Wednesday, August 2, 2017

forever shotgun


FOREVER SHOTGUN
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note: a wonderful minion just sent these to me.  I don't know how they work but it looks like a nifty product to use with a wetstone for a great knife edge http://amzn.to/2uh9Kcv
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I offered one of the worlds best books, “Forever Gun”, last year.  If you for some bizarre reason missed it, it is available for the outrageously expensive cost of a whole friggin dollar, with a bonus book added, in Bison Book Batch #9.  I understand that some of you can’t fathom why they would cough up fifty cents to support an author, and to you I say, crap, never mind dude!  I guess you at least serve the purpose of inflating my reader numbers so I think I’m more important.  To quickly recap, although I of course think the whole book is well worth the read, if you reload your rimfire you can still get an entire arsenal for $300 if you can find a hundred dollar rifle.  The Forever Gun concept is that of being armed with smokeless powder long after all your enemies are using bows and crossbows and spears with the odd black powder musket thrown in.  Smokeless, even at rimfire and pistol cartridge strengths, or more properly, weaknesses, is far superior to other missile weapons, so you try to keep one going for, ideally, forever.  Hence the title.  I use an arbitrary number of rounds of ten thousand.

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Ten thousand rounds, used as a guerrilla warrior rather than a semi simian wildly hosing down the battlefield with lead hoping to hit something while frightening your enemies with the noise, should last a very long time indeed.  I’d strongly advise trying to get a rimfire revolver ( the semi is both a semi and won’t cycle with substandard rounds ) for another $200.  Normally I hate battlefield pistols, but with some weapons they are almost required.  Like when your rifle is an anemic rimfire.  If you want to step up your rounds wounding capacity you’ll need to go to the 9mm.  The reloads are much more reliable, and only twice the price ( 3 cent reloading supplies rimfire, six cents the 9 ), although the guns are $500 rather than $300 for a carbine/pistol combo, plus you’ll need magazines as an extra cost.  I covered other ways to achieve a Forever Gun, from extra reloading components for your battle rifle, to betting on being able to battlefield retrieve ammunition ( not that I think that will be viable unless we stay in a militia porn collapse rather than move to PODA ) and so owning the three main calibers in bolt rifles, to thirty cal inserts and I’m sure one or two others such as black powder.  What I didn’t cover in detail was the Forever Shotgun, only giving it a one sentence treatise on the last page of the book.  Let’s cover that a bit more.

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I suck at shooting a shotgun, pure and simple.  I’m about as accurate with a scatter gun as I am with a Chinese SKS without its sites adjusted ( in case you haven’t had the pleasure, try feet rather than inches at less than a hundred yards-I should have known there was a reason the thrift store always had them available for $100 ).  So I no longer own any just for that reason.  My relatively open local terrain is merely another reason to forego ownership.  Perhaps I have some weird bodily proportioning and can’t use a bead site.  I have no idea.  I won’t spend the money getting regular leaf and post sites on one of the guns to find out.  So a lot of this is academic.  Some of it you are going to have to experiment with.  The big one is primers.  You can go the smart and easy route and buy shotgun primers, and you may, but as usual I’m assuming complete and total money contraction issues and am going completely frugal.  Hell, the Forever Gun concept is purely optional as it is.  Why add to the cost?

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You need to focus on the feeding of your primary rifle first, as it is.  That is priority.  The Forever Gun is AFTER your main battle rifle has all the ammo you think necessary.  The Forever Gun is for when the better gun runs dry.  If you don’t care for the rimfire or a pistol carbine and if your terrain is appropriate, and if you really just love the shotgun, but are poor ( which would kind of be self evident as poor boys own shotguns rather than AR’s ), this might just be the Forever Gun you favor.  All it is is paper shotgun hulls and separate primer material and planning on using black powder as propellant.  Whereas a 9mm or a black powder rifle costs you $1200 on up for ten thousand rounds plus weapon, a reloaded rimfire or a shotgun both stay at the $300 mark, which is what it cost prior to about 2006 for buying 10k of factory rimfire plus the rifle.  A lot more preppers can afford $300 compared to $1300, and the whole point of the frugal forever gun is to be affordable so you can actually own it rather than dream of it.

