Watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJMXXuGhINE

 

I believe he referred to it as a "BronyTail"?!

He is just trying to be like Heath with his Man Bun.

Rolls right off the tongue too,don't you think?

 

You are right. Bronytail it is.I stand corrected. : )

 

Short story the way I understand it;
Lead is used because it has a low melting point. First you have the shell, it holds the gunpowder in the middle and a bullet at the end. The primer fits on the other end of the shell that the hammer of the gun hits when your pull the trigger. The primer is what ignites the gunpowder causing it to explode and that propels the bullet out of the shell down the gun's barrel.

If you are really interested check out "bullets" on Wikipedia.

 

I can but only give my thoughts on the Bullet "Factory". I have been reloading for about 20 years or so. I Smelt and cast my own lead alloy for handgun and some rifle rounds. I am also a Tool maker and Journeyman Machinist. I have reservations that someone in that situation could set up a Automated cartridge factory because that is what it would be not a Bullet factory. I would think this would have to be a Mostly manual process but utilizing the Machine shop to make tooling to produce them. So here is how I think it could work.


The mill would be essential to the Idea of manufacturing bullets and reloading cartridges. The Mill would for sure be used to make 2 piece casting molds like the type used in a video posted a few pages back. These are relatively simple to make and they can be made to cast several Bullets at a time. It or a lathe could also facilitate the manufacturing of dies to resize whatever case you desire.

The big crucible (big arse pot) hanging from the ceiling in the show would be ideal for smelting a large amount of lead at one time. Especially if they are collecting lead from the sources stated above. Everything would have to be melted down and smelted into a lead alloy that would would work well in the firearms. They need to be a certain hardness so they do not lead up the barrel weather it be in a pistol of rifle. The lead would be super easy to come by in this type of situation. Roof flashing, car wheel weights, Boat ballast old communications tubing... its everywhere.... tons and tons of it.

Clip on car wheel weights alone are actually fantastic just by themselves as bullet lead. But in the early 2000's they started phasing them out and started using Zinc and steel clip on wheel weights. You would not want Zinc contaminating your lead. There's a simple drop test for sound to define what is what when using wheel weights.

The best source for raw lead is in my opinion boat hulls. Even small boats carry a bunch of it in the keel. The boat can be broke up and the huge lead blocks can be cut with a chainsaw to more manageable chunks. Obviously that would draw walkers in a ZA so I'd drag it somewhere and cut it up and drive away from the noise you just made. If you are in the desert....Start looking for truck and bus depots and start taking the huge lead wheel weights from the buses.

Batteries would be last on the list. They contain sulfuric acid and you would not want to be inhaling that when you burn them to get the lead out so to speak.. Worse case scenario you could dig a pit out far away from camp and burn the batteries whole and collect the lead pooled at the bottom after the fire is out. Its still very risky even when remelting that solidified pool later on. Battery terminals would be fair game though.

Lets just Focus on pistol calibers because Smokeless gunpowder is going to be extremely hard to find. All of the pistols either revolver or Semi Automatic can be ran with Black Powder and it is very simple to make. Charcol , Saltpeter and Sulpher is all that is needed to produce black powder. Theres lots of Videos on YouTube on how to make Black powder. Sure its dirty to run in the guns but it works and we will use it until we come across a large stash of smokeless pistol and rifle powder. Lets also focus on using spent cases. Spent cases can be reloaded MANY MANY Times. I have some 38sp and 9mm cases that are older than probably most on this board. They have been fired hundreds of times As long as it isn't fatiuged and cracking it can be resused. Some are better than others so throw the ones out that are cracked or otherwise no good.


Once a large amount of soft lead is melted you make the Brinell hardness of the bullets harder buy adding tin. This can be achieved by melting pewter into the lead. Some old timers call this hardball lead. The harder the lead is the harder it is to lead up barrel. Softer lead will melt during firing down the barrel and will cake it up.

Another relatively newer process is coating the Lead bullets to help stave off the barrel leading. You can do this a few ways. You can powder coat the bullets easily by hand in a tub and heat them to cure the powdercoat. You can also Epoxy paint these with industrial epoxy paint.

Powdercoat is actually pretty easy to make. If you get enough polyester you can fabricate up a simple ball mill and pulverize the polyester into a fine powder. Tons of things are made with polyester and it would be readily available in almost every home that is abandoned. This would be MY preferred route since paint can go bad in cans especially the catalyst for the epoxy paint.

Lets just say for instance I was doing all of this and chosen to lead manufacturing of our own ammunition.
After the machinery was powered up and tooling was made and proven and I am talking Bullet molds, Case dies single station presses and so forth...

First

I would figure out what part of the group could be expended for the below processes. Obviously you dont want your warriors and gatherers doing these jobs. This is for the folks that can't fight or would otherwise be eaten during a ZA. They aren't expendables... We just need to find a job for them to do to contribute. Kids could be involved in some of the processes .

I would start out collecting every spent case of brass I could find. Especially in the most common calibers that happened to be used during the ZA. Everyone polices their brass. See it on the ground... Pick it up and carry it back home.

I would then put the less Ramboish girls and guys to work de-priming them and re-sizing them.

All the primers would be saved.

Then I would start searching for every bit of lead I could find no matter what No batteries though for now. The lead collectors would be in charge of rummaging for pewter. All those old candle stick holders, picture frame, serving trays that are pewter would be collected..

I would have everyone then collect every Strike Anywhere match I could find. I would want hundreds of thousands of them. Along with the matches I would collect paper caps rolls from cap guns. Toys stores still have them so I would want them.

Brass would be cleaned in Vinegar and water. You could clean these better with a wet tumbler hooked to a stationary bicycle turning the tumbler. Or if the power is running you could do it with a old washing machine motor tied to a drum you made to wet tumble the brass. A table spoon of dish soap would clean a 55gallon drum of these no problem in a tumbler.

I would then smelt all the lead into a usable harder alloy of lead One big batch so as to have it consistent.

I would then have 5 or so of the less ramboish Men and Women not of child bearing years start casting bullets Tons of them. I have personally seen 5 guys cast thousands of bullets in one day. And they were of all sorts of calibers.

Every caliber would be poured at different times.

Next would be to coat the bullets. This really isn't necessary for most pistol rounds that aren't going to be used at max velocity. But for the Guns sake... I would coat them in powder coat that we made from Polyester powder we made by pulverizing it in the ball mill. That Pink Polyester shirt.... Pink Bullet powdercoated bullets

Next up would be to set up a row of simple presses and start having people resize the brass cases and newly cast bullets after powder coat. Different calibers at different times. These are also simples processes that do not take much skill so children could do it if they had latex gloves. Remember even residual lead is toxic and its extremely bad for children. Gotta think about repopulating the earth right?

Then onto the primers.

I would have every available person stripping the match heads off and using a hole puncher to punch out the primer inset in roll caps from the cap gun caps. Both of these can be used for rebuilding reliable primers. There is videos of this process on YT if you care to watch. This would be the most tedious of processes so we would leave this to Younger Women with smaller hands. This is based on fact that once women learn the process they will be utterly more proficient at rebuilding small tedious parts than a Man would. Sorry guys Shaky testosterone hands aren't wanted here. Once you have a process down rebuilding them would be done fairly quickly.


Once the primers are made and found to be reliable the re-priming process would begin. Again different calibers at different times. All the small pistol primers would work in every caliber up until 45acp. Even then manufactures have been producing 45acp with small pistol primers for the last ten years. If you hand sort out the large pistol primed 45acp cases you can then load the small primed 45acp cases with primers used from 25acp on up.


Once you have primed cases then it would be prudent to test your cases against the middle of the road load for each cartridge. black powder cartridges are made by volume and not charge of powder. Full load cartridge would need about a 1/8th" of compression. For safeties sake we would want a full charge by volume. You get into a ton of variables when you under charge Black powder. You have to figure in a filler to take the airspace up between the powder and cartridge. No fooling around here. Full charge by volume of BP and 1/8th compression.

Then onto seating and crimping the Bullets into the filled cartridges.

The large amount of lead you made and have left over should be poured into ingots. That way people could take them home and cast in the back yard or on a rooftop over a fire...Just like the cowboys did it.. Scavenge for Muffin pans either in steel or old cast iron ones. Pour the left over lead alloy into the pans to make ingots for the next time you manufacture "Bullets"

Continue to use the BP until you procure Smokeless powders for pistol and rifle rounds

 

Deezil has it right. Was gonna do a long write up - but there it is. I been reloading for years. There should be tons of brass out there for the picking up.

Biggest problems is gonna be the powder, and possibly the primers

I can't imagine out there in the country - them not being able to go into people's basements and finding some reloading supplies. Especially presses dies and scales - and possibly some powder and primers. Most people would break into a house and take bullets already made. Not so many people would take full reloading equipment. Hell just on my street alone I know of 5 full setups in basements and workshops. I wouldnt even shoot half of my friends reloads as I wouldnt be trusting the amounts of powder added.


