The difficulties of higher manufacturing

Hello /k/,
I'm done drinking around a lathe and I have some thoughts. Not about safety, exactly. I have learned to shake the spook of sneering at hands in pockets meaning laziness - it's merely safety in the workplace.
But I do have some questions that I've had a decent amount of time to opine on, but to no real affect. To be blunt, I've been wondering for the sake of just writing, whether or not it would be feasible if the power went out for too long, for someone to actually reproduce military arms. Could be any reason, really, foreign states using CBRN, or sabateur attacks, or WEF policies leading to an authoritarian government or lack of any government at all, how would weapons made after that event look, at best?
I've taken the AR-15 as an example, or a challenge, really, to reproduce with just scraps. Melting down things like hand tools, common recyclables, and components ripped from industrial or automotive machines. You might be surprised at one of the two, just how available they are, or just how high a temperature you need to reach to smelt them to the proper alloys.
But one thing I fail to see anyone considering is even if you can extrude a piece of aluminum you've melted down from cans and copper to achieve a 7075 alloy content, how fricking hard it would be to actually do a barrel. It's one thing to use a hydraulic press, but see pic related and I think you may have questions about how to make that machine. I'll keep those insights to further PrepHole questions.
But the main topic of this thread would be what are the common difficulties people would run into should there be a great reset? What were the most prohibitive innovations in modern firearms people just don't understand? We can't go out there and just make gucci guns without special order, if you don't have specialized tooling too.

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Our ancestors made made rifled barrels at home. I'm sure with modern technology better could be done.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Overlooking the point.
      Modern technology how, though? Not everyone has a hammerforging machine, or even knows about molybdenum steel and the alloy content, rockwell hardness, or process that goes into it.
      You can't just assume that "Hurdur we have machines to do it for us."
      The point is the power goes out or supply is interrupted indefinitely, and you can't order your shit.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        https://i.imgur.com/v4YKuKs.jpg

        Hello /k/,
        I'm done drinking around a lathe and I have some thoughts. Not about safety, exactly. I have learned to shake the spook of sneering at hands in pockets meaning laziness - it's merely safety in the workplace.
        But I do have some questions that I've had a decent amount of time to opine on, but to no real affect. To be blunt, I've been wondering for the sake of just writing, whether or not it would be feasible if the power went out for too long, for someone to actually reproduce military arms. Could be any reason, really, foreign states using CBRN, or sabateur attacks, or WEF policies leading to an authoritarian government or lack of any government at all, how would weapons made after that event look, at best?
        I've taken the AR-15 as an example, or a challenge, really, to reproduce with just scraps. Melting down things like hand tools, common recyclables, and components ripped from industrial or automotive machines. You might be surprised at one of the two, just how available they are, or just how high a temperature you need to reach to smelt them to the proper alloys.
        But one thing I fail to see anyone considering is even if you can extrude a piece of aluminum you've melted down from cans and copper to achieve a 7075 alloy content, how fricking hard it would be to actually do a barrel. It's one thing to use a hydraulic press, but see pic related and I think you may have questions about how to make that machine. I'll keep those insights to further PrepHole questions.
        But the main topic of this thread would be what are the common difficulties people would run into should there be a great reset? What were the most prohibitive innovations in modern firearms people just don't understand? We can't go out there and just make gucci guns without special order, if you don't have specialized tooling too.

        Do you have or suspect you have schizophrenia, OP? I recognise this style of writing with goncern

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Schizophrenia no. Early onset Alzheimer's, maybe. I sand a lot of aluminum. I am also drinking, as I stated in the very first line of the original post. Great reading comprehension,I'm fine, and I hope you're doing well moron.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I have 21 different firearms and 3 ARs with broadly interchangeable parts. If every possible manufacturing pathway disappeared today I couldn't put together or acquire enough ammo to cause parts breakage problems on any of my guns. The only exception may be my flintlock, but that's because I have a crazy amount of flints for it.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          The receiver you might be able to replace. You can smelt down some cans and add copper and some other sources of aluminum to alloy up to 7075- I'm pretty sure. You'd need to check the percentage tables to see the differences.
          You would still need to mill, but if you have a drop hammer - a flywheel with some dies, you could probably replace that feature. Apparently forged is better than milled, which is superior to cast receivers. I'm still trying to decide what would be best given that circumstance, in a book/published work.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >muh 7075
            Why are you worrying about the alloy? They've made commercial AR receivers out of fricking plastic (carbon-15 et al.), any aluminum alloy will be better than that. Less durable than 7075, sure, but perfectly fine.
            Highly stressed parts like the barrel extension and bolt are where you can expect real difficulties with scrapyard metallurgy.