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Now, this is by far no lazy mans arsenal.  You’ll need to make your own powder, covered below, and reload primers.  Here is the first issue you might encounter.  I don’t know if the amount of primer material used in a rimfire is sufficient to ignite a load of black powder in a shotgun shell.  I’m assuming if it is, you get the one cent cost. 

22LRreloader.com

That is the company that sells the rimfire reloader kit, along with the priming liquid that is $20 and is supposed to reload two thousand rimfire shells.  Obviously you’ll want to test this yourself rather than assume it will work, or then you might end up without as many rounds as you think.  My advice would be to ONLY use the reloading primer chemical if it is only one cent.  If it is two drops, double the cost, why bother?  Just spend three cents and get a factory made ready made more reliable shotgun primer. 

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I’ve read many folks boasting they made black powder as kids, and an equal amount crying that its manufacture is more difficult than you imagine.  Granted, those kids probably just bought the ingredients rather than made them from the dirt in the chicken coup, or maybe they actually did have a copy of the Army Improvised Explosives.  I don’t know.  I do know that given the need, you’ll eventually get it right and if louse ridden near medieval dudes can make the stuff, you can too.  Just have paper instructions on a couple of different ways to do it.  I have several, but I tend to recommend this: Backwoodsman magazine, July/August 2007, the article “black powder just like grandma’s”.  It is nitrates from dirt, just like the Army instruction manual, and scraped off rust.  Now, that article used to be reprinted somewhere online, but a Google search reveals nothing, nor does searching this or my last blog.  I know I posted the link, but I can’t find it.  You might be stuck spending the $6 for the magazine issue.  I can’t vouch for the articles accuracy, but it seems to have become quite popular.

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The longevity of the plastic hulls is not important.  They seem to be made from real crap, but since they are being used in a break open shotgun, paper or cardboard can easily be used instead.  Your gun can be as low as $100 this way, plus the twelve gauge has the cheapest ammo and it is the easiest to load with improvised material.  The bigger question is the life of the base.  They seem to usually be made of crap easily rusted steel rather than brass ( although I can’t vouch for this-I’m just going by appearances at the shooting range ).  You can buy a full length brass case for a buck each, but then you are negating your low price dictate.  I would just buy the loaded shells on sale for a quarter apiece and store them airtight, then when reloading keep the shells protected from moisture.  You’ll need to do that anyway once the paper hulls are being used.  I’m not sure about the longevity of all plastic shells.  If they can be re-used many times, if the base stays intact, you could always replace the upper part that is splitting with paper.  But, again, as you own the type of firearm this is something you’ll  need to experiment with.  If ALL shell types break, split, rust or disintegrate too quickly, this won’t even be a viable project.  The whole point to saving money is being able to reuse shells, besides skimping on the primer and having free powder.

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I’d just assume that the Wal-Mart $100 single shot break open shotgun is a real piece of offal and try not to buy it.  But if you can’t find a used one for that price, and have no choice but to not spend any more than possible, it is an option.  The primer material is $100 for, in theory, your ten thousand rounds in reloads, so that leaves you $100 for the ammunition.  Primed empty cases are as low as about thirteen cents, or you can just buy a loaded shell for twice that price.  Four hundred rounds of factory ammo, or 800 for shells that need your powder added.  Your choice, if you are on this limited budget.  I wouldn’t worry overly much about the projectiles as you can pretty much shoot anything loose from a shotgun.  Pebbles, pieces of nails, rusty staples pulled out of cheaply constructed trailers.  Don’t do something stupid like a steel slug ( okay, I don‘t even know if that will be possible.  Perhaps you‘ll try to improvise something equally too rigid such as aluminum ), but otherwise the pellets can be as improvised as the hull.  Glue to attach the paper to the base is as easily improvised as pitch for fletching was. 

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There might be a better way to do this, as I recall minion printed YouTube links previously.  You might instead opt for turning your war surplus bolt into a black powder rifle, hence only needing the three cent primer replacement, although I don’t know how many rounds you could shoot before fouling negated ejecting the case or how many times you could reload or how accurate it will be.  There are many factors.  But if nothing else, perhaps this got you thinking a bit outside the box.

