In a post SHTF Scenario would people bring back muskets?

I doubt it.

Modern style bows fire faster, more accurately and further.

If you had the means to make a musket, you can make a cartridge weapon just as easy. Tech and knowledge means that many people could make somthing more effective than a musket.

I know how to make long bows from my grandfather, id sooner be using that than relying on a one shot a minute or two un accurate weapon - also if that power gets wet its completely useless.

i think it will be muskets.

heres why. modern bullets use smokeless powder, or gun cotton. very hard to make and i cant find a recipe for it due to anti-terrorism laws. also, the primer for a modern cartridge is chemical and very small. i have no idea how to make that either. the brass and bullet for a modern round are fairly simple.

what you have to think about is can you make every part of whatever youre using. for example, a thermometer. very simple device, glass tube with some mercury. well, how do you make the glass to make the tube, then where do you find the mercury?

a musket uses black powder, easy to make if you have sulfur, bats, and charcoal. the lead bullet is easy to cast.

another poster said we would return to the steam age. if you think about it, we never left the steam age as most of our electricity is made using steam. (we really need to find a better way to do that)

I would actually think so. I think in a SHTF scenario when people start to run out of ammo and begin to get worried that they will start to use other methods. My main thought would be that they start to use general muzzle loaders as the recipe for black powder is not exactly secret. Roofing nails are generally lead and cal be great for making rounds. Even steel or another metal would work, you just need a mould. If people don't use these my next guess would be pipebombs, crossbows and bows. Personally I have bows and muzzle loaders in addition to my rifles so I feel pretty darn prepared.

a reply to: stormson

Gun powder is not hard to make; I made my own while I was a teenager.

Muskets will not return.

Someone mentioned villagers making AKs by hand; well, the Viet Cong made "colt 45" pistols by hand, to take advantage of the abundant stolen american ammo.

If you were fielding your own militia, the first thing to do would be learning to "corn" gunpowder (making it from powder into pellets the size of peppercorns---that's when the explosive force gets strong enough to penetrate plate armor).

The second thing would be "paper cartridges." You'd actually use a kind of pasteboard, the stuff they made shotgun shells out of until plastics arrived in the 1950s. Paper cartridges were used up till the American civil war. Even with muzzle loaders, the use of paper cartridges cuts out several movements in the loading process, and so multiplies your rate of fire.

From there, you can begin machining a breech-loading actions.

Once you get a brass works in place, you can begin producing metal cartridges, and it's off to the races.

I would switch to primitive weapons before trying Muskets, bloody things are a right royal pain in the butt during inclement weather... or they were last time I tried them.

Yeah, in a SHTF scene i'm going to use a musket. That makes total sense if you have no OTHER gun to use but the one hangin on the wall for decoration. Sure, if you have no other option, but NOT LIKELY. A .22 rifle would out gun that. Hell maybe even a bow, cause you could get out more shots before the musketeer got one shot off. Todays bows shoot farther, more accurate. At a 100 yards both the bow and the musketeer have a 50 50 chance of hitting it's target. A musket for a shtf scene. Thats a joke right?

originally posted by: Divin3F3nrus
I would actually think so. I think in a SHTF scenario when people start to run out of ammo and begin to get worried that they will start to use other methods. My main thought would be that they start to use general muzzle loaders as the recipe for black powder is not exactly secret. Roofing nails are generally lead and cal be great for making rounds. Even steel or another metal would work, you just need a mould. If people don't use these my next guess would be pipebombs, crossbows and bows. Personally I have bows and muzzle loaders in addition to my rifles so I feel pretty darn prepared.

Roofing nails are not lead. I have seen alot of strange things that was shot out of a shotgun. check it out on youtube. Spears,bee bee's,tacks,marbles,glass and more. see the damage it does, interesting video on all the things you can shoot out of a shot gun. Even darts. crazy things people do for fun in the backyard. Insane.

a reply to: cloaked4u

I meant older roofing nails. I have a house made before 1920 and the roofing nails in it are lead. Many barns and things that are similar have similar nails. Either way, you can melt mild steel pretty easily and then all you have to do is pour it into a mold and whammo you have some rounds for your muzzle loader.

I have shot some crazy stuff out of my muzzle loader.

a reply to: Biigs

Maybe for you the bow makes more sense. Bows take considerable skill to use and thus people would probably gravitate more towards crossbows/muzzle loaders. These may not be as effective as a skilled archer but to the untrained person they are a much more viable option.

Personally i like having all 3 to be able to choose from.

I'm sure there would be many folks fully capable of making their own reloads or for others, for modern weapons, to NOT go back to the muskets.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

People will use or attempt to use anything they can to improve there chances of survival.
Personally in a SHTF as you say..I would not want to announce my presence...so I would use whatever would get the job done, that is the quietest choice available to me at the time...if it is a bow and arrow, fine...or a tank, fine...whatever gets the job done and would be the quietest...you can only use what you have to use.

back a dozen years ago, when the original Feinstein assault weapons ban was about to expire, a national newspaper columnist (Juan Williams maybe?) did the math and projected that if the USA experienced a total end of firearms production and sales, that there'd be enough ammo at current rates of use for .... 40 YEARS!

.22 ammo is so common it's hard to understand unless you live amidst the gun culture. I has seen one estimate that half of all gun owners here own a .22.

In other words, you're going to run out of powder and parts for a musket long before the same thing happens for the .22 cal. And a gunsmith could fix either.