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Gunsmith Katsumi - Akitsukuni Arms Design Quest

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Character Sheet
  • Informational
    • Tachibana Katsumi

    Stress: 5/10

    Accomplishments
    Mechanical Engineering degree
    Got a job in your field
    Type 37 Special Purpose Rifle
    Type 38 Self-Loading Pistol

    Friends
    Maeda Rumi: Your roommate.
    Sanders Clara Rose: A colleague who works for Naylor, Sons & Daughters.

    Coworkers
    Mr. Watanabe: Your superior.
    Mr. Akutagawa: The boss of the company.

    Workshop 3
    Ms. Ikeda Nioh: Chemist. She also seems to be Mr Watanabe's personal secretary, but you're not sure if that's an official position.
    Mr. Yakade Yasuo: Physicist, specialized in ballistics. A living, breathing Technical Appendix C.
    Mx. Kusonoki Mayumi: Has a degree in materials science. Gets a look on their face when they say they know more about wood than anyone.
    Mr. Shiragiku Hideyoshi: Metalworker. Having met him, you've learned why metalworking is a craft and the meaning of the phrase "thinks himself heaven's gift to women".
    Mr. Kashiwa Ichiro: An apprentice gunsmith with a background in carpentry and actually using guns on people.

    Technologies
    Rifles (Familiar)
    Shotguns (Familiar)
    Pistols (Familiar)

    Rotate-and-pull bolts (Practical)
    Straight-pull bolts (Practical)
    Aperture sights (Practical)
    Stripper clips (Practical)
    Lever-delayed blowback operation (Practical)
    Double-stack magazines (Practical)
    Single-action handguns (Practical)
    En bloc clips (Conceptual)
    Simple blowback operation (Conceptual)
    Short recoil operation (Conceptual)
    Toggle-delayed blowback operation (Conceptual)
    Blow forward operation (Conceptual)
    Simple blowback operation (Conceptual)
    Double-action pistols (Conceptual)
    Automatic revolvers (Conceptual)
     
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  • Informational
    • Whitney Wolverine might be a decent idea for what our pistol could look like to impress that Navy guy. That was made quite a bit later than the time-frame in our quest, but I'm just talking about the swoopy curves and what-not rather than anything mechanically significant.
     
    [X] interesting!

    [X] Automatic
    -[X] Common Calibre - Write In: 7.63 Katzen

    Could even make two versions, an N version for the navy with a 20-round stick mag and an A version for the Army with a longer and heavier barrel both for range and for clubbing people over the head.

    Actually, the more I think about that the better of an idea it sounds like. Soon enough the Army will want the 20-round mag for their long barrel models and we'll have the Artillery Luger, and from then it's a hop skip and jump to submachine guns.
     
    [X] interesting!

    [X] Automatic
    -[X] Common Calibre - Write In: 7.63 Katzen

    Not opposed to the crazy revolver plans, but I think this option's got more legs for fun stuff, especially if future contracts let us turn our round developers loose on it. If we do the revolver plan, I'd argue we should go right for the .455, and possibly the LeMat shotgun plan, because it sounds like that'd please the the army (admittedly according to the navy) and we kinda look to have a split requirement where chasing both just kinda gets us a muddle.
     
    firestorm440 said:
    Could even make two versions, an N version for the navy with a 20-round stick mag and an A version for the Army with a longer and heavier barrel both for range and for clubbing people over the head.

    Actually, the more I think about that the better of an idea it sounds like. Soon enough the Army will want the 20-round mag for their long barrel models and we'll have the Artillery Luger, and from then it's a hop skip and jump to submachine guns.
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    Interchangeable magazines on a pistol fitted for but not with multiple magazines on a gun makes a lot of sense here. Sure it's complex, but there's other major advantages, and making variants comparatively facile feels like enough to tip it over the edge.

    So we've got the Wilde to show that stacking two staggered columns of ammunition works in a handgun handle. However, do we know that we want to require the user pay the cost of multiple magazines and keep them safe in the field? Does the army trust its troops to be switched on enough to keep their expensive magazines safe and not mix them up with their buddy's gun (we're a good enough manufacturer in all likelihood to make them properly interchangeable, but do they trust us to be that good, and do they trust war production examples to be that good).