            >forged vs milled vs cast
            No matter how you start, they're all finished in a mill. There are few if any post-WW2 firearm you can expect to replicate without a mill. And that goes double with the quality you can expect as an amateur trying to bootstrap from zero -- even noncritical features that can currently be left as-cast or as-forged will need milled to finish.

            So instead of pretending you're somehow going to cast or forge a receiver to net shape, be thinking about how you're going to run a basic machine shop (bare minimum being engine lathe + knee mill with dividing head + surface grinder) in your post-apocalyptic fantasy.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >muh 7075
              It's easy to make, and if you make it once, is it going to be a few uses in mind? I'll mushroom out on your buffer tube, and crack out right at the same joint. Your stock will be unstable, and you'll be putting your cheek weld against your bolt carrier group. Of course there's reason to be concerned on longevity. The idea in my OP was "difficulties we'd run into if everything stopped working."
              Seems bog-standard to question "could we remake the weapons we use?" The question opens up more questions, you might call it a discussion.
              >No matter how you start, they're all finished in a mill.
              And all shitty porn animations are done in source filmmaker, I'm sure you notice the difference.
              The issue is that milled all has the direction facing perpendicular to the bit that's actually carving it out. Forged actually punches the metal grain to align to the curves of the finished piece, and then refinements are done. The difference is night and day and either you're being pedantic about it or you didn't know that and are moronic.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Again, it's a very lightly stressed part; grain structure matters even less than alloy.
                >milled all has the direction facing perpendicular to the bit that's actually carving it out.
                What a homosexual fricking moron you are.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Oh, are you going to face the metal grain parallel to the bit? Show me one that worked well.
                I guess I must be moronic, because clearly you're right. Stressing metal parallel with the grain is a great idea. I was wrong, you're right. It's why you're very smart, and frick your wife with your very long dick you let people know about. Everyone else is lying.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Casting:
                >ConsCons

                Brittle, prone to cracking
                Potentially unsafe
                Difficult to anodize
                https://www.gunbuilders.com/blog/cast-vs-billet-6061t6-vs-forged-7075t6/

                It's almost like I looked into it. You might be able to google it and see it pop up in the first result in "Stress cracks in 6061 recievers"

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Our ancestors made made rifled barrels at home. I'm sure with modern technology better could be done.
      you're looking at the modern technology in the op pic. that's the easiest way to make a barrel. everything else takes more labor, more skill and makes a lesser product.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >What were the most prohibitive innovations in modern firearms people just don't understand?
    Smokeless powder. People can talk all they want about how simple it is and how it's doable at home, but there's little to no info out there from people who have actually made it and been confident enough in what they've made to test it in a firearm. Pretty much any other part of making ammunition to modern or at least semi modern standards has been covered by people with enough dedication, except that. Without a source of smokeless powder, you're wasting your time worrying about things like semi/fully automatic actions or higher pressures.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This is a good answer. I think everyone is aware of the trick of using piss on hay to get nitrates from the video cody'slab took off youtube - at least that video.
      But yeah, the exact science of that I'm not really sure of. It could probably be done, but not easily on a small scale.
      Cuts to the point 10/10

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        That’s black powder iirc. Smokeless powder is insanely dangerous to make from my understanding, along with lots of precise chemistry. Same thing goes for modern centerfire primers. Most anything else could be figured out so long as the actual knowledge was written down. Barrels can be made from basic pipes or metal cylinders, receivers from any malleable, flat metal. Trigger mechanisms can be super simple as well. But the biggest issues long term would be making brass cases, primers, and smokeless powder.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          That video was for black powder yes. But bear in mind, precision in chemistry is oftentimes narrowing your beaker to read more precise increments, or doing it by weight of certified scales. You can certify your own scales if you get some assortments of weights and reject digital.
          As for the brass casings, that's also something you can figure out. It's just extruding and a secondary or tertiary process of die manufacturing. A brass waffer is cut, then pressed into a die that centers it on the primer and leaves it open on the neck, then it's crimped or formed down.
          Biggest issue I still see is with chemistry. But now were only still talking ammo, and what exists now.
          I think you're right, you'll see people making black powdered things. And I think they'll put nails and screws, forks and weird shit in them if the power goes out forever and we revert to pirate.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Another issues with the cases is the actual extrusion of the brass from the wafer. We’re talking lots of steps, several separate machines, and the end product still has to be precise enough to function and cycle. The tooling itself is also a issue. You first need the room to store it and use it, you can’t just leave it in your yard where it rains and animals get into it. Then you’d need a way to run, maintain, and operate these machines to make any appreciable amount of cases. If your end game is a few extra rounds, you couple probably use something like a harbor freight 12 ton press, or even fabricate your own. But if you want to make an amount of ammo more than a few dozen a month, you’d need lots more machinery and tooling.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Who gives a shit when you can make cartridge guns loaded with BP? You can run 45 and 9mm on BP in semi-auto, and lever action and single shot rifles are available and powerful.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Fouling your barrels would be a massive issue for semi automatics. Your barrel would have to be cleaned before you finish a whole mag.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Exactly correct. Do you have a pair of analog callipers yet?
              I'd really recommend checking out Gingerly's "Build your own machine shop" books.
              But yeah, you're going to need a set of callipers, and indicators. Once you figure out how you can produce things, each job lends to the next. If you can make 9mm dies, stick with it. But, you can surely do others too.
              If you want your dies to be right, research hydraulic press construction and wire EDM, because it's actually doable in your garage..

