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Originally Posted by Kostya
Same goes for the country, with the exception of bomb shelters, I can't really see the country being too much different, apart from the fact that some people might have time to construct rudimentary defenses. The same essential problems arise: food and water, and I can't see them being solved easily.
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Well as far as water goes there woulden't be as much of a problem for those in the 'country'. At least in my area if you're not on the city water system, which is to say that you're outside the city limits, your source of water is a well that has been sunk when your house was first built. These homes have their own purifiers and in many cases water softeners, though in this scenario once their salt on hand runs out due to isloation from cities the softeners would be useless, but thats really a luxury anyway.
Also depending on how country a particular house/area is they very well may have self-canned goods (if they have a garden, hobby farm, or full-sized farm) stored away enough to last for quite some time if rationed down until a more stable source of food is present
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Originally Posted by Kostya
Reloading your ammunition:
The problem I see here is essentially twofold:
Number one, collecting the materials you need. Frankly I don't think it's likely that people are going to have the vision or the capacity to consider this move for quite some time. It would be difficult, though not impossible to access sulphur and nitrate, but even so, I think it would be rare for someone to have immediate, ongoing access to all three ingredients.
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I agree with the fact that sulfur (outside of labratories) would be difficult to find, but potassium nitrate is also found naturally in vegtable matter and is released during decay. Compost piles, anyone who already composts has a headstart on a nitrate production. If they think of it.
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Originally Posted by Kostya
...given he also then has to procure bullets, or bullet like objects, and construct each cartridge, individually. Sounds like an awful lot of work.
...I mean, how many shells could one guy make? Surely not that many.
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A a small point, but still something to be pointed out, is that there is a large and growing number of hunters and shooters (the very same people who would likely have the majority of guns and ammunition outside of the Military and LE) who already reload their on ammunition. There are constantly new and easier ways to reload, so speed and outputwould, I'd suspect, to be higher than you think, and they would already have the tools and consumables needed for some amount of reloading on hand, including gunpowder. As for amount, really that would only be limited by the brass on hand, consumables (gunpowder, bullets, primer caps), and effort a person would put into it.
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Originally Posted by Kostya
This is not to say that it's not a possibility, but I think that there are some objections to it being a widespread practice.
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I'm not arguing that, in comparison to the total amount of people left the few who would have the skills for reloading would be few indeed. Though it could also be said that the fact that they are fewer would simply mean they the would have less competition for the supplies that they would need.
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Originally Posted by Kostya
However, I might be wrong, is it possible for to produce huge amounts of ammo using simplistice, non industrial methods?
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Well, theres always the possibilty of reverting to muzzleloading type firearms. Then all you need is an appropriatly sized bullet (lead can be heated in the coals of a fire and poured into a very simple spherical mold), gunpower, and some cloth for wadding
Most everything, besides the wells, that I say woulden't nessarily work in the long term, but it would work for a period of time during the inital chaos. Plus, I figure any knowledge may be useful.
Heh, that was a long post... Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong on anything.