Black Powder Shooting.

My only experience is decades old now, but I seem to recall that black powder weapons have a 'softer' recoil than smokeless, so you might like to look up your local BP club and try some big calibres before deciding that your shoulder might not be able to handle it.

[Replying to a 2 YO thread ... sorry]

Actually, stuff it I know this is an old thread but I've been ruminating lately about BP.

The ammo shortages of the last couple of years have made me think. Given that civilian production in Australia is virtually gone - or maybe even completely gone now, we rely upon imports. I'm wondering if there are military contracted manufacturers still onshore? There might be, but regardless.

My initial thought probably 2 years ago now was to tool up for reloading. If you can't buy factory ammo then simply reload right? Wrong. As has been mentioned elsewhere on the forum there is pretty much no reloading stock anywhere, pistol powder, primers, forget it. Bullets and particularly brass can still be found if you look around.

_This_ state of affairs really made me think. SHTF and primers are gone within days, or maybe even before (like now). I'd not like my chances of tooling up to make primers at home - nor smokeless powder. So my long held dream of being self sufficient for ammo during SHTF turns out to be pretty dubious at best. For the cost and space involved, not to mention the labour, I'm really just better off buying tons of factory ammo and using that until its gone.

Which brings us to black powder. In the longer term SHTF, a couple of years in lets say, would a flintlock be more valuable than a modern weapon? Note that I can't see much value in going BP percussion cap, for the same reason as the primer problem for modern arms. You can reasonably expect to be able to make BP at home. Its not trivial, but seems like something you could expect to do.

What do we think? I feel like theres dubious value in trying to use a flintlock for home/personal defense, although perhaps there is some deterrent value - the process and time involved for an amateur user to reload seems to me to make it a bit unsuited for this. But for hunting game? Maybe? Or would a good bow be the better ultimate answer to ranged game hunting over a long period of SHTF?

I think a bow, or even crossbow, would be a better choice though I wouldn't be against trying the BP route I just feel a bow would be more reliable than home made BP unless you really invest the time to learn how to make it.

Oh sure.  I burn through ammo now too, because its available.  Its no longer cheap but its still available and so long as you keep a decent local cache the gaps in availability don't hurt too much.  I'm assuming come SHTF that my joyful 'plinking' would give way to a more pragmatic approach of only shooting for food or defense, so usage should drop way down.

Once you get past running after your prey with a pointy stick and poking it there really are limitations on whats reasonable to expect without a logisitics chain to support you and I wonder ...  The problem is that these ancient and (relatively) low tech weapons, like bows and crossbows, are actually not low tech at all in the overall scheme of things.  God forbid I'd have to make my own bow and arrows, lets assume I buy a modern version and plenty of arrows which I'd really have to take care of and retrieve as often as was humanly possible.  Operating a hunting bow effectively is not a trivial exercise, even a modern compound version. 

People for 10's of thousands of years have used bows.  I've only dabbled with short bows, for a short time and a long time ago, enough to get the impression that using them proficiently is, like anything, a _real_ skill not to be trivialised.  I doubt I'd be able to hit the side of a barn with a bow today.  Given time perhaps the barn would become a viable target (smile), but say rabbit or kangaroo hunting ... with a bow?  I know people did it, and do it, but how much skill is required?

But yeah, making BP at home, might seem fine, but when the local bunnings has been totally stripped and you're finding and making the components out in the wild, yeah, the quality is going to be pretty ordinary, maybe ultimately ineffective and just not worth the bother at all.  I was watching some youtube videos a few days ago of guys reloading 9mm with guncotton.  All very interesting but I doubt you would do much more than bruise a kangaroo within 10 metres using propellant of this type.