And then if eugene can't find any books on the matter - gonna be a big trial and error on bullets made. Even if you had a full reloading workshop and all the supplies - I wouldnt be the first one firing eugenes first few batches of bullets.

 

Shot gun shells could be just a easily reloaded with BP That's how they started out anyhow. Simple cardboard over cards can be punched out to use instead of plastic wads. Buck shot molds and slug molds could be made just as easily on the mill and lead bird shot is silly easy to make. Here's a video of a homemade bird shot maker.. Notice his Muffin Ingot..
Simple gas burner, cast iron pan and small holes through the pan to drip the shot into the water. How more simple could it get..

https://youtu.be/jIQULNUaYLg

 

That was a really interesting read, thanks!

i know nothing about guns, so that insight is useful. Ive only every shot a gun twice, in extremely unsafe conditions in foreign gun "ranges" (ie. huts without proper protection, or open fields) without hardly any instructions on usage where people just walked around with the weapons lol.

 

No problem. It all seems very mysterious to someone that hasn't reloaded ammo before. I know.. I was there once.

Its a learning process but once its sorted out it's pretty easy. But...You have to pay attention to everything. Black powder is to me easier to load since it is done volume and not by weight. Once you figure out the volume, scoopers would be made to the specific volume. There's no screwing it up after that. Scoop would be made to fill to the top of it and then poured into the case.

There isn't much room left in the case to overcharge it like you can with smokeless powder.

But yeah... everything would be test fired from a distance with the gun in a vise and the trigger pulled by a string. Preferably with the string puller behind a concrete wall.

 

Black powder 1911
https://youtu.be/j84J7VQ02CQ

 

9mm black powder
https://youtu.be/KfzQ4uKvE7c

 

Lever action guns were designed around black powder. 38sp 357 and 45colt lever rifles could all be ran with black powder even modern ones. When you just need to reach out and touch someone or something and a pistol wont cut it. Obviously BP guns would need to be cleaned more often than smokeless powered guns..

https://youtu.be/oGB4E3G6lio

 

They shoulda kept Hershel's shot gun, It had the cheat code and never ran out. Problem solved.

 

You would think - if the show was realistic you would see more black powder guns around!

I would love the writers showing this - if they ever show the ammo factory/place ever producing ammo. Some red shirt being the test guy - and having a barrel go boom! Or for that matter how some of the new ammo just isn't shooting straight (as you know loads affecting longer range shots greatly!). Or if they don't find smokeless , just how much smoke powder produces where they can't see where they are shooting after 5-10 rounds! Also giving away positions while hidden. like the cowboys in the old west - who once started using smokeless were hard to find hiding and shooting. Nothing to give away positions


I love hickok's channel. He has helped me decide on many a gun when I had to pick between two or three. But then sooner or later I usually just get the other two or three anyway. But one has to be first!

 

I think it would be a do or die situation where you have to make the match head or cap primer scenario work and be reliable. Somebody figured out center fire cartridges in the mid 1800's bound to be able to figure it out now. Lets hope they do. That would be neat and not see them hit up a abandoned cabelas and raid the primer stash.

The Cap gun primer worked for plenty of guys when they couldn't find caps for BP revolvers years ago a cottage industry was setup to allow people to make them at home and they worked.

None of my above suggestions were for Full auto rifles. But any gas operated rifle could be ran on BP if you disable the gas system. Instant straight pullback bolt gun! I have heard of Ak's running BP but you'd be correct that it would get filthy real quick no matter how loose a Ak is.

Any smokeless powder I would assume would be a hot commodity. Almost as much as it is now! Bp would be better than sharp sticks and rocks until they could find Smokeless.

Not matter what I used I would be cleaning whatever gun I have religiously. Who knows Maybe Eugene is smart enough to be able to produce Smokeless. Jacketed bullets are another whole animal. I still think powder coating them is the way to go. Its super easy and would almost eliminate the leading in everything but a screaming round but hell ,guys are even able to do that now with coated rifle bullets.

 

@deezil just want to thank you for your detailed and well laid out post, and also for the YT video of the BP 1911. First I've seen a 1911 run on BP.

 

couldn't you put the test gun in a vise and tie a string to the trigger and pull it from a long distance (and behind a wall) away?

 

There shouldn't be much trial and errors with the bullets. Bullets are relatively easy to produce in lead alloy only form.

The complete cartridge is another story. A simple single shot bar made into a heavy barrel with a breech lock could be used to test pressures. The back side of the case tells a lot. If there's over pressure signs you'd know to back it off until you could reliably run it in hand guns.

But yes... I'd want a string and a wall to stand behind..