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I meant this reply for

                I'm not trying to convey you on much. Just asking you to stick with that thought. That's a lot of insight, and it's something nobody has really thought about in a while.
                If it can be done once, it can be done more than that, with not much greater effort. I'm just saying that if you wanted to do something, you've thought about it enough to realize the limitations of one go. You can always upsize, and you're bright enough that if you chose to do it, you would get the satisfaction of seeing it happen.
                Realistically, if you wanted to, you could be an barron of ammunition. And that's not hyperbole, you could make one set of dies to press them in an afternoon, once you figure out how to do it once.

                Sorry

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >Fouling your barrels would be a massive issue for semi automatics
              Fouling the action/chamber and seizing up the gun or just completely stopping it from going into battery would be the main concern there. Fouling up the barrel quickly is going to be a problem in any modern rifle intended for smokeless powder due to the shallower rifling used on modern guns, especially with bottleneck cases that would have significantly more volume for powder for a given caliber than would have been used back when black powder was the norm. I read an account a while back about how it took quite a bit of load development and trying different powder granulation to get 20 accurate shots off with .30-30 loaded with black powder before the barrel needed cleaning.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Exactly correct. Do you have a pair of analog callipers yet?
              I'd really recommend checking out Gingerly's "Build your own machine shop" books.
              But yeah, you're going to need a set of callipers, and indicators. Once you figure out how you can produce things, each job lends to the next. If you can make 9mm dies, stick with it. But, you can surely do others too.
              If you want your dies to be right, research hydraulic press construction and wire EDM, because it's actually doable in your garage..

              Absolutely incorrect and a belief only promulgated by people who don't really know much about guns.
              https://youtube.com/shorts/igfN_U3nMxw?feature=share

              So now that we've established that you don't really know anything about guns,how about you both have a nice day?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >torture test involves tons of failures after just 33 round
                So I guess it can work so long as you never shoot more than 2/3 of a box of ammo for practice at a time.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >It could probably be done, but not easily on a small scale.
        Yeah, even the people who have done it and had the confidence to test it in a gun still only make small laboratory batches rather than say cranking out several ounces at a time.

        That’s black powder iirc. Smokeless powder is insanely dangerous to make from my understanding, along with lots of precise chemistry. Same thing goes for modern centerfire primers. Most anything else could be figured out so long as the actual knowledge was written down. Barrels can be made from basic pipes or metal cylinders, receivers from any malleable, flat metal. Trigger mechanisms can be super simple as well. But the biggest issues long term would be making brass cases, primers, and smokeless powder.

        >Same thing goes for modern centerfire primers
        There are people who will reload primers with the formula the US used during WWI to save money during shortages. It's corrosive though.

        That video was for black powder yes. But bear in mind, precision in chemistry is oftentimes narrowing your beaker to read more precise increments, or doing it by weight of certified scales. You can certify your own scales if you get some assortments of weights and reject digital.
        As for the brass casings, that's also something you can figure out. It's just extruding and a secondary or tertiary process of die manufacturing. A brass waffer is cut, then pressed into a die that centers it on the primer and leaves it open on the neck, then it's crimped or formed down.
        Biggest issue I still see is with chemistry. But now were only still talking ammo, and what exists now.
        I think you're right, you'll see people making black powdered things. And I think they'll put nails and screws, forks and weird shit in them if the power goes out forever and we revert to pirate.

        If you really want to put in the effort to achieve the precision required, some people do turn brass cased on a lathe when they need brass for an obscure cartridge that can't be made by reforming existing brass. Sizing after that can be achieve with normal full length sizing dies similar to if you were making brass from different brass. IIRC it's only good for black powder pressures though.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Really? That's fascinating. I thought primers were single use

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Smokeless isn't impossible. Making nitric acid is doable, treating cotton with it is doable, extruding the resulting nitrocellulose is doable. What's difficult is consistency and testing of the product to find what works.

