How do you make ammo after the world ends?
January 2, 2010 10:13 AM Subscribe
How could you keep current guns supplied with ammo in a post-apocalyptic situation?
posted by spacefire to Technology (28 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
I understand that the shelf life of ammunition is not that long. In the books I read, Earth Abides and Summer of The Apocalypse, about 50 years after civilization had been erased, using guns was a matter of hit and miss, and not because of aiming, but because of misfires of old ammo.
I assume that with proper care, the guns themselves can be used for over a hundred years.
So, with this in mind, what kind of facilities would a pocket of survivors need to keep their cache of weapons (say handguns, sub machine guns, hunting rifles and maybe some .50s) well supplied with ammo. Let us assume they run out of pre-apocalypse cartridges or pre-apocalypse cartridges start misfiring? I know possibly the casing can be reused but what about the bullets themselves, the cordite and the percussion caps. What does it take to get those made, assuming they don't have the luxury of an up and running pre-apocalypse factory?