Alternate Shotgun shot., One for the gun fans. Options

[Ophis]

Okay one question for you. What sort of materials is it feasible to make the balls in shot shells form? Would iron work? Or silver? What would it do to damage and wear on the barrel?

Many thanks in advance.

[DocTaotsu]

My somewhat educated opinion would be that most metals would work fine if loaded as shot. Iron and silver are relatively soft and I'm sure in 60 years barrels will be fairly hardy.

Are you angling for cold iron and silver shots by any chance? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Ryu]

The harder the shot material, the shorter barrel life. If you are willing to produce custom barrels, any material should work fine. Depending on the kind of hardening and precision you want out of the barrel, it might be more desireable to take an automatic weapon. (from a material sciences POV, don´t know about guns)

[Stahlseele]

Wood Splinters would probably not be usefull . . as in reality they would just cloud you immediately . . in SR, those runs would be good against vampires for example O.o

[kzt]

You can buy steel shot commercially. Pretty much anything can be used, particularly if you arrange the round so the shot doesn't touch the barrel by having it in some form of cup. Wood shot would seem questionable, but wood slugs would certainly work at close range.

[DocTaotsu]

Oh and one other thing, soft and/or combustible shot will probably mess up any gas operated weapons pretty quickly. Shotgun shells have a buffer between shot and charge so I suppose if you could get away with using fire hardned wood. Your range would probably not be all that spectacular though.

[djinni]

particularly if you arrange the round so the shot doesn't touch the barrel by having it in some form of cup.

shotgun rounds are already capped in this fashion hence the ability to fire shotgun rounds out of rifled barrels.

[nezumi]

Shotgun shells generally keep the shot inside of a shot cup, basically a discardable sabot. In normal shells, that keeps all the shot together as it passes through the barrel (and I'm sure also serves to help protect the interior of the barrel, since steel shot is available with no special considerations for the shotgun shooting it). As long as you can keep whatever you're firing inside of that cup (i.e. - no uncontained liquids) and it'll come free of the cup once it leaves the barrel, it should be fine. However how effective the shot is is largely a function of density. Wood won't work well because of its low density. You'd have to find some rare, magical, ancient hardwood from the depths of Siberia, possibly giving it some super-dense core, to be effective.

[DocTaotsu]

Less siberian... iron wood perhaps?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olea_laurifolia

There are more common sorts that exist in North American and are only slightly less dense.

[nezumi]

Ironwood is still about eighth the density of iron, so far from ideal.

[DocTaotsu]

True but like I said earlier, if you're shooting anything that isn't standard shot out of a weapon, you're not looking for spectacular performance. I'd assume ranges would go down, accuracy would go straight out the window and you probably have a pretty decent chance of messing up your weapon (glitch from hell? Gunsmith: "Why are there... splinters, in this gas vent?")

In relation to vampires. Could you make some sort of wood jacketed shot (for the extra mass you mentioned)? Or a frangible shot with wood on the inside?

[nezumi]

I don't think it would be much more likely to damage the weapon (since it's still in the cup). The concern is when you shoot the ironwood, it hits the vampire, fails to penetrate his armor jacket, and he laughs merrily as he eats your face.

[Jaid]

would petrified wood help? =P

(probably not actually, now i think about it... still not terribly heavy compared to lead)

[DocTaotsu]

Oooh.. but did he remember to buy that armored FACE?

But point taken, you are certainly not going to get any sort of armor penetration with wood.

How about a metal tipped but wood shafted flechette or some such? Wouldn't that ruin his vampiric night?

[Daier Mune]

silicon powder shells have always been an interesting concept. pretty much no armor penetration, i can't begin to imagine what sort of damage that would do to someone's eyes and lungs. of course, you'd need to protect yourself from the same dangers, and don't fire it into the wind.

[nezumi]

I have never heard of silicon powder shells. You're just imagining a bean bag full of sand that bursts open on impact? So stun damage plus a bunch of sand in the area? From reading what's on my kid's sand box, eye and nose irritation, possibly long-term risk of cