Best resource for guns?

[sharky]

Hey folks doing some more work on my Western/steampunk campaign and was starting to work on the gun/items list. Was wondering if you guys could point me towards some guns, stuff before 1900. As well as any kind of steampunk weapons. I don't have the money to just download ever pdf that I think might have some guns in it so I appreciate the help.

[Mankcam]

I would think you may like 'Investigator Weapons Vol 1 & 2', and also 'Aces High'.

Investigator Weapons Vol 1 pretty much covers late 1800s and early 1900s. Vol 2 covers from WW2 to the contemporary era.

Volume 1 is what you may find of interest I think, although the bulk of it will have 1920s and 1930s guns, but there are a fair amount from the late 1800s:  http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/100789/Investigator-Weapons-volume-1

The BRP's monograph 'Aces High' has a reasonable amount of western-era firearms as well, plus other info that may be relevant for your setting: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/82068/Aces-High

Not sure where to start on Steampunk. The BRP Renaissance system 'Clockwork & Chivalry' does have rules for Clockwork inventions, which may or may not be what you are after. I think I would just let my imagination run wild with steampunk inventions, and stat the technology up as I need it.

 

Edited September 26, 2016 by Mankcam

[RosenMcStern]

Or you might wait two or three weeks until the free Revolution D100 SRD is available to the public

[Mankcam]

...and that is likely to be another great option!

[sharky]

4 hours ago, Mankcam said:

I would think you may like 'Investigator Weapons Vol 1 & 2', and also 'Aces High'.

Investigator Weapons Vol 1 pretty much covers late 1800s and early 1900s. Vol 2 covers from WW2 to the contemporary era.

Volume 1 is what you may find of interest I think, although the bulk of it will have 1920s and 1930s guns, but there are a fair amount from the late 1800s:  http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/100789/Investigator-Weapons-volume-1

The BRP's monograph 'Aces High' has a reasonable amount of western-era firearms as well, plus other info that may be relevant for your setting: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/82068/Aces-High

Not sure where to start on Steampunk. The BRP Renaissance system 'Clockwork & Chivalry' does have rules for Clockwork inventions, which may or may not be what you are after. I think I would just let my imagination run wild with steampunk inventions, and stat the technology up as I need it.

 

Sweet! I'll check these out, I figured that would happen for steampunk stuff.

 

And is there any more info on this free srd coming out?

[g33k]

On 9/26/2016 at 4:24 AM, sharky said:

And is there any more info on this free srd coming out?

Revolution has its own subforum here on BRPCental:   http://basicroleplaying.org/forum/18-revolution-d100/

Also, you may wish to review the free "firearms" PDF for RQ6/Mythras:  http://thedesignmechanism.com/resources/RQ Firearms.pdf

 

[MrJealousy]

I've been working on something like this for what seems like an absolute age now...

Have a look at this and save your dollars... Calibre 10

[Mysterioso]

49 minutes ago, MrJealousy said:

I've been working on something like this for what seems like an absolute age now...

Have a look at this and save your dollars... Calibre 10

This has many of the firearms found in the Sharpe novels!

[MrJealousy]

Firearms from 1770 to 1900, it's going to include as many firearms as I can get information on! Sharpe does cover the right period and is pretty accessible

[SDLeary]

28 minutes ago, MrJealousy said:

Firearms from 1770 to 1900, it's going to include as many firearms as I can get information on! Sharpe does cover the right period and is pretty accessible

Damn! Thats lots of info!

How did you figure damage though? The Mannlicher Carbine (8mm Mannlicher) and the Krag look a little underpowered (if after blackpowder days), or the Gewher 98 a little overpowered. 

SDLeary

Edited September 28, 2016 by SDLeary

[MrJealousy]

I have an excel spreadsheet that uses the Taylor Knockout (TKO) Formula that relies on as much hard data that I can find, supplemented by some hand waving Calibre, muzzle loading, black powder, percussion caps and cartridge weapons all have a modifier that affects the TKO impact velocity, which is then looked up on a table of dice+mods.

It's not perfect, and it never will be, but it gets all of the firearms into (approximately) the right levels of carnage. Most importantly, all of the weapons are built off of the same data. I feel that it works pretty well in the black powder area, not so well when you get to modern(ish) cartridges...