END ( article related link http://amzn.to/2utXGX4 )
 

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21 comments:

  1. Funny that you mentioned the paper shotshells. I don’t know if you already knew this, or were accidentally right, (No offense intended) but the paper hulls are exactly what you would want if you were reloading using blackpowder. Blackpowder eats plastic up something fierce. Last I heard, there was only one manufacturer still producing the paper hulls (Check with Ballistic Products). I have some of those full brass hulls that you mention. I bought them several years ago from Cabela’s, and they were expensive back then, so probably not feasible for most poor survivalists. One nice thing about shotshells is that you can reload them if you had to without a press. I posted a youtube link here once about reloading the .410 in this manner. You might want to consider having a roll crimper if you are reloading them this way, unless you are able to fold the star crimp back to its original position easily enough.

    I’m one of the minions that made blackpowder when he was a kid. BUT, I had the sulfur, salt petre, and charcoal. If I had to produce my own sulfur and salt petre through chemical extraction or process, then no, I probably couldn’t do it. I previously posted a youtube video about a guy that extracted his own nitrates and potassium nitrate right from the farm. I can’t find it now, but it looked like it was a chrome plated bitch (Yes, I stole that one from you Jim 😀 ). But the link below will probably serve to be useful. (Hint: Buy a ton of those book matches now while you can).

    How To Reload Primers with Matches

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_7LWCFH5Gc

    Another consideration for a forever gun: One of those latest and greatest, bad ass, big bore airguns. You’d have to research this to determine if it’s feasible or not. You would have to be able to mould your own ammo, and have enough air seals, lubricants, and always have a system to charge it with air, and keep that going as well. But these guns are actually capable of taking big game such as deer and boar. Much quieter than conventional firearms as well. Definitely worthy of a consideration.

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    1. I have serious doubts it is much cheaper to buy matches, with the plastic to make them airtight, than to buy factory primers for a measly three cents each. And they certainly are not cheaper than the primer compound. And you are correct, no offense taken because I think it is funny as hell, I was accidentally right on the paper hulls.

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    2. For the matches Jim, every time you go into a 7-11, or wherever it is that you buy your cigarettes, you ask for a pack or two. Over time you will have several packs. Don’t waste money putting them into plastic containers, but rather, vacuum pack them into bags.

      This is only meant for back up. I’m pretty sure that Dick’s Encyclopedia of patents and processes has a section on the fulminate of mercury. This is something that you would never want to try, unless you were faced with no other choice. In light of this, the match head method is the far friendlier of the two processes.

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    3. The issue seems to be needing so much striker strip per match head that one book of matches is good for a max 2-4 primers. Granted, you save ten cents a match book over buying primers, but you need to subtract the cost of the plastic for vacuum packing. Yes, great for improvising, almost free, FAR better than mercury. I just question its viability over storing factory primers. Space needs to be less of a problem. It's great to know, but it probably won't get you past just a few trays worth of primers.

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    4. I just looked up the brass hulls at Ballistic Products. Turns out that they’re not as expensive as I had initially thought. $25 for 25, which seems reasonable to me. And this is worth noting; the shells use a large pistol primer instead of the traditional shotshell primer.

      http://www.ballisticproducts.com/MagTech-12ga-2-1_2-empty-brass-shotshells-for-reloading/productinfo/3921270/

      They also sell a special 12ga shotshell die, but for 12ga only.

      http://www.ballisticproducts.com/RCBS-Cowboy-Brass-Shotshell-Die-99060/productinfo/6009906/

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  2. I have yet to research shotgun shell reloading, nor putting dad's reloading rig together. In my high desert country I think of shotguns for only hunting birds. But, my dad had a box of metal cases, I think 12 ga. So somebody somewhere used metal shotgun shells.

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    1. Brass shells, right? Should keep increasing in value yearly.

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    2. 8:14 from above here. In the old days, you had two choices, paper or brass. I’m guessing that not too many folks went with the brass, because when you come across vintage shotgun shells they’re almost always waxed paper. Maybe in the 19th century they were more often brass, but I’m not sure about that.

      Pretty simple to load. Add powder, a 1/2” fiber wad over that, and compress slightly, shot, an 1/8” over the shot card, and seal with water glass (Sodium silicate). These days you might substitute the water glass with clear nail polish. You probably do not want to use plastic shot cups. I’m told that it melts really bad with black powder, and makes one hell of a mess in your barrel that takes hours to clean out.