    What if we take the Wilde idea, but make it expose both columns rather than jamming the columns into a middle file, both to make our magazine's life easier (at the cost of making the feed geometry a bit worse, this will have ramifications later on for how the barrel extension's designed), and to allow incorporation of a Palten-Werke style stripper clip guide. Our magazine will be comparatively very smooth and easy to load, not require a hold open for the magazine lips like the Palten-Werke does (which can lead to embarrassing impromptu ejection of the magazine's contents), and be extremely well suited to a large default capacity and positively cavernous extended magazines like it seems one of our clients wants. This even opens up the possibility of users who want more firepower without extreme bulk holstering with a small magazine but carrying larger reloads, and soldiers to carry extra ammunition to sustain their advance without needing an excess of surplus magazines.

    Just think about it. Large magazine standard, and flush fitting with the grip in case you're a branch of the military worried about magazine damage when hitting someone with the butt. If ten shots quick isn't enough and you want more rounds, buy a big magazine with more rounds on tap! If you're prepping for a trench raid, don't worry that you only have two or three magazines matched to your gun, grab a few more stripper clips!
     
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    The issues with Double stack double feed mags though is that IIRC we need a wider bolt, it will be even thicker than a double stack single feed mag, more complex machining operations, and more weight. Granted given we don't have the ability to do stamped parts yet, any detachable mag is gonna involve a great deal of machining. On the third hand we do have a decent amount of leeway wrt price so I suppose there is no harm in going wild.
     
    Sarpedon said:
    The issues with Double stack double feed mags though is that IIRC we need a wider bolt, it will be even thicker than a double stack single feed mag, more complex machining operations, and more weight. Granted given we don't have the ability to do stamped parts yet, any detachable mag is gonna involve a great deal of machining. On the third hand we do have a decent amount of leeway wrt price so I suppose there is no harm in going wild.
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    But we do have to worry about weight. Double stack anything is gonna be wider and heavier. Honestly 1kg empty is a fairly tight target at this point so I wouldn't aim for more than 8-10 rounds for now. If there's a detachable magazine we can go bigger later but that's not something I feel like we should make a priority over producing a quality cost-competitive product at the weight target.
     
    xthetenth said:
    Interchangeable magazines on a pistol fitted for but not with multiple magazines on a gun makes a lot of sense here. Sure it's complex, but there's other major advantages, and making variants comparatively facile feels like enough to tip it over the edge.
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    Pretty much, yeah. There have been historical rifles meant to be reloaded with stripper clips but could have the magazine swapped out in a pinch as well. I was thinking we could build a pistol along the same lines. Pitch the removable magazine as meant for ease of cleaning/maintenance as well as for special use of elite assault troops who need the rapid fire rate, while average Joe (average Taro?) gets the magazine he gets and reloads it with stripper clips. That sets us up nicely for transitioning into magazine reloading a little bit down the road as well.

    Variants we could do based on those guts:
    • Standard 8/10 round magazine, short barrel (maybe for military police, engineers, artillerymen, etc?)
    • Standard 8/10 round magazine, long barrel (Army variant, we could maybe stick a weight on the base of the grip so they can fantasize about breaking heads with that big heavy club that's also supposed to somehow be accurate out to 150 meters what the fuck are these people consuming why don't we just put a bayonet lug on the tip of the barrel and call it a day who knows the generals will probably unironically love it)
    • Extended 20 round magazine, short barrel (Navy variant)
    • Extended 20 round magazine, long barrel (for special forces, assault troops, etc, maybe a pilot survival weapon as well?)
    Should probably have the long barrel variants come with a stock, too. They want a stock and maybe the Army will actually be able to hit someone out past 20 meters or so with one.
     
    Honestly, I'm thinking double-stack single-feed rig, which is something that shouldn't be too bearish on springs for if we go make stripper clips a loading option- and I'm gonna say the Army is gonna like that as a feature, since they're going to be issuing a lot of these to NCOs who won't really need multiple detachable mags to pour in the fire. For detaching magazines, since we don't actually need to worry about the spring as much, we can easily whip up them long sticks and just drill a pair of holes at the bottom so you can depress the spring with one chopstick and lock the follower down with another and just drop the bullets in.

    speededit- also I really want a controlled feed for when this thing inevitably missfires, because it's pistol ammo and it will absolutely missfire at the most frustrating time possible.
     