      No one does it for fun because in the end it's too much of a pain in the ass for just a LARP, but in a SHTF situation it is absolutely doable.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        If people aren't rising to the challenge now just to have the title of one of the very few people who are confident enough in their skills to do it like people do for other subjects, then you aren't going to see many more people doing so once easy access to all the learning resources people have today goes away.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Shinzo Abe got got by a fricking high school science project, guns aren't that complicated when you get down to it - the complication is all the ancillary stuff that allows for features like fire selection, ammo cycling, full auto, standardized projectile manufacturing (more important for economic reasons, but very important - might be less important in a SHTF scenario), etc.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Your argument is invalidated two times by a guntuber who builds AK's.
      If it's so easy, why did his gun become a pipe bomb. And if the people that make weapons now know all of this, why do you trust some moron with rudimentary understandings of pressure dynamics or machining expertise could create a good weapon?
      Explain.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >>un-cited guntuber debunks u
        Shinzo Abe remains deceased

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Jesus learn to write. I gave up by "to be blunt"

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Apparently not enough to type a response. Maybe give up on something that makes more sense, like your fricking life. Thanks for the bump. I will use it.

      Another issues with the cases is the actual extrusion of the brass from the wafer. We’re talking lots of steps, several separate machines, and the end product still has to be precise enough to function and cycle. The tooling itself is also a issue. You first need the room to store it and use it, you can’t just leave it in your yard where it rains and animals get into it. Then you’d need a way to run, maintain, and operate these machines to make any appreciable amount of cases. If your end game is a few extra rounds, you couple probably use something like a harbor freight 12 ton press, or even fabricate your own. But if you want to make an amount of ammo more than a few dozen a month, you’d need lots more machinery and tooling.

      If it's 12 ton press to do one cartridge at that stage, what's the amount needed to do 12, and when the dies seperate, can you make a fixture that pulls the brass from the dies and dumps it into a tray? Think about steps.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I genuinely have no clue what you’re trying to convey to me, but it would be an incredible long and arduous task. Most likely, you’d need several people helping you. Especially since if things are so bad you need to make your own ammo from scratch, you probably wouldn’t have much free time in the day to sit around presses all day making ammo anyways.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I'm not trying to convey you on much. Just asking you to stick with that thought. That's a lot of insight, and it's something nobody has really thought about in a while.
          If it can be done once, it can be done more than that, with not much greater effort. I'm just saying that if you wanted to do something, you've thought about it enough to realize the limitations of one go. You can always upsize, and you're bright enough that if you chose to do it, you would get the satisfaction of seeing it happen.
          Realistically, if you wanted to, you could be an barron of ammunition. And that's not hyperbole, you could make one set of dies to press them in an afternoon, once you figure out how to do it once.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Well to add to that thought then, you’d need shitloads of precisely measured dies if you plan on using/making multiple calibers. Again, making and sourcing these takes time. There’s a reason there’s only a few plants in America that make ammo.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Hi Gaunt, did you run out of Busch Light already?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Gaunt? I don't know this person, but if their name is a reference to their financial situation or their cheeks, give me some archives. I'm not picky where I get my information. The persistent types are the ones who give a lot of nuance in constantly livejournaling here. Up until tonight, I haven't made a thread on /k/ since 2013. And you wonder why there's no OC here.
      If people actually did something instead of armchair engineering, maybe you'd see nothing but good replies. But here you are.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >But here you are.
        Right back at you, smart ass. It's an indonesian pottery forum, we're all armchair engineers until somebody actually posts some real shit, with timestamps of course.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >we're all armchair engineers until somebody posts something
          How about reading text you fricking moron? Do you need pictures to see the word "fire" and know that means "hot?"
          Shut the frick up, you societal-deficit invalid.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Whoa there buddy calm down. You're getting all bent out of shape for no reason at all. This entire thread is just idle speculation, you and I included. We can post all day about why or why not homebrew barrels might or might not work. Not that it'll do anybody any good.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >post all day about barrels that might or might not work
              >won't do anyone any good
              Yeah, that's the problem. People will be missing fingers or not. What camp are you a part of?

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                If you're asking whether or not I'd stick a handloaded 12ga slug in a crudely rifled length of steel pipe, yeah I'd give it a go. With about 10ft of string between me and the trigger until I was sure it was good to go.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >I'm done drinking around a lathe
              > I've been wondering for the sake of just writing, whether or not it would be feasible if the power went out for too long

              Why would the power be out? Magic? Techies as ever would fix the power you helpless cretin who has time to babble but not to learn anything useful. What the frick is wrong with you simpletons who imagine civilizations decline like Hollywood movies and that techies won't immediate get many systems up and running?

