There are tens (hundreds?) of millions of firearms available in the ZA. And tons of ammunition. You just have to find them. If you use, lose, or break those, you need to find more. IIRC, Glenn found silencers in someone’s freezer.
Weapons selection is whatever is in the armory. Either Alexandria’s armory, a police station and vehicles, a military base and military vehicles, sporting goods stores, pawn shops, many of the vehicles belonging to the fleeing people on the roads, every pickup truck in Georgia, adversaries who lost the fight, etc. Alexandria’s scavenger groups have been combing the area for over two years.
If there is a choice between a bolt action rifle and a weapon capable of select-fire w/full automatic capabilities, who would opt for the bolt action? First come, first served. But you carry your own ammo.
Parts from one Winchester 94 is interchangeable with other Winchester 94s. AK47s are almost indestructible and immune to the handling of the most inept user.
Lead is the new gold in these modern middle ages. Lead formed into the proper sized and weight bullets requires dies and primitive smelting equipment. Resizing brass or steel cases requires accurate dies, a press the applies lots-o-pressure, and proper lube. KY ain’t gonna do it. Black powder is easier to make than slow/medium/fast burning smokeless propellant but it’s dirty and would foul the barrel and action. Especially gas-operated weapons. Building working primers of the proper size and flash rate would be the most difficult part.
Find 'em, fix 'em, or make 'em, it’s a TV show. The writers will provide.
Johnny L.A.-I don’t know about the rest of them, but our girl Rosita has the gloves with no fingers and I think you have to fire a weapon on full auto if you wear them.
Another thing- the bad guys have a one-shot crossbow and pop Denise through the head. The good guys have three people with full auto weapons and shoot three bad guys and Eugene bites one in the dick.
It’s a wonder any of these people are alive.
The zombies seem to be no problem at all, unless the writers want to get rid of someone.
I didn’t expect to see Denise get killed that way, but didn’t care and I won’t miss her.
Eugene’s eventual plan was pretty good and he only needed 20 or 30 seconds of bite-time IF the plan worked as he hoped. Or else he was a deadman.
Out numbered 9 to 1, he had been taken captive. When he was reunited with Daryl and Rosita, and saw the still armed Abe Ford hiding in the barrels, Eugene managed to direct the Savor’s attention away from Daryl/Rosita and towards the barrels. He also alerted Daryl and Rosita to the fact that they weren’t alone. But this distraction wouldn’t last long.
Eugene now needed a 2nd diversion to allow Abe, Daryl and Rosita to begin their attack. Kneeling on railroad ties with his hands tied/taped behind his back, his options were limited. Headbutt Dwayne, hit Dwayne with his shoulder, or rolled into him to knock him off his feet, drawing the Saviors attention away from the barrels and Daryl/Rosita and towards the new commotion. Momentary confusion can be your friend but it’s short lived.
Eugene chose a fourth option. Eugene would also hope that one of his three amigos would kill Dwayne before he could kill Eugene.
While I think the plethora of automatic weapons is unrealistic, what I really object to is the ‘spray and pray’ everyone engages in. Yes, there’s a ton of ammunition. Somewhere. But very recently shelves were cleared of ammunition just because there’s a Democrat in the White House. Seriously, there are threads about it. In an actual apocalypse, you’ll be very lucky to find very much ammunition at all – especially in 5.56x45/.223 or the Russian calibers. Or .22, for that matter. (But most .22s aren’t select-fire. )
Yes, the Writers shall provide. Except when it heightens the drama for them to withhold. And then fresh ammunition will just grow like Topsy when they decide the audience wants a lot of noise.
But I still think Our Gang have been incredibly stupid regarding ammunition ever since the beginning.
Finding them is not trivial. As Glenn pointed out soon after the Terminus escape, the low-hanging fruit has long since been taken; all the gun shops and police armories have been scavenged. At this point they have to look in unlikely places, and the prime determinant of success is luck. It’s not like they have tricorders.
Of course he’s talking about octane. A cursory search reveals such things as ‘Nice thing about 100LL is that it doesn’t turn to varnish, like pump gas.’ But that’s an R/C message board, so TIFWIW. For actual avgas used in actual airplane engines, this .pdf says:
So it looks like avgas is much more stable than mogas.
Now, the problem with using avgas in the ZA is that avgas contains lead and modern cars don’t like lead. OTOH, there are plenty of cars to use when one dies.
I still think someone should be rendering zombies into Diesel fuel. And algae probably grows pretty well too. And ethanol or methanol can be made from any number of plants. As to actual gasoline, I wonder how long it ‘keeps’ in the underground tanks? And as to power in general, I like that Alexandria has solar power. It’s a viable option, and it’s easier to obtain components than it was a couple of decades ago. They should have more Leafs and Teslas.
Standardization, the hero of manufactuing and the bane of the DIYer. The primers would have to match one of two primer pocket sizes and produce the required amount of flame. Not too much and not too little.
The basic primer consists of a copper cup, a primary explosive that ignites when crushed, a fuel, which also serves to push the flame from the primer pocket into the propellent’s case, an oxidizer for a bigger bang, and an anvil (for Boxer-type primers) which provides the resistance needed to crush the explosive. Plus binders to hold the mixture together.
Lead styphnate (lead 2,4,6-trinitroresorcinate, C 6 HN 3 O 8 Pb) is the current choice of explosive for non-corrosive primers. Potassium chlorate (KClO3) was used in the ol’ fashion corrosive primers. Both work but KClO3 is salty, which requires constant weapons cleaning.
Even longer version -
For centerfire cartidges there are two sizes of primer. Small (0.175") and large (0.210"). Those are separated into small pistol, small rifle, large pistol, and large rifle. And those are separated into regular and magnum. (Shotgun cartridges use a different size and mixture.)
Plus, the primer should be seated between 0.003" and 0.005" below the level of the case head. Any higher and the primer may accidentally ignite when the bolt face impacts the cartridge when chambering a round. Any lower and the firing pin may not crush the cup sufficiently to ignite the lead styphnate.
