Kostya

See, now you're all falling into my problem.

It seems simple, but the more you think about it, the crazier and more complex it becomes to predict.

I mean, once you start messing around with the scenario it gets pretty hard to call.

For instance, let us say that the zombie threat moves so rapidly, that all populated areas, that is to say, cities, towns, anywhere where people are congregated are overrun with zombies in three days. Human beings are tragically outnumbered by zombies, which roam the countryside is giant packs, utilising their phenomenal sense of smell to track and consume human beings.

If this were the case, people are just going to flee like crazy, picking up whatever they can find along the way. It seems to me that ad hoc living spaces would be hard to come by, obvious solutions: army bases, prisons would be crawling with zombies. Malls etc also.

In this situation, with only a tiny amount of humans surviving in small pockets, totally isolated, and unable to even get out into the countryside to scavenge, it seems that while tons upon tons of ammo and firearms would be out there, people wouldn't be able to access them readily. Of course, in this situation, there would also be no bandits, on account of the fact that the zombies are too strong to allow humans to move freely.

A well armed, hardcore bandit group could get around in say a column of tanks, but fuel would run out pretty damn quickly.

Questions: With reloading casings, what does that actually entail? Do you need anything other than an empty casing, gunpowder and a bullet or bullet sized object?

What is the availability of the ingredients needed for gunpowder? I mean is it hard to find? easy? household objects?

As you can see, I know nothing about guns, ammo, or guns and ammo in the US.

Tuffpaws, assuming that some dude is making powder, I'm not so sure it's a given that he will be absorbed into a bandit group automatically. In the initial post zombie era, I think that there would be a real 'free rider' issue in terms of bandits and survivalists. Some people might spend a year storing food, making gunpowder etc, only to have it stripped from them by bandits who essentially just leech the resources out of the people. I mean, the bandit mindset I think is more geared to quick, easy gain, a myopic view that allows them to essentially accumulate massive resources in a short time, with no regard for the longterm issues at hand. If the ammo is still around, and it keeps flowing, bandit groups, working independently, unaware of the extentof each other's impact, by engaging in quick gain activity cause in the longterm a major shortage of resources. This has happened in history often. Pirates, bandits and traveling armies totally bankrupting the systems they needed to survive for shortterm gain.

Anyway, isn't it interesting?