              Not speculation but moronation. READ. Machine tools will remain usable and electricity is easy to generate. Machined goods will remain valuable so smal machine shops will remain functioning or rapidly return to service along with undamaged advanced shops. Electricity is easy as is oil and gas extraction in many areas. The problem with you tards is you "speculate" wrongly about the most basic things anyone with decent primary school education would already know the answer to. (Not joking because I did, but schools may have been better fifty years ago...)

              Exactly correct. Do you have a pair of analog callipers yet?
              I'd really recommend checking out Gingerly's "Build your own machine shop" books.
              But yeah, you're going to need a set of callipers, and indicators. Once you figure out how you can produce things, each job lends to the next. If you can make 9mm dies, stick with it. But, you can surely do others too.
              If you want your dies to be right, research hydraulic press construction and wire EDM, because it's actually doable in your garage..

              Gingery stuff are toys for machinists who already have much better tools and want a fun project but for some reason don't want the superior product they'd get from scraping and overhauling a serious mill or lathe (not hard but a bit tedious). Why would existing manual machine tools of production quality suddenly vanish when many a century old still serve? (My pro machinistbro has a 1913 Cincinnati shaper in mint condition which gets some specialty use but works like new. WWII era machine tools are very common like my round ram knee mill or his American Pacemaker lathes which make money every week due to long beds and large swings.

              A grid outage only intimidates the helpless who know and can do nothing and think technology magic. OTOH real machinists would have generators up in short order powering their shops if they don't already have one as backup (or even primary in some rural shops).

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Why would the power be out? Magic? Techies as ever would fix the power you helpless cretin who has time to babble but not to learn anything useful. What the frick is wrong with you simpletons who imagine civilizations decline like Hollywood movies and that techies won't immediate get many systems up and running?
                california can't maintain power right now. texas got dropped by one fricking storm. europe is going to have an exceptionally cold winter. basically, you're a fricking idiot.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                texas is run by idiots. idiots don't survive to keep incompetently running things for long in a SHTF scenario

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                They have not full power outage but not sufficient supply. Quick solution to this is cutting off not important consumers like residential areas and redictecting supply to key infrastructure and production.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    probably not making a barrel on a hammer forge. button rifiling can be done at home an centrifugal casting of metal could probably make strong enough blanks, that could all be done at home. The ar is really just a barrel, bolt and receiver extension with spring, everything else is just the skin

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The home gunsmithing community has spent a lot of time thinking about this, welcome to our mindspace. The current meta in home gunsmithing is 3D printing combined with electrochemical rifling techniques. If you want to make the most usable (if not reliable) weapons quickly and cheaply, that's your best option. Of course, home gunsmithing techniques are only so good and any forward thinker would accumulate commercially available parts while they still can.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >while they still can
      If anything saves this thread, what parts are most important to hold onto, anon?

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Everything we have now was made on machines made from more primitive machine. If things go dark we can build back up from scratch. Manufacturing will just take more time, produce more waste, and require more skilled craftsmen.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    As others have stated in this thread, ammunition is the biggest problem. A mass produced straight blowback submachine gun would have been entirely feasible to produce during the US Civil War, but the quality of ammunition necessary to run such a gun reliably and for enough rounds to justify its capabilities over other guns wasn't there until the very late 1800s.

    >Could be any reason, really, foreign states using CBRN, or sabateur attacks, or WEF policies leading to an authoritarian government or lack of any government at all, how would weapons made after that event look, at best?
    Important to note is that there are only 2 plants that produce smokeless powder in the entire US, with one owned by the government and the other by General Dynamics. The same is true for other plants that produce smokeless powder around the world being owned by either governments or larger defense contractors. If you're stuck in a state where the population got moronic enough to try to secede or significantly mobilize for a second civil war, you'll see access to modern ammunition shut off outside of small quantities smuggled in.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >feasible if the power went out for too long
    Solution to power outage is restoring power obviously.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    SM Stirling's Emberverse spends millions of words on this topic.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Modern smokeless ammunition. Yes you can make black powder and rudimentary ignition methods pretty easily in your garage, but nitro powder takes very careful manufacturing and primers are a whole different can of worms. And don't get me started on cases, the amount of people who think brass will just fall from the sky baffles me. And no you cannot indefinitely reload the same cases, the brass will eventually rupture from metal fatigue

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *