel for purposes of boring it out, and while some pistols still may be possible, I'd advocate for replacing drill press with proper milling machine.

Survivor got a barrel. But it is a smoothbore one. And he wants a Pennsylvania long rifle. There are 3 technologies that can be used:

1. Cut rifling. The OG way shown in Williamsburg video. Requires a high steel or tempered steel groove cutting bit set (both craftable tools), a rifling cutting bench (stationary furniture, can be built in 36-60 hours from wooden beams with some chiseling, woodwork and metalwork) or a lathe. Paper as consumable. Oil for lubricant. Pretty slow to make, with about 6-7 (about 48-56 hours) days to make a barrel this way from scratch if you are using them olden tools. Alternatively, you could do it on a lathe.
2. Mandrel and drop hammer. While differing from industrial grade hammer forging (barrels will likely be heavier, as they become octagonal unless you apply lathe to them, and the quality will suffer somewhat), the idea is pretty much the same. Put a red hot metal sheet around a mandrel and hammer until done. While it allows to skip the barrel making process itself, the problem is finding that rifled mandrel set. It won't always be easy.
3. Finally, button rifling, probably the method I am the most sceptical about (or was). It requires pushing a rifled head through a barrel (not cutting), doing it in a pretty quick way that does not necessitate powered tools. Yet, it is pretty demanding to the bench strength, and requires hydraulics (bottle jack, hydraulic press) or other way to force the button through the barrel. Handmade tempered buttons could be possible to make as consumable material on a lathe (Whithworth rifling even, maybe, given it is pretty easy to make flat surfaces)), or one can find a specific caliber industrial grade button in a gun shop.

Survivor got a rifled barrel. Next, to make it safe to use in a weapon, he needs to seal it from one end and drill a touch hole. Sealing a barrel would require a screw cutting set (craftable using tempered steel, metal fileset and hand drill, can be used to make nuts and bolts, too), hotcut and usual blacksmithing stuff. Along with that, a touch hole will be drilled using a hand drill or better. If the barrel is still unrifled, he can drill the grooves in. A sealed barrel may also require a charge of gunpowder to test it, maybe as a variation of recipe with drastically reduced crit failure chance.

While resulting sealed barrel can be used as a crude firearm, to work properly it needs a stock and a lock with trigger. The lock will require some spring steel, a high steel piece, and some metal of any quality along with a flint. Needed tools: fileset, swage and die and blacksmithing stuff. The process would be pretty slow, of course. Stock will require a plank, some metal (steel, bronze (tin cans having tin in em would be nice), brass would be great, but it is really rare), oil for treatment, woodworking and metalworking tools, screw making set. A stock may have a storage compartment and/or outer hooks for wads, priming powder bags, primer dispensers or other tools useful to keep at hand when firing, but these changes mean more work and additional resources needed (springs).

A breech loading weapon will need more complex tools like lathe and milling machine. But we are not talking about those for now.

Finally, our survivor can assemble his weapon. Probably the easiest task, requiring screwdriving and weapon parts. That's it.

Splitting the weapon recipe in parts allows for high degree of customisability (do you want your rifle long or short, rifled or unrifled?), some degree of modularity and customisability (disassemble your musket, rifle the barrel, assemble with a rifled barrel, clunkier than Hub's HWP, but still a versatility option, allowing to not make a weapon from scratch for every occasion), allows to use a lot of proficiencies while not cluttering the crafting screen too much, allows the player to save on resources in case of failure (if you botched a stock, you only lost resources for the stock, not the whole weapon).

In a perfect world, we would have a weapon chassis system you could add stuff on that would change how the weapon works: a muzzleloader may be functional as a sealed barrel, but adding a stock and a lock makes it much more viable, AK guns can function with only barrel and receiver, but one would rather have a fully assembled gun. Alternative approach would be a workaround through the attachment system, but the system itself is deemed unsatisfactory. Finally, we can just have a ton of gun variations and recipes, at least temporarily.

All of that will be only learnable through manuals. Muzzleloaders and tools to make them will be learnable through "Weapons Of Liberty" manual, with variants like "Arsenal Of British Crown", "Arms of Napoleonic Era", "How Guns Conquered The World" etc. The book will be present in libraries, bookstores and most often in gun stores. More exotic designs will be learnable through an exotic firearm manual named "Forgotten Embers: Firearms Lost To History" aka "rare historical firearm design collection", a book rarer than its more mundane equivalent, though it should spawn more often in mansions. Some stuff can be stuffed into text_gunsmith, too.

The antique warfare related gear like holsters, sheaths and ammo belts&pouches also deserves some attention, as they are really underwhelming for what they offer. A skilled and learned survivor should be able to make harnesses and belts that allow holding more than one sword or one pistol or only ammunition. I think something like survivor's MOLLE equivalent could work nicely (a modular system that allows attaching scabbards, pouches and holsters on the fly to a belt or bandolier-belt system, making it feasible to carry two sword scabbards with attached gun holsters on a belt and a pair of pistols on cross bandolier, for example). That said, for some reason there is no Japanese sword belt equivalent in game (katana and wakizashi set), despite there being a lot of Japanese arms and armor.

Finally, an afterword. The new gun making system will, hopefully, give much more reasons for players to make a permanent base, and will open ways to make more complex and customisable recipes in the future (many may be even not related to guns, as lathes and milling machines are extremely versatile, after all), some even entirely custom, though based on existing examples.

Solution you would like.

Short summary of changes needed to implement this part:

• [ ] Furniture tools
• [ ] Hand tools
• [ ] Weapon parts
• [ ] Weapons
• [ ] Clothing and containers
• [ ] Manuals
• [ ] Misc

New items along with recipes will need to be added:

Add new buildable furniture

Wooden barrel drilling bench - can be used with mandrels to make pipes quickly, too. Wooden groove cutting bench. Improvised button press (bottle jack, workbench, some metal to act as extenders for the jack).

Improvised powered benches (long to make, mostly for case if player somehow didn't find proper benches, learnable through DIY Compendium)

Handmade lathe Improvised drill press (cordless drill on a rigid mount, mostly for crafting other improv tables, drilling 4, proper drill press, milling machine and lathe will have 5) Handmade milling machine

Add new spawning furniture

Milling machine

Add new craftable tools

Crude mandrel - used to make barrels and pipes. Basically a tempered steel rod (rebar?). Handmade mandrel set - used to make smoothbore barrels via forging. Consumable, turn into scrap metal byproduct after use. Drill bit set - consumable for drilling out barrels. Tempered/high steel groove cutter set - cutting grooves in barrels (may just default to tempered, though). Handmade rifling button set - consumable, made on lathe out of tempered steel. Screw making set - can be used to make nuts and bolts and in firearm manufacturing. Handmade calipers - precision is important in gunmaking, those are suitable for antique gunmaking and making handmade tools of greater precision, but not much else. Precision measurement 1. Required tool to make handmade benches and gun barrels. Handmade level - a small liquid-filled ampule with an air bubble. Used to determine if surface is, well, level. Only required to make handmade benches, atleast for now.

Add new uncraftable tools

insert caliber rifling button - made of tungsten carbide. Rare loot in gun shops, only makes barrels in their caliber. Factory-made smooth/rifled mandrel set - made of tungsten carbide. Rare loot in gun shops. Construction level Vernier caliper - precision measurement 2. Digital caliper - precision measurement 3.

Add new spare parts

Long (rifled/unrifled) barrel - 40 inches long, for muskets and long rifles, can be cut into two carbine or one normal and one pistol barrel. Rifled/unrifled barrel - 30 inches long, for short muskets and rifles, can be cut into two long pistol or one carbine and one pistol barrel. Carbine rifled/unrifled barrel - 20 inches long, for carbines and reiter pistols, can be cut into two pistol barrels. Long rifled/unrifled pistol barrel - 15 inches long, for long pistols and long stutz. Rifled/unrifled pistol barrel - 10 inches long for pistols and short stutz. Flint lock - classic. Scavenged wheel lock - uses pilot light from a cigarette lighter, weapons with one need more time to reload (survivor winds up the spring) but have more reliable ignition. Match lock - needs multiple weapon containers. Has a rope that needs to be lit to fire. Obviously, unreliable in rain. Cap lock - shorter reload, but consumes primers when firing. Full stock - needed for weapons with full stocks, like muskets and carbines. Pistol grip - needed for pistols. Pistol grip with counterweight - for reiter pistols and optional for other pistols.

Add new weapons

Musket - long unrifled barrel, lock of choice, full stock. Long rifle - long rifled barrel, lock of choice, full stock. Short musket - unrifled barrel, lock of choice, full stock. Rifle - rifled barrel, lock of choice, full stock. Rifled/unrifled carbine - carbine barrel, lock of choice, full stock. Rifled/unrifled reiter pistol - carbine barrel, lock of choice, pistol grip with counterweight. Rifled/unrifled long pistol - long pistol barrel, lock of choice, pistol grip of choice. Rifled/unrifled long stutz - barrel, lock of choice, full stock. Rifled/unrifled pistol - pistol barrel, lock of choice, pistol grip of choice. Rifled/unrifled stutz - pistol barrel, lock of choice, full stock.

Add new/change apparel:

Flintlock pistol belt - 20 paper cartridges, 2 holsters for anything up to reiter pistols. Pretty encumbering. Add a holster + scabbard combo or a whole new modular survivor belt for guns and swords. Move baldric holster to front torso while possibly desteasing amount of guns strapped. Add new torso paper cartridge bandolier or allow rifle bandolier to accept paper cartridges. Expand paper cartridge pouch to at least 24 shots per this: https://www.dixiegunworks.com/index/page/product/product_id/4326/category/328/category_chain/578,348,328/product_name/PL0142+REVOLUTIONARY+WAR+CARTRIDGE+BO

Add new manuals:

Muzzleloading firearm crafting manual - your Pennsylvania rifle and tools to make one, caplock designs, too. Vintage/breechloading firearm crafting manual - (for future) Colt revolvers to Springfield M1903, open bolt simple blowbacks. Advanced firearm crafting manual - (for future) anything self-loading, but more complex than Grease Gun. Exotic firearm crafting manual - Forgotten Weapons tier obscure stuff. Oddities, novelties, and sometimes hidden gems. Inspirations for custom designs, too.

Add steel/iron dust as byproduct from drilling recipes, make it usable as flux or make it possible to make that dust back into workable metal.

Add iron oxide powder (Fe2O3), made (spoilable?) from iron/steel dust and harvestable from rust monsters and make it a replacement for chromium oxide in thermite recipe.

Add ability for cartridges to affect loading times.

Describe alternatives you have considered.

Having existing industrial tier stationary tools like lathes having no usage other than salvage. Not allowing players to craft anything besides simple and mundane stuff. Having extremely simplified recipes for flintlocks and their stats unrealistic (hell, a Pennsylvania rifle in game has barely the same range as a 9mm pistol despite even in 1700s one could use a long rifle on ranges beyond 200-300 m (shorter Baker rifle had reported multiple successive hits at distances of about 550 meters and reliable range of 180-200 m), and troopers armed with Pattern 1853 Enfield (a caplock rifle musket with ladder sights used with Minie balls) were expected to reliably hit their opponents at 550 meters).

Additional context

Videos, articles and sites:

Making a flintlock rifle the way the the founding fathers did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_O1-chxAdk

Home made Sharps rifle:

https://shilohrifle.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27134

Postapoc gunmaking IRL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass_copy

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2023/01/06/gun-shops-and-gun-laws-of-pakistan-part-one-what-happened-to-khyber-pass-industry/

Drilling and rifling a barrel on a lathe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k77YOjUEqo

Rifling a rifle the old way 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xYXXCr6vPg

And making a vintage rifling cutting bench to top that off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvXrd_DOmj4

Homemade rifling button and button rifling press (i'd say the latter is more important, as for getting a rifling button I would rather use a lathe... On which I could drill out the barrel too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D43ZeYu9dnM

Another button rifling press:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3pDlKxou6Y

Handmade lathe series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nny0Ib9JzWE

Another lathe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z67A3Myy6XM

And another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzytexbrdlg

For characters with 10 in electronics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzytexbrdlg

If you think you can't make a lathe with medieval grade tools from scratch... Then how the first metal lathes were made? After all, lathe is named "mother of all machines" for a reason. This one is from 1750s, era when many things were still made from wood:

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/metal-turning-lathe-jacques-vaucanson/kwGbpYqKSyzcSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djB9oK6pkbA

Now, when one got a lathe, one may make a milling machine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmQ6uNSkGdE

And another milling machine building project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jBFEm66Y2A

All sorts of calipers, ones before Vernier may be reasonably made with less advanced tools (hammer, chisel and forge), with some know how, mechanical vernier may be made in postapoc conditions, and with electronics 10 even electronic caliper may only be a matter of time if using salvaged electronics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calipers

Early micrometres may be made with same caveats as Vernier calipers, being invented in 17th century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrometer_(device)#History

[Drew4484]

If you want to implement something like this, I would start by adding the tools, most of which have other uses in crafting anyway. Follow that up by adding some of the parts as gun modifications, then you can add the base receiver and allow those modifications to be attached, giving you a complete firearm. There's very little interest among the developers to add more gun crafting options beyond what we have, mostly because there's very little need to do so with the availability of firearms and the difficulty of constructing new ones, so this will likely only get worked on if you start it yourself.

[randomtyper]

If you want to implement something like this, I would start by adding the tools, most of which have other uses in crafting anyway. Follow that up by adding some of the parts as gun modifications, then you can add the base receiver and allow those modifications to be attached, giving you a complete firearm. There's very little interest among the developers to add more gun crafting options beyond what we have, mostly because there's very little need to do so with the availability of firearms and the difficulty of constructing new ones, so this will likely only get worked on if you start it yourself.

I know about low interest from the devs, and am somewhat ready to try to implement the suggested stuff.

Yet, I would like to hear out the players. I am trying to design a reasonable, realistic, but not too complex system. System that aims to allow to give players joy from the attachment one may feel to weapons they crafted, not found in army base No9999, joy from adjusting these weapons to their needs, joy from making the weapons grow with players (changing parts of weapon instead of switching to another). And the challenge runs like "Turn a Brown Bess into a Snider" may be pretty fun. The other reason to make your own guns mostly comes from allowing more options for those with extra low spawn rates.

[fairyarmadillo]

Am I correct in assuming a blunderbuss would be easier to put together due to its larger barrel?

Sidebar, but I've also heard there are some issues with flintlock guns rusting way too quickly. Apparently the rust historically was mostly caused by the primer, and modern primers would be far less of an issue. Someone on Reddit was reporting that their barrel was rusting faster than they could clean it, which seems off even in a historical context - 18th century battles could go on for quite some time and I don't expect everyone in the Revolutionary War had to throw their guns away after every battle.

It'd be really cool to see a historical mod, or a regional one set in a place where there aren't more guns than people. Imagine playing as a dragoon with a proper warhorse and getting exodii bionics.

[randomtyper]

Am I correct in assuming a blunderbuss would be easier to put together due to its larger barrel?

Yes and no. A crude blunderbuss with a crudely drilled barrel (or made out of pipe) may require less time, but quality suffers. A well made barrel of that caliber, if survivor drills it out the old way, may require much more drillthroughs than a smaller caliber musket.

At the same time, some blunderbusses were made out of brass (and could be made of bronze, I guess, the gunmetal has 88% copper, 10% tin and 2% zinc, and zinc can be substituted for lead), which can be casted and easier to work with.

Sidebar, but I've also heard there are some issues with flintlock guns rusting way too quickly. Apparently the rust historically was mostly caused by the primer, and modern primers would be far less of an issue. Someone on Reddit was reporting that their barrel was rusting faster than they could clean it, which seems off even in a historical context - 18th century battles could go on for quite some time and I don't expect everyone in the Revolutionary War had to throw their guns away after every battle.

Not flintlock, but cap lock. Flintlocks only have gunpowder and bullet as fouling sources. The black powder substitutes MAY be more harmful than OG black powder, but I cannot confirm that. And corrosion causing primers are currently absent from game, as mercury fulminate (one of first mass-used primer compounds) was not corrosive (btw, I would like to have or add more sources of mercury to game), it just didn't like brass casings. And lead azide is non-corrosive too. The compound in-between, though... Here is an article and a discussion: https://blog.cheaperthandirt.com/corrosive-ammunition/ https://www.firearmstalk.com/threads/todays-gunpowder-smokeless-powder-will-not-rust-your-gun-right.50874/

It'd be really cool to see a historical mod, or a regional one set in a place where there aren't more guns than people. Imagine playing as a dragoon with a proper warhorse and getting exodii bionics.

Hm, sounds like a good idea. Like a "Medieval Cataclysm" mod where you get to plate armor and basically become a Terminator. Books are rare, everything is made by trial end error. Reading is a skill you need to take at char creation. And mutagen potions (why I am getting Witcher vibes?). Geez, that will need A LOT of work... The mapgen itself scares me. Medieval houses, palisaded towns, walled cities, lords' castles... Have you heard of Decision: Medieval game, by the way?

Or Old England, where shanking is the norm instead of guns (that is a stereotype, I know).

That said, if I will get down to implementing this and buzzkillers won't shoot me down, you will be fine playing as a dragoon in base game. It will just need some time investment. Or luck, if you break into a museum (though custom guns are intended to have MUCH higher potential than them olde gonnes).

[fairyarmadillo]

Given the region, the 17th or 18th century could be fun, especially because you could also have Algonquian and Iroquoian equipment. The real difficulty would probably be making enough period-appropriate building types to make the game interesting.

I think your ideas are good and might also be especially relevant to Innawood, which could certainly use more lategame progression.

[randomtyper]

Given the region, the 17th or 18th century could be fun, especially because you could also have Algonquian and Iroquoian equipment. The real difficulty would probably be making enough period-appropriate building types to make the game interesting.

I'd prefer changing the place alltogether and pushing into the 17th century era Europe with major potential hook to Magiclysm. Just at the tail end of pike and shot era. There is just not much going with America in that period, and building variety will be severely limited, while if we are going to Europe...

I think your ideas are good and might also be especially relevant to Innawood, which could certainly use more lategame progression.

Problem is that I don't think it will be easy to get the manuals in Innawood setting. A lot hinges on those, after all. Unless the recipes are autolearn there, of course.