    Vebyast said:
    [X] Common Calibre - Write In: .22LR.
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    .22LR is actually not a common calibre yet. If you want something in that category, try .22 Short or .22 Long instead.

    plotvitalnpc said:
    Woah, wait, the weird cartridge used specifically for the nagant revolver's gas seal system is the most common revolver round?
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    While the Nagant M1895 is mostly associated with Russia today, it was a very popular revolver in this period, and used by Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Russia, among others.

    coyote16able said:
    How common is .38 special?
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    Pretty common! It's the round used in the massively successful Sessions & White Military & Police revolver.
     
    Eukie said:
    .22LR is actually not a common calibre yet. If you want something in that category, try .22 Short or .22 Long instead.



    While the Nagant M1895 is mostly associated with Russia today, it was a very popular revolver in this period, and used by Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Russia, among others.



    Pretty common! It's the round used in the massively successful Sessions & White Military & Police revolver.
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    One day we must make a .22 winchester magnum rimfire bullet hose.
    Even though that round won't exist during the scope of this quest.
    Hm. .22 hornet appears earlier.
     
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    In regards to the idea with the single shot shotgun barrel , uhh is there a reason that it could in theory not also fire a flare?
    I mean loading the shotgun barrel is I think the problem unless its front loaded?
    /is not a gun nerd.
    Because the army and navy might like " BAM you are dead" and also the secondary uses out of it . I mean shotting someone a flare into the face would also still hurt them even if you decided to load flare over shotgun door removal.
     
    For Army it's going to be a secondary weapon. For Navy it's going to be a primary one. So in theory we should focus on Navy requirenments and not on Army. Buuuuuuut if we do that, Army judges (Army's men in commitee or whoever is the deciding body here) will give us 0 points out of spite. So we should try to balance both armed forces requirenments or politics will kill our superior gun.
     
    Chopak said:
    For Army it's going to be a secondary weapon. For Navy it's going to be a primary one. So in theory we should focus on Navy requirenments and not on Army. Buuuuuuut if we do that, Army judges (Army's men in commitee or whoever is the deciding body here) will give us 0 points out of spite. So we should try to balance both armed forces requirenments or politics will kill our superior gun.
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    I mean, I'm down for giving it a ridiculous standard bayonet fitting to toss them a bone, and its also possible that the Navy read of the Army is more traditional politics than reality.
     
    Scia said:
    In regards to the idea with the single shot shotgun barrel , uhh is there a reason that it could in theory not also fire a flare?
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    12 guage flares are a much more modern thing and flares of this time period tended to be rather larger. So, we'd need to design our own mini-flares, or make the single shot barrel 25, 26.5 or 37 mm, which would be all sorts of fun in non-flare mode.

    I was going to leave it there, but we're just kind of savoring the mental image of this handgun with a single shot barrel for the shell out of a smallish punt gun. The injuries would be horiffic if they managed to find someone stupid enough to fire that. It would look absurd.
     
    If we make it so that the non flare round is a low velocity HESH round, recoil might be mitigated somewhat while retaining the ability to open naval bulkhead doors.
     
    Inquiring Mind said:
    12 guage flares are a much more modern thing and flares of this time period tended to be rather larger. So, we'd need to design our own mini-flares, or make the single shot barrel 25, 26.5 or 37 mm, which would be all sorts of fun in non-flare mode.

    I was going to leave it there, but we're just kind of savoring the mental image of this handgun with a single shot barrel for the shell out of a smallish punt gun. The injuries would be horiffic if they managed to find someone stupid enough to fire that. It would look absurd.
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    ... what is the size of a current grenade? I mean " one shot grenade launcher into a room" is usefull for boarding if we go with a 26'5 mm gun.
    AND , as it is a optional ammo to use we can pretend that without it we are still below 1 KG /madness
     
    Scia said:
    ... what is the size of a current grenade? I mean " one shot grenade launcher into a room" is usefull for boarding if we go with a 26'5 mm gun.
    AND , as it is a optional ammo to use we can pretend that without it we are still below 1 KG /madness
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    Won't work, rifle grenades haven't been invented yet and even if they were the assembly would put us way over the weight since 1kg is very tight, never mind the fact that firing it would break wrists like twigs.
     
    How did I go to sleep dreaming of a Mauser C96 with removable magazine and optional Schnellfeuer conversion and wake up to a revolver/shotgun/flare gun/grenade launcher/literal handcannon firing HESH?
     
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