Muzzleloaders in SHTF

>be me
>stock up on gucci gear for the collapse
>5 minutes in
>get domed by a fudd's .270

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>how would you use/deploy muzzleloaders in a shtf/red dawn scenario
I would place my marine snipers, armed with long rifles, atop the mizzenmast, where they have greatest advantage to fire down upon the scurrilous French.

I approve.

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You're a moron if you think the average muzzleloader would be effective for taking out engines. I mean, if you have a literal cannon then sure, but your average muzzy is going to suck ass compared to even a modest modern firearm because it fails on all 3 factors which are important for penetrating hard materials:
1) sectional density. a round ball or mine ball is nowhere near as good as spitzer bullet
2) hardness of projectile. muzzleloaders shoot pure lead bullets, which are very soft.
3) muzzle velocity, which is relatively low.

My 50cal hunting muzzleloader is probably up there or even more effective overall than my 12ga & slugs for being the most damaging in 1 shot weapon I have vs game. It's pretty much my 1 shot insta-drop durr gun so far. Very accurate, very fast expanding. But I'd rather use anything else for situations aside from actual hunting.
I doubt most muzzleloader hunters have more than 10's of shots worth of ammo at best between bullet/powder/primers laying around too. It's not something you stock up because ammo costs are ridiculously expensive vs common cartridges, and it has all the disadvantages the muzzleloaders have.

And I think it'd be shit vs an engine block. Any centerfire cartridge, especially in semi auto, would be far better, and better on a per shot basis probably too. Your lead projectile is just going to flatten out on any mildly thick hunk of steel it encounters. It has the energy, sure, but speed is the main killer of steel, hard or soft. You'd be lucky if it more than barely dented an engine block, if it even dents at all. 762x39 doesn't even have enough speed to crater softer steel very well, while 545x39 has double the crater depth, and xm193 556 has about quadruple the penetration depth in my soft steel tests, and melts through hardened steel that laughs off steel cored 7.62x54r.

Might be useful for hunting. Could also be used for defending a position in conjunction with other firearms. Fire off the muzzy first, then drop it and pick up a modern arm. That could help conserve your modern ammo if need be.

They have obvious advantages if you are out of normal ammo and you are forced to resort to improvised arms. And, if you have supplies for a muzzleloader (bullets, powder) then you might find other uses for those things like starting fires, making explosives, casting bullets for other arms, etc.

In long-term SHTF - I mean like, a real Mad Max total collapse scenario - they'd end up being your go-to weapon after a couple of years. No matter how much modern ammo filled with smokeless powder you've stockpiled, eventually it will run out, and if the factories aren't running anymore, they won't be making any more. Manufacturing it yourself is prohibitively complex, so that's it - all your modern guns would eventually become paperweights.

However, mixing up batches of your own homemade black powder and making musket balls out of old scrap metal (there would be a LOT of that around after a collapse) is perfectly do-able for an average person with the right knowledge and a few simple tools. It is, as the hippies like to say, sustainable. You can keep doing it for years, decades... centuries even.

So I guess it depends on just how bad you think SHTF is going to get.

I'd aim small, miss small.

> Fire off the muzzy first, then drop it and pick up a modern arm.

Starting out with a smoke screen. I like the way you think

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>eventually it will run out
how much ammo do you plan on consuming? 100k rounds could last you decades if you're not spamming 500 down range every afternoon.

>No matter how much modern ammo filled with smokeless powder you've stockpiled, eventually it will run out
First of all, I think you'd be surprised how far 50rds goes when you cut out plinking. A small stockpile of a few hundred rounds will go a hell of a long ways.

ehhhh, if you stick with older cartridges like .38 spl you could reload in black powder forever and still have semi modern arms like revolvers and lever action rifles.

not to mention single shot rifles and shotguns. muzzle loaders were obsolete long before the advent of smokeless powder

Of course if you have cartridge cases, a supply of primers, and reloading tools then you'd be a fool to use a muzzleloader when that option exists.

But that said, a muzzleloader doesn't need primers, loading presses, or anywhere near the same degree of precision when it comes to making projectiles. In a SHTF situation you can cram whatever down the barrel and fire it.

Muzzleloaders are pointless outsider of hunting. Black powder is useful though, because you can conceivably make it yourself in a SHTF scenario. Being able to load .38 special and .45-70 govt could come in handy.

Give it to someone you know but don't especially like.

