Gunsmith Katsumi - Akitsukuni Arms Design Quest

Character Sheet
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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[X] Double Action/Single Action (+1 Stress)
[X] Gas-Delayed Blowback
[X] Magazine in handle

DA/SA is imho the best for handguns and allows us to make the gun safe with a minimum amount of doohickeys. 8mm we could get away with simple blowback but a delayed system is preferable if we want more weigh availible for BOOLET and Gas Delayed blowback is good for that in particular since it allows us to cut down on slide mass a great deal.
 
[x] Double Action/Single Action (+1 Stress)
[x] Gas-Delayed Blowback.
[x] Magazine in handle

A Cheap and cheerful P7 or Alien would be all kinds of fun, and not that difficult at this point in time.
 
Oh no, Dynamism was a political mode of thought that was a precursor to Fascism, iirc.

Fascism, you everywhere.

[X] Double Action/Single Action (+1 Stress)
[X] Gas-Delayed Blowback
[X] Magazine in handle
 
Oh jeeze.
He gestures at a bookshelf overflowing with pamphlets and technical journals, almost all in some Europan language. Maybe Otrusian? You grab one written in proper, Akitsukuni characters and thank him again as you head out.
Picking a random pamplet written in Akitsukuni seems to have backfired hard, holy shit. I wonder if that was planted there intentionally somehow, for people who just grab a random pamphlet they could read? Ugh.

Self-loading pistols pushed the hammer back as part of the automatic loading process, and were single action. It doesn't seem impossible to make an automatic pistol with a double action trigger, but you've never seen one before.
Since we're doing an automatic, probably safe to go with an SA trigger to save Stress. People can deal with having to rack the slide or something else as part of readying the gun for action. Apparently the M1911 was single-action, so IRL precedent says DA or even DA/SA isn't a requirement?

If we're spending a stress anywhere, I think we'd strongly prefer to put the stress into a fancy action rather than the trigger. Basically all of the requirements want RoF over accuracy, which means we want to optimize the action over the trigger.

Shiragiku has a different perspective: "I've been thinking about the hand-to-hand combat requirement, actually. If you press this gun into someone's stomach it'll open the chamber and not fire. That could be critical. Also, if the barrel needs to move, we can't fasten it as tightly. That will probably affect accuracy."
How hard is it to extend the frame forward and wrap it up in front of the slide? Would solve this problem and give us a nice rigid spot to mount a bayonet add some spiky bits for whacking people with. Would it just add weight, or is there something I'm missing about how automatic pistols work? Because short-recoil is by far the simplest workable mechanism and this melee-combat requirement appears to be the only hiccup.

 
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How hard is it to extend the frame forward and wrap it up in front of the slide? Would solve this problem and give us a nice rigid spot to mount a bayonet add some spiky bits for whacking people with. Would it just add weight, or is there something I'm missing about how automatic pistols work?

That would solve the problem. However, it would make the gun longer, or the slide shorter and lighter. That may or may not be problems, depending on what you need out of the design.
 
That would solve the problem. However, it would make the gun longer, or the slide shorter and lighter. That may or may not be problems, depending on what you need out of the design.
Sounds good to me. Probably something that can be cut down significantly if we're short on weight, e.g. just a wire extension instead of a big heavy metal block like I sketched out.

[x] Single Action
[x] Short Recoil
[x] Magazine in handle

I could go for a gas operation, but I'm not sure we have the tech for it. When did powders get good enough to not foul them up? And how much stress do we have to spend?

Also, if Gas-Delayed Blowback is a form of Delayed Blowback, it really seems like that's a succeeding vote?
[ ] Delayed Blowback
Right now you're only deciding on rough ideas, you will be allowed to choose later, for example, which Delayed Blowback system you use if you vote for Delayed Blowback.
...Hold on, I'm confused. I thought that gas operation had the gas as the prime mover, not as a way to delay recoil?
 
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Fuck double-action. Those heavy trigger pulls are brutal. i barely managed to hit a target shooting DAs. A good handgun should not only be light to hold but also light to operate.

[ ] Magazine in handle
[ ] Magazine in front of trigger
I know what wound up being preferred, but what's the actual difference here beyond style? Because in terms of aesthetics I much prefer the broomhandle mauser look to the browning-pattern look.
 
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Separate magazine means the gun will be longer but you don't have to wrap your hand around the magazine. Useful for big bullets, small hands or double stacks.
Well, we're doing a big bullet, we've got small hands, and I'd be disappointed if we didn't try for a double-stack. Being longer might even be an advantage? there was no requirement given for form factor, only mass, and longer is better in CQC right?

[X] Magazine in front of trigger
[X] Single Action
[X] Gas-Delayed Blowback

e: fixed the vote
 
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...Hold on, I'm confused. I thought that gas operation had the gas as the prime mover, not as a way to delay recoil?
Gas Delayed blowback is a different system than direct impingement or a gas piston. It uses gasses from firing to push against the slide/bolt to prevent it from opening as opposed to unlocking and accelerating it.

 
[X] Single Action
[X] Delayed Blowback
[X] Magazine in front of trigger

It feels quite odd recommending front-magazine, but I think it does fit our requirements. Smaller handgrip, magazine size not limited by grip size, both good things since we're explicitly looking to put a lot of bullets in small hands, and we don't have any length or form-factor requirements whatsoever.

I'm a bit concerned about heat buildup with sustained fire with gas-delayed blowback, but it does sound very nice otherwise, particularly allowing for a lighter slide, possibly-reduced felt recoil, and fixed barrel, and hopefully with the forward magazine position the bulk of the heat will be well forward of the shooter's hand position.

Is there any particular advantage or disadvantage to ambidextrous safety/magazine catch versus single-sided but reversible, as long as we make sure it doesn't actually require any different parts to change handedness, only installing the default ones in the other orientation?
 
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[X] Double Action/Single Action (+1 Stress)
[X] Delayed Blowback
[X] Magazine in front of trigger

If I knew anything about guns I'd be trying to make this a machine pistol, but alas, I must trust in others what sounds cool.
 
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Single Action alone for service pistol is non optimal for a couple reasons. One it requires that a firearm have more safety mechanisms especially since we are going to have to carry cocked and locked to have the gun ready to go. Not only does this mean more mechanical complexity it also allows for more things to go wrong under stress as it then requires more steps in your manual of arms. Whereas with DA/SA we can get away with just a grip safety (+ maybe a decocker) and always carry with a round in the chamber, no extra steps when you need to start blasting. Now yes a Double action trigger is going to be heavier than a single action one, this doesn't mean it is necessarily a brick, and as long as its smooth we should be in good hands.
 
How hard is it to extend the frame forward and wrap it up in front of the slide? Would solve this problem and give us a nice rigid spot to mount a bayonet add some spiky bits for whacking people with. Would it just add weight, or is there something I'm missing about how automatic pistols work? Because short-recoil is by far the simplest workable mechanism and this melee-combat requirement appears to be the only hiccup.

I quite like this idea. I wonder, could we block it out a bit more? let's see here...

Yes, something like this


And since we're not putting a magazine in the grip that frees it up for other things. Perhaps a void space to save weight, or a cleaning kit for additional features? Definitely see if we can get a good grip safety on the thing, those are cool and good.
 
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I'm a bit concerned about heat buildup with sustained fire with gas-delayed blowback, but it does sound very nice otherwise, particularly allowing for a lighter slide, possibly-reduced felt recoil, and fixed barrel, and hopefully with the forward magazine position the bulk of the heat will be well forward of the shooter's hand position.
Honestly the heat buildup isn't particularly bad if you put the expansion chamber over the barrel instead of under or around it. Like the Laugo Alien is a very good race gun despite being gas delayed, while using a Steyr GB or an HK P7 would get uncomfortable over that same course. Plus it'd also let us lower the bore axis and thus make the gun even more controllable.
 
[X] Single Action
[X] Delayed Blowback
[X] Magazine in handle

DA/SA is cool but SA and a good safety let you carry the thing cocked and locked, draw, flick the safety off and start firing. When your magazine runs out, if you have a hold open, you replace the mag, drop the slide/equivalent, and the hammer's already back. In an automatic pistol, double action is honestly unnecessary. DA/SA pistols rock for gun games where you need a minimum trigger weight and they let you count the DA pull when you're actually shooting the ultralight tuned SA pull, but it's hardly a required feature. Striker fired handguns have a dead trigger once the striker's dropped too, and nobody cares.

Short recoil and magazine forward of handle are both fine, but they both have weight concerns. Short recoil doesn't directly but if you add a complicated muzzle device, that's otherwise nonfunctional mass. Magazine forward of handle means you're adding a non-functional handle, where a magazine in handle design pulls double duty.

Sadly, a gas delayed system may be super cool and I may desperately want to build a Steyr M1912/GB hybrid, but it is worth noting that you can turn a perfectly good Steyr GB into a much less good ersatz Rogak through improper maintenance, where other pistol designs can be absurdly tolerant of lacking maintenance.

If we're spending a stress anywhere, I think we'd strongly prefer to put the stress into a fancy action rather than the trigger. Basically all of the requirements want RoF over accuracy, which means we want to optimize the action over the trigger.

Personally magazine is first priority then action, but yes. Downside is that one-handed use requires the gun be carried cocked because you'd need both hands to rack the action.

How hard is it to extend the frame forward and wrap it up in front of the slide? Would solve this problem and give us a nice rigid spot to mount a bayonet add some spiky bits for whacking people with. Would it just add weight, or is there something I'm missing about how automatic pistols work? Because short-recoil is by far the simplest workable mechanism and this melee-combat requirement appears to be the only hiccup.

Totally doable, that's an accessory that exists for at the very least glocks. Here's the patent: US7578090B1 - Muzzle guard strike plate for automatic pistols - Google Patents

I don't believe the meat tenderizer look is necessary, but it speaks to mindset.
 
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And since we're not putting a magazine in the grip that frees it up for other things. Perhaps a void space to save weight, or a cleaning kit for additional features? Definitely see if we can get a good grip safety on the thing, those are cool and good.
Adding onto this, we could counteract the increased length from a forward place magazine by making the bolt telescopic.
 
Totally doable, that's an accessory that exists for at the very least glocks. Here's the patent: US7578090B1 - Muzzle guard strike plate for automatic pistols - Google Patents

I don't believe the meat tenderizer look is necessary, but it speaks to mindset.
Neat, thanks!

I wonder if we could play games with the weight by classifying the meat tenderizer as a bayonet. A bayonet wouldn't count against our kilogram, so the meat tenderizer wouldn't either, right?
 
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