Are there any craftsman that actually hand forge/craft a gun from literal ores like a swordsmith or do they all come off a factory line nowadays.
Are there any craftsman that actually hand forge/craft a gun from literal ores like a swordsmith or do they all come off a factory line nowadays.
I dont think it would be possible to hand forge anything other than a muzzleloader anon. The tolerances required for the mechanisms in basically anything else can't be achieved through hand forging.
You could forge a billet and machine it normally, I dunno if that counts
Old-timey sword smiths didn't even forge their arms from literal ore. Ore was processed in refineries close to wear it was mined and then carted in to town.
Theirs some people still making black powder rifles with the traditional methods.
Watch this. It's incredibly based and theraputic. I'm not sure if anybody is doing this anymore, but somebody with enough skill and devotion could definitely figure it out and revive the art (not me).
I would personally blow you for making me aware of this video.
>I'm not sure if anybody is doing this anymore
I talked to an active Revolutionary War reenactor several weeks ago who told me to visit the gunsmith in Colonial Williamsburg if I ever got the chance so I assume they're still doing this.
Yes.
>Reddit frog spam
Where's the guns?
>Gets first post in thread
>some super long cringe bullshit with le funny frog img
>lots of reply's to OP
>0 (You)'s
lmao
Yes. Think they wanted $5m for the set but eventually sold for much less
https://cabotguns.com/oak-collection/the-big-bang-pistol-set/
Wouldnt those gribs literally be tearing your hands up? Retarded millionaire meme pistol..
They're essentially buying art they can shoot, not a set of optimized fighting or competition pistols. The grips wouldn't tear your hands apart unless you have soft girl hands or decide to shoot some thousands of rounds in an evening.
Yes. It's an exhibition piece, nothing new about that people have been making impractical art guns for as long as guns have existed.
The vast majority of history's swordmakers didn't make swords starting with ore, dumbass. They bought iron that had already been smelted. Also, as earlier as the 8th/9th century the Frankish ULFBEHRT swords and their knockoffs were produced in a rudimentary "factory line"-like way. Roman swords were likely produced in a similar batch-processed sort of way.
the closest to old time swordsmithing would be custom 1911s and 2011s like Infinity where everything is autistically fit by hand and the customer is providing the specifications for what they want
if industrial society survives to 2111, someone's gonna make a 200 anniversary edition 1911, and God bless them for it
There are also those jungle shack Filipinos that make 1911s out of whatever bits of metal all welded together and filed to correct tolerances. And they test fire too.
We used to have these traditional gunsmiths and I think there are still a few out there that will build your rifle just as you want it and some of them even make Damascus barrels if you ask them to
But every single one of those rifles are priceless masterpieces
Not talking about buying some parts and putting them together, I'm walking about handcrafting every single piece of it, taking one or two or even three years to finish one gun
>taking one or two or even three years to finish one gun
That's pretty standard wait time for buying from any of the high end Euro makers like Peter Hofer Jagdwaffen, Purdey, Holland & Holland, Rigby, Westley Richards, etc. They usually have a small number of premade guns but if you want anything bespoke, which is their main business, you're waiting a couple of years, maybe longer if you requested unusually fancy engraving.
I've hand forged "damascus" pattern welded knives by bringing 12 layer billets up to 1500-3000 layers with a hammer, anvil, and fuck lot of borax.
Eventually I stopped doing it because the time commitment is fucking incredible, and it is extremely arduous.
I'm talking like 20 hours across three or four days just to produce the raw billet, not even forging out the blade or starting to do stock removal.
If you're not careful with the heat and square with your hammer blows while you're drawing it out, you break the welds between layers and you're fucked, chasing a split for half an hour.
Every time I see one of those barrels from an old black powder shotgun it just blows my mind that the smiths could pull off coiling patterned steel for 36" and welding it up on a mandrel with no breaks or pockets.
Truly a fucking insane undertaking.
Picrel explains how the old timers did it, apparently it goes pretty quick when you've got multiple people swinging hammers at once.
online version:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3156857W/The_gun_and_its_development
It's also really interesting to read about the costs behind the gun back in the day. The cost of the barrel steel was very high, while the amazing skilled labor cost little.
>smiths could pull off coiling patterned steel for 36"
They used a lot of shop tools, it wasn't done with hand tools alone
this is pretty close, it shows how the coil is made from a billet using a power hammer and jig. use your imagination to streamline the production process for making these by the thousands.
it would have been a trip hammer in the old days, but the shops where 'wire' pattern welded barrels were being made would have have look shocking familiar to any modern machine shop until the CNC era took over, and most machinists today would feel right at home
Khyber pass. Paki/afghan goatfuckers can be pretty capable
old-timey:
https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/making-the-american-rifle-at-colonial-williamsburg/
new-timey:
https://www.popularfront.co/3d