Okay but you’re not going to stockpile 100,000 rounds of ammo.
Depends how bad the civil conflict surrounding SHTF gets. If the violence is bad, a lot of ammo could get used up. In addition, if hunting is your only way to get meat in your belly, you’ll be surprised how fast it goes. And in the end, it *will* run out eventually.

Cartridge cases only last a certain number of reloads, and manufacturing your own primers is prohibitively complex. Eventually you'll be back at flintlocks.

If things really go on long enough for people to have fired hundreds if not thousands of cases multiple times each without order begin restored one way or another, what gun you use may not the biggest thing to worry about.

*may not be

Pirate larping

The lesser of two weevils

>what gun you use may not the biggest thing to worry about
Sure, but that's not what we're talking about ITT.

like the other anons said you could relegate your smokeybois to just hunting, but then if you encounter desperadoes while looking for bambi you're fucked worse than if you had a faster-firing more modern gun. I'd say that if shtf and you already have a muzzle loader don't toss it out, but also if you don't already have one don't buy one as part of your shtf preps. buy one cause they're cool.

plenty of people have ammo supplies in them numbers, just don't be poor

in a mad max style scenario, existing ammo supplies would last decades if not centuries, in that time people are gonna be producing cartridge ammo again, the knowledge is freely available and it's not that hard to do with enough people and time.

>manufacturing your own primers is prohibitively complex
what part of it? the anivil and cup are super simple parts and highly reusable and Armstrong's mix is plenty usable for the compund

based lucky Jack poster

>Eventually you'll be back at flintlocks
even if that were true (which it ain't) people would be using breach loaders, not muzzle loaders, muzzle loaders are obsolete and stupid for all use-cases beyond ghetto gat manufacture and as toys.

you have thos fantasy where the world ends and its just one giant never ending shootout afterwards. In reality 5000 rounds in various calibers would probably last you a lifetime if you stopped plinking, and reloading would still exist.

this

given how cheap ammo is now, stocking ammo should be a priority for prepping. Post-collapse, it would be easier to manufacture ammunition for muzzleloaders rather than modern cartridges. The only tricky part would be making new percussion caps. Black powder is easy if you have a source of KNO3. But since you can buy real bullets by the thousands now it's kind of a moot point. There are far more smokeless cartridges than people today, so make sure you stock up before you need them.

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All of it. The average joe has no idea what Armstrong's mix even is, let alone how to make it. They don't have the tooling required to make primer cups or anvils. Even if you gave it to them they wouldn't know how to use it.

I'm not claiming that making primers is impossible period, I'm claiming that it's prohibitively complex for the average person, therefore they won't even bother or try.

breech loaders are certainy preferred, but they have the problem of requiring you to have primers. the advantage of a flintlock or matchlock is that no primers or percussion caps are needed.

then the correct decision as far as prepping goes is don't spend your money on useless fucking muzzle loaders, instead buy some basic machining tools and become acquainted with them.

>The average joe has no idea what Armstrong's mix even is
then be better than joe, you're prepping ffs, fucking prepare yourself

Im restarded

what are breach loading flintlocks?

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Agreed.
I don't think anyone was advocating buying a muzzleloader specifically for SHTF, rather it was just a thought experiment as to how useful they would be if you happened to already have one.

Basic machine tools (non-CNC) and the skills to use them will be amazingly valuable in any sort of long-term SHTF situation.

>then be better than joe
I was speaking in terms of generalizations; I wasn't aware we were talking about ourselves specifically.

>>fucking prepare yourself
You won't get any argument from me.

a misspelling of breech loading flintlocks.
yeah they exist, but they're atypical.

well then you have your answer, muzzleloaders will be used by the stupid, the ill prepared and the unlucky, presumably to steal or otherwise acquire a not so obsolete firearm.

>how would you use/deploy muzzleloaders in a shtf/red dawn scenario
EZ way for a civilian with a little metalworking knowledge and some black powder to get access to artillery. Raiders cant drive up if you hit them with 18lb'ers. Strategically placed swivelguns with grapeshot around my property, like at stairwells/hallways/gate entrances. Mortars if I need to get around cover or into fortified places.

well, in the US that is, home made muzzle-loaders would extremely useful in areas where regular firearms are harder to come by

OP is a faggot, tale as old as time

artillery is a weapon of war friend, unless you're counting on a tribal war artillery isn't going to be very useful.

>buy some basic machining tools and become acquainted with them.
So... buy machine tools for a long-term SHTF scenario that's almost certainly going to involve not having access to electricity or fossil fuels?

>not having solar panels
>not having wind
>not using surplus electricity to separate water into hydrogen and storing it as fuel for a generator
>not using parabolic through thermal accumulators to run a stirling generator

just because a grid might be down doesn't mean electricity can't be generated

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>not having access to electricity or fossil fuels
the fuck you talking about dude? solar panels, wind turbines, water wheels, steam engines.

You’ll want a flintlock musket. Cap and ball is no good since caps are basically primers.

Are you retard?
Although OP is the most retarded, you’re coming up close.
One of the biggest points of muzzleloaders is that you can load whatever projectile you want.

Even something as simple as a windmill or a waterwheel can power machine tools. You do know that power tools existed before electricity, right?

Sure is virgins discussing sex in here, user.

In theory you can load any projectile you want. In practice it's not so simple. Lead is ideal because it conforms to the bore when you start the ball (or mine). If you use a different material then it won't have a good gas seal in the bore, forcing you to use something like wads or sabots, which are going to result in a seriously inaccurate, unstable, projectile which probably won't even hit straight-on.

And then there's the fact that no matter how nice your projectile is the fact that you're using black powder seriously limits your velocity. You could sped months carefully fabricating a ballistically optimium armor-piercing dart from solid tungsten only to find that it doens't worth worth a shit because of the velocity cap. There's a reason why old-school rifles from the black powder days went BIGGER when they needed more power, because that was the only option you had with BP.

One thing I've been thinking about is electricity is easier to generate on an individual level that refining oil or natural gas. Friendly reminder that gasoline/petrol only lasts a year or two max. Electric vehicles might actually be a smart investment since they can be charged with solar or wind. Unless you live on an oil well your Mad Max fantasy is going to be short lived.

It would be kind of silly to generate electricity, at least at first. Operating the power tool directly with wind, water, or steam is much simpler and far more efficient than generating electricity and then converting that back to mechanical work again. It is impractical to use electricity unless you get lucky and circumstances have handed you the equipment to make it easily.

A diesel vehicle would make much, much, more sense than an electric one. Diesel lasts far longer than gas. A diesel engine can easily run on other things, like alcohol, oil of nearly any kind, animal fat, etc. And older diesel engines are easy to work on with basic tools whereas a modern electric car is not.

Okay... so *do* you have a solar power plant in your backyard? A wind power plant? A hydrogen plant? A thermal accumulator? Do you have any water-powered machine tools (protip: electric machine tools are not easily convertible to work on water power). How many people do you think do have these things? And even if you do have them, what happens when they break or wear out and need major repairs? Can you fix a broken solar panel?

There's a lot of cope in this thread from people who think that SHTF means they'll still be spending evenings munching cheezy poofs in front of their flat-screen TV.

Newfags, this is a prime example of a summer thread

I don't have any power plants in my backyard.

I do have a big welder that can function as a generator, but like I mentioned above it would be kinda silly to waste energy with electricity for running tools. It would make more sense to connect the engine to the machinery directly rather than wasting energy converting to electricity and back again.

I do, however, have several machine tools. All of them would be easy to convert to an old-fashioned power source: remove motor from machine. use belt(s) to power machine using your alternate power source instead.

> How many people do you think do have these things?
Very few younger people have them. Quite a lot of older people have them.

>what happens when they break or wear out and need major repairs?
I doubt that will ever happen. The machinery I own is all 1930's-1960's vintage. It's unbeliveably heavily built. Those kind of machines were meant to be run hard in factorys running 24-7. They'll probably last centuries doing hobby projects. And if something breaks? You make replacement. You do have machine tools, after all.

>>can you fix a broken solar panel
depends on how it broke, but probably not. I don't plan on having/using solar panels anyway. The number of them that you'd need to run machine tools would be absurd as they are not very efficinent.

>There's a lot of cope in this thread
Yeah, like I posted above this thread is full of virgins discussing sex.

I'm not prepping nor do I have machine tools. Just pointing out that if you intend to prep and have machine tools you should have some degree of off-grid electricity generation, learn the skills to make new ones from salvaged materials and yes, learn to fix them.
Going "durr you can't use machines because electricity" isn't an argument because anyone with half a brain would assume prepping with machine tools would imply self-sufficience in energy.

>anyone with half a brain would assume prepping with machine tools would imply self-sufficience in energy.
Indeed. And likewise, anyone with half a brain will realize that "energy" doesnt have to be electricity.

Look at how this was done during the industrial revolution. You had one power source--originally a wind or water wheel, then later a mechanical engine--turning a shaft. That one shaft was then connected to a variety of machinery around the workshop. It doens't matter how you turn that shaft, nearly anything will work. A diesel engine would be a great choice.

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>I do have a big welder that can function as a generator
Oh, it's one of these "I'll be fine in long-term SHTF! I have a generator! And surely I'll be able to bop on down to the local Shell station and get more fuel for it every day! What's the problem?" guys.

Pure fucking cope.

>Look at how this was done during the industrial revolution. You had one power source--originally a wind or water wheel, then later a mechanical engine--turning a shaft.
Okay - do you have any 19th century industrial machinery handy? Do you know how to get any? Can you manufacture it yourself?

You don't need 19th century machinery. That same method will work for any manual machine tool. Unbolt motor. Connect the belt which would have gone to the motor to your alternate power source instead.

I noticed you didn't bother to copy the text immedeitely after that, when I explained how silly it was to rely on a generator in the first place.

But, now that you've opened the floodgates of stupidity with this gem, I feel compelled to reply:
>>And surely I'll be able to bop on down to the local Shell station
....the reason for mentioning a diesel generator specficially is that it can run on easily improvised fuels: alcohol, oils, fats, etc. You'd be a retard to run a generator instead of getting mechanical work from those fuels, but if you wanted to run it for some reason it would certainly be doable. Now do you understand the point of specifying a diesel generator as opposed to a gasoline one, crayonbrain?

>Would it be a good option for my red dawn fantasy
No, because black powder is terrible as a combat option. Half the power, half the reliability, and a tenth of the reload speed, even compared to a falling block. Please show me how a .50 cal minié ball does against level III plates, let alone as an "anti vehicle rifle".

That said, if you plan to go innawoods and stay innawoods for a decade or two while avoiding as much human contact as possible, then it's a good option. Deer and bears don't shoot back, and you can piss on your campfire and make more powder. Of course, you'll still need access to caps and lead, unless you want to use a flintlock and steal lead from scrapyards.

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>Connect the belt which would have gone to the motor to your alternate power source instead.
Oh, just connect it to that alternative power source you have sitting around. Such as? Again, what source do you have? And by this I don't just mean "wind" or "water", but the machinery you need to turn that into mechanical energy? And to do so with the reliability you need, at the power levels you need, at the scale you need? How are you going to make a 20RPM water wheel reliably turn a 1000RPM drill or lathe? Can you manufacture the machinery necessary to do so without electricity?

>alcohol, oils, fats, etc.
Oh fuck, the stupid - it burns!

There's a reason why biodiesel is a gimmick that a few college professors use but nobody else does. Do you have a bunch of alcohol, oils, and fats sitting around? Do you have any fucking idea how hard it is to come up with enough to run a bunch of machinery or a generator? To grow the plants or raise the animals that they come from, and to process them without machinery or electricity? Protip: It'll take a little more doing than just sitting next to Uncle Jesse's moonshine still waiting for it to drip out enough to run a diesel engine on for a few hours. You'll be waiting a long damn time for that.

you people dont get what i was going for the muzzle loader is what you have kicking around along with what ever modern weapon you have
im not saying its your primary weapon

>Oh, just connect it to that alternative power source you have sitting around. Such as?
Car engine, waterwheel, windmill, could even be a crank turned by hand or a wheel powered by animals.

> Again, what source do you have?
I wasn't aware we were talking about me personally, but I have a couple old engines, as well as a tractor with a PTO.

>And by this I don't just mean "wind" or "water", but the machinery you need to turn that into mechanical energy?
I'm assuming you're aware that these things can be assembled in a SHTF situation, right? I mean, I don't have a waterwheel, but I do have a creek on my property, and I do have wood, so given a bit of time I could make one.

>with the reliability you need,
You take what you can get, just like you do with sunlight, rain, etc. A machine tool you can only use some of the time is better than no machine tool at all.

>How are you going to make a 20RPM water wheel reliably turn a 1000RPM drill or lathe?
Manual machines have gearboxes that maintain a fixed ratio between input and output. Machine is running too slow? Shift to a higher gear. Running too fast? Switch to a lower gear.

>Can you manufacture the machinery necessary to do so without electricity?
Yes.