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    3. Steel shell, I think, silverish colored.

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  3. The only brass based shells I know of currently are the Remington STS and Winchester AA target loads. The others are brass-flashed steel to delay corrosion and because it's cheaper. They are more expensive than the bulk 100-pack shotgun shells, but they throw better patterns and the extraction/insertion is much smoother. The STS and AA hulls are considered high quality for a high reload count. The STS's are probably the best ones for making a cut shell (emergency slug) because the crimp inverts towards the primer and is less likely to have the hull/wad/shot combo blow apart in flight.

    The link I sent you a couple weeks ago was for the forever shotgun concept. It's a "forever" shotgun hull base. You have a permanent base that you can fire your blackpowder rounds out of your regular single-shot shotgun.
    https://www.selfrelianceoutfitters.com/collections/muzzle-loader-adapter
    Peace out

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    1. I haven’t bought shotgun shells in many years, and didn’t know that most of the manufacturers bases were no longer made from brass. I still have a bag of vintage Winchester AA hulls from around circa early 1980’s.

      I also only more recently found out that you can load the low base hulls to high velocity standards, and that the base height actually has more to do with easier identification of the shells.

      That adapter is probably worth the $30 since it appears as if it’s designed to allow for easier extraction of the spent primer. But in the video that I saw, Dave Canterbury was using a brass base that he cut off from a shotgun shell, so you can go that route if you don’t want to spend the $30.

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  4. An other way is to turn your single shot in to a mussel loader. Dave Canterbury has the hot set ups on his u tube channel at:- https://www.youtube.com/user/wildernessoutfitters
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES59LtA7XE8&list=PL6B3D89B23CDE649F&index=3

    Larry Miday

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  5. For $30 you can buy an adapter to turn a single shot shotgun into a muzzleloader. Have not tried it yet, but it gets good reviews.
    Selfrelianceoutfitters.com in their hunting gear.

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    1. That's an amazing thing, this adapter. For 30 $ it might be something i'll try out some day :)

      Thanks for the info.

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  6. SG has .410 all-brass slug loads for $1/round https://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/golden-bear-410-3-97-grain-50-rounds?a=613987
    I've also seen these in buckshot - CTD, I think. Problem is, Berdan primers. I can't find them anywhere.
    You can drill out the case to take a 209 primer, or reuse the Berdan cups w/the match head trick. I've seen videos of converting Berdan cases to Boxer primers.
    Don't sneer at the .410 slug, it's about like a .357.

    NeilM

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  7. think I will just go buy another 100 rounds at wal-mart next time in town for $20.

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  8. The problem with brass shotgun shells, and least the magtec ones I have, is the brass is alot finner than the plastic hulls so the regular wads dont work. Improvised shotgun shells is all about getting a good gas seal on the wad. Cutting felt or cork wads etc is doable but the daimeter is criticle. They need to be thick enough as well so they dont twist in the hull and let the presure past. 12ga brass shells need 10 or 11 ga wads. I have only dabbled a bit in brass shot shell reloading, mainly 16ga, mainly because around here 16ga ammo is as scarse as rocking horse crap, and supriseingly I'm getting good results useing 12ga plastic wads in a 16ga brass hull!! Before people start to flame me as being a reckless loony for doing so useing plastic 12ga wads in magtec brass 16ga hulls is a relitively common thing.

    Brass hulls are a great idear but they take a bit of fiddleing around, smaller ga's seem easyer, have made a few 410 reloads useing blown out 303 cases. 444 marlins cases will fit in a 410 as well.
    Regards Aussie

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  9. Possum living blog written by Tracy have some instructions about making some blackpowder propellent as well - heed the warnings

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    1. Loved her book, but the blog looks to be very infrequent entries just pointing out You-Tube vids. Nothing wrong with that itself. I'm learning a lot from them, but that shouldn't be all there is.

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  10. Another forever shotgun idea. Check out the Yildiz TK-12 shotgun, a single shot folding shotgun that sells for approximately $150 new at Academy stores. Along with the 12 gauge Black powder 209 insert, as well as some Short Lane adapters (Stack N Pack Kit looks particularly nice - 20 gauge - .410 - .45acp - .22lr adapters included) you have a very adaptable firearm for not a lot of coin.

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