Edited September 28, 2016 by MrJealousy

[Atgxtg]

Another good source is The Knuckleduster Firearms Shop : a Compendium of Weapons for Western Role-Playing Games. It covers firearms from the 19th century, and rates them on a relative scale in several categories. It not that difficult to adapt their generic rating scale to game values for  specfic RPG systems. In fact, the book even gives you a conversion sheet to do just that. 

Not surprisingly, the biggest point of contention with it is probably the damage scale used. Knuckleduster seems to emphasis bullet mass and diameter over other factors in determining damage ratings. As damage is treated as penetration ability in BRP, the rule can make some firearms more effective against target behind cover than they should be. But it pretty difficult to get a damage scale for firearms that can handle every weapon all that accurately in BRP. Realistically, you need to add in some sort of way to differentiate between penetration, damage, and stun/shock( "stopping power") capabilities of the various rounds, and even then user skill is usually a far greater component to how effective a firearm is than the round being fired.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2016 by Atgxtg

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, MrJealousy said:

I have an excel spreadsheet that uses the Taylor Knockout (TKO) Formula that relies on as much hard data that I can find, supplemented by some hand waving Calibre, muzzle loading, black powder, percussion caps and cartridge weapons all have a modifier that affects the TKO impact velocity, which is then looked up on a table of dice+mods.

It's not perfect, and it never will be, but it gets all of the firearms into (approximately) the right levels of carnage. Most importantly, all of the weapons are built off of the same data. I feel that it works pretty well in the black powder area, not so well when you get to modern(ish) cartridges...

I agree. I think the problem is that the TKOF is designed for hunting purposes. The idea being that the round has to drop a game animal with a single shot. A lethal wound that fails to incapacitate the animal is more of a burden to a hunter, since he has to track down a kill an very upset animal. 

I also think that the reason why TKO doesn't work as well for modern weapon damages is because modern rifle bullets are narrower than modern pistol rounds. Against people, especially those with body armor and/or cover, penetration becomes more important, and a wound that incapacitates or kills a opponent might end up doing more actual "damage" that one from a bullet with a higher TKO. Hence a 9mm Parabellum round ends up with a higher TKOF than a 5.56 NATO round. Plus lighter smaller bullets, make it easier to carry more rounds, and a guy with 200 rounds is probably going to be more useful in combat than a guy with 6. Older firearms come out better because the old musket and rifle bullets had diameters as big or bigger than the old pistol and revolver bullets. 

Basically the TKO formula is a compromise between bullet energy/area and momentum. Is probably on the right track as far as "damage" goes, but probably a lies a little too close to momentum. But like you said, weapon damage is not perfect and never will be. 

 

Personally, I'd like to raise the bullet velocity factor in the TKOF to a power of ^1.5 and see if it matches up a bit better for modern firearms. 

 

[Gundamentalist]

On 26/09/2016 at 7:43 AM, Mankcam said:

Investigator Weapons Vol 1 pretty much covers late 1800s and early 1900s. Vol 2 covers from WW2 to the contemporary era.

If you are not in a hurry, Hans has written volume 3 which covers 1870-1910 for Gaslight. I'm waiting for my layout chap to finish up what he's doing so we can get to work on the Gaslight volume.

[SDLeary]

What caught my eye was actually widely differing game damage for two "similar" cartridges. 8mm Mannlicher (I'm assuming 8x50R) and 8mm Mauser. While the Mauser was the more capable cartridge, 1d4+1 seems a little low for a rifle cartridge, especially a round nose cartridge like this. Mauser is 1d8. 

By comparison, both seem underpowered as a No. 1 Marlin Baby 22 (what we would today call .22 Short) gets 1d4.

The amount of work that you've put into this though, damn! How long for just the entry??

SDLeary

[Mysterioso]

If interested in Victorian guns, this rather fantastic Kickstarter (which is still running right now) just opened a stretch goal that will feature write-ups of them by the author of the Investigator Guns series.

 

 

 

[MrJealousy]

On 29/09/2016 at 0:49 AM, SDLeary said:

What caught my eye was actually widely differing game damage for two "similar" cartridges. 8mm Mannlicher (I'm assuming 8x50R) and 8mm Mauser. While the Mauser was the more capable cartridge, 1d4+1 seems a little low for a rifle cartridge, especially a round nose cartridge like this. Mauser is 1d8. 

By comparison, both seem underpowered as a No. 1 Marlin Baby 22 (what we would today call .22 Short) gets 1d4.

The amount of work that you've put into this though, damn! How long for just the entry??

SDLeary

Yes... I had noticed the disappointing damages for some of the modern weapons. So I went back and added a new variable Now the spreadsheet has a modifier for black powder, an 'intermediary' smokeless and a 'modern' cordite. Looks much more appropriate to me now... but I'm not ready to show it to you lot yet, apologies!

How much work? Lets have a look... hmm, the earliest version of the spreadsheet I have is dated March 2012! I should probably get round to attempting to finish this project!!!

I suppose I slowed down on doing this when Chaosium went through their 'hiccup', and when BRP stopped being a thing I could contribute to...

The original plan was to combine this spreadsheet with a brief description of every firearm in the table to produce a (fairly) conclusive firearms bible. It wouldn't just give you the stats for every gun, it would give you some background to all of those weapons too. The combined document is 140 pages so far...

Edited October 16, 2016 by MrJealousy

[Stoatbringer]

One of my players suggested this magazine article for Cowboy era firearms rules. http://www.yog-sothoth.com/wiki/index.php/The_Good,_the_Bad_and_the_Utterly_Insane

[10baseT]

I always found the GURPS books very informative, (Their Old West and Steam Tech pdf's are only 7.99). I use many of their books for BRP and I typically use the same damage for BRP/CoC that GURPS uses for their weapons damage. Just a straight port over.

Someone already mentioned the Investigator Weapons vol 1 and 2. I have to say, those are both informative and a nice addition to any gamer's library.

[corejob]

On 10/15/2016 at 6:10 PM, MrJealousy said:

Yes... I had noticed the disappointing damages for some of the modern weapons. So I went back and added a new variable Now the spreadsheet has a modifier for black powder, an 'intermediary' smokeless and a 'modern' cordite. 

The type of propellant used is essentially meaningless.  The same bullet propelled at the same velocity is going to have the same performance regardless as to whether it's black powder or modern smokeless. The only difference is going to be the cloud of smoke produced. I am not sure why one would list cordite as a "modern" powder as it hasn't been used for decades.  Modern propellants are typically single, double or triple base composed of (respectively) nitrocellulose, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, and nitrocellulose, nitroglycerine and nitroguanidine.  In actual performance, similar cartridges will have similar performance and unless you are using a lot of granularity, the difference between cartridges of the same class will be minor.

[Atgxtg]

On 10/20/2016 at 3:35 AM, corejob said:

The type of propellant used is essentially meaningless.  The same bullet propelled at the same velocity is going to have the same performance regardless as to whether it's black powder or modern smokeless. The only difference is going to be the cloud of smoke produced. I am not sure why one would list cordite as a "modern" powder as it hasn't been used for decades.  Modern propellants are typically single, double or triple base composed of (respectively) nitrocellulose, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, and nitrocellulose, nitroglycerine and nitroguanidine.  In actual performance, similar cartridges will have similar performance and unless you are using a lot of granularity, the difference between cartridges of the same class will be minor.

Yeah. The problem here is with the TKO formula. It's really designed for hunting, and so focuses more on the ability of the round to take down prey. The problem being that what might work best for a bear or tiger might not work as well on a human. A lot of the heavier hunting rounds will just go right through a man, and dump most of it's energy into the tree behind him. Also, a lot of light, fast bullets that can take down a man are not very effective against something big like an elk. 

That's why I suggested tweaking the TKO formula by raising the velocity component to a power of 1.5. This would shift the damage ratings a bit away from the older, heavier, slower rounds, and a bit closer to the faster deeper penetrating rounds used in modern firearms. 

 

[SDLeary]

On 10/20/2016 at 0:35 AM, corejob said:

The type of propellant used is essentially meaningless.  The same bullet propelled at the same velocity is going to have the same performance regardless as to whether it's black powder or modern smokeless. The only difference is going to be the cloud of smoke produced. I am not sure why one would list cordite as a "modern" powder as it hasn't been used for decades.  Modern propellants are typically single, double or triple base composed of (respectively) nitrocellulose, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, and nitrocellulose, nitroglycerine and nitroguanidine.  In actual performance, similar cartridges will have similar performance and unless you are using a lot of granularity, the difference between cartridges of the same class will be minor.

Assuming same velocity, yes. But Black Powder was lower in energy compared to Smokeless. Many tests of the time show bullets that used Smokeless Powder propelled to a higher velocity. In fact the difference was great enough at the chamber that many rifles had to be revised to handle smokeless.

SDLeary

[Toadmaster]

19 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Assuming same velocity, yes. But Black Powder was lower in energy compared to Smokeless. Many tests of the time show bullets that used Smokeless Powder propelled to a higher velocity. In fact the difference was great enough at the chamber that many rifles had to be revised to handle smokeless.

SDLeary

That is due to volume and speed of burning. Since blackpowder takes more volume than smokeless powders, it is easy to create unsafe pressures when using smokeless powder in a cartridge designed for black powder because you can pile more into the case. Since many smokeless powders also burn faster they can create a sharper pressure spike adding to the issue. There are "blackpowder" cartridges being used in modern weapons at pressures that would blow the original weapons apart.

 

As far as the OP, there are plenty of online sources although you would have to do your own conversions. Not really that hard though if you compare to the fairly extensive list already available. Wikipedia is a good start

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Guns_of_the_American_West

 

Forgotten Weapons can be fun for some of the more odd and obscure weapons that have been made such as the Gabbett-Fairfax Mars which would be the perfect choice for a Steam Punk "Dirty" Harry Callahan, it was a semi-auto with power similar to the .44 magnum, but available 57 years before S&W introduced the .44 Magnum and 94 years before Clint Eastwood made the .44 Automag famous in Sudden Impact.

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/early-automatic-pistols/gabbett-fairfax-mars/

 

Edited October 23, 2016 by Toadmaster

[SDLeary]

3 hours ago, Toadmaster said:

That is due to volume and speed of burning. Since blackpowder takes more volume than smokeless powders, it is easy to create unsafe pressures when using smokeless powder in a cartridge designed for black powder because you can pile more into the case. Since many smokeless powders also burn faster they can create a sharper pressure spike adding to the issue. There are "blackpowder" cartridges being used in modern weapons at pressures that would blow the original weapons apart.

Yes, but somewhat relevant to the OP, as they are looking for a Western/Steampunk game. In the late 1880's adoption in Europe began, and the new propellants were reportedly 2-3 times as powerful. 

Quote

 

Forgotten Weapons can be fun for some of the more odd and obscure weapons that have been made such as the Gabbett-Fairfax Mars which would be the perfect choice for a Steam Punk "Dirty" Harry Callahan, it was a semi-auto with power similar to the .44 magnum, but available 57 years before S&W introduced the .44 Magnum and 94 years before Clint Eastwood made the .44 Automag famous in Sudden Impact.

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/early-automatic-pistols/gabbett-fairfax-mars/

 

This site has had a lot of good looks at weapons that would fit this genre nicely. They have been looking at a lot of early automatic handguns, such as the c96 Mauser, early Lugers, and others; as well as mid 19thC combination weapons such as the 1861 LeMat.

SDLeary

Edited October 24, 2016 by SDLeary

[Toadmaster]

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

Yes, but somewhat relevant to the OP, as they are looking for a Western/Steampunk game. In the late 1880's adoption in Europe began, and the new propellants were reportedly 2-3 times as powerful. 

This site has had a lot of good looks at weapons that would fit this genre nicely. They have been looking at a lot of early automatic handguns, such as the c96 Mauser, early Lugers, and others; as well as mid 19thC combination weapons such as the 1861 LeMat.

SDLeary

Agree, I was just piling onto your comment. I agree with the statement that a bullet of x weight at x velocity will have the same end effect regardless of propellant, but smokeless powder can propel that projectile faster than black powder can.