>Do you have a bunch of alcohol, oils, and fats sitting around
I've got a couple dozen gallons total, but that's irrelevant. Point is you can easily make more using the byproducts of food production.

>Do you have any fucking idea how hard it is to come up with enough to run a bunch of machinery or a generator?
Yeah, about 10 years ago a good friend of mine was hardcore into the biodiesel/hypermiling/peak-oil bullshit. I've made biodiesel a few times. It's not hard.

>You'll be waiting a long damn time for that.
Agreed. I never said it was fast, or that it was optimal, only that it was possible. Thankfully, in a SHTF situation time is one thing we'll have plenty of.

>150 grain pure lead ball at 1,000 fps will take out the engine block of a tank

is this nigger serious right now? you realize they wont evne penetrate a 4x4 wood post right?

by that far in the future, when all cartridge ammo has run out and become stale or expended, we would have invented laser or railgun weapons and you would be charging your ranged weaposn with electricity via bike pedaling slaves

I don't disagree with you but the one fact would remain -

People see needs and they fill them. So wouldn't there be at least a handful of people that get together somewhere in the country that would get their shit together enough to start mass producing smokeless powder cartridges? I mean it's not like they would be starting completely from scratch, the machines and tooling exist, it would be mostly an issue of powering the machines and gathering the materials, but not impossible even if we're using fucking horses and manpower. I think it would be started up just as easily as people would be farming and doing other basics.

since OP is a retard ill give you guys legit advice

the best use for a muzzleloading in SHTF would be for small game hunting and pest control. this would be done with muzzleloading shotguns, which would be the most useful. shotshells take up a lot of storage volume and are difficult for many people to reload properly.

a muzzleloading shotgun would be a good cheap alternative for stuff that isnt life or death. you could store a 10lb bag of shot and 1lb jug of powder and that would last you hundreds of shots. you could use them to shoot rodents in yoru garden or small birds like pigeons for food. you wont have to waste your good smokeless shells which you can save for high flying geese hunts or something more important where reliability is a concern. the muzzleloader would also make for good practice for teaching others how to shoot a shotgun without wasting your valuable stockpile of irreplaceable shells

>t.felon OP

kek.

>tank
are you fucking retarded

not that dude but I think this is actually an interesting topic.

IMHO it's really more down to luck. Someone, or more likely some group/gang/faction/etc will come across tools--either scavenged from a serious handloader or prepper, or perhaps even commercial type machinery (a real ammo factory). Other boons might be discovering a cache (deliberate or otherwise) of powder, primers, brass, etc. Whomever came across that would have a huge leg up when it comes to producing centerfire ammo. And, like history with muzzleloaders vs. the Dryse needle gun, the better tech will dominate.

That said, the luck is a big factor. Without luck you need a relatively wealthy, stable, sort of society such that some people have the luxury of not having to work all day just to feed themselves and have the resources to work on 'research' instead. If not luck, you need a very successful group of survivors to develop centerfire ammo. Not because it's so hard, but because there are other more pressing needs.

I'd agree with that 100%.
And I'd even go beyond that. A muzzleloading shotgun is no joke as a defensive weapon. And while it does not have the range of a rifle, it can certainly put down medium or large game when loaded with buckshot, a slug, or similar.

>most preppers will get shot on the way to their bug out location
The weird part is this is true

do you reading comprehension and reading stuff bro do a reader for listening and reading stuff of written statements and text even?

This, you can load .45-70 government with BP, you can make powder out of raw materials you can find. There’s a hilarious scene in the Blood Meridian where the judge helps the Glanton gang make black powder on the fly

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not those fags but winding a motor can turn anything to electricity. unregulated inconsistent electricity. Probably best stepped up & served in electrolysis. That'll get you some aqua motherfuckin fortis nitric acid (lots of shit + smokeless powder) or maybe ozone to purify water. Some slow release gravity lighting is also babby tier.

>shotshells take up a lot of storage volume
if you've already ready resigned yourself to a low of a rate of fire, primarily for hunting, you don't need huge amounts of shells.

>difficult for many people to reload properly
not for anybody with an IQ over 80

you can also muzzle load a regular break action shotgun, using just the brass of the shell as a gas seal and to hold the primer.

I'm not a fan of Dave Canterbury, but he did a whole video series on it. shooting and hunting with it. it's much more versatile than a dedicated muzzle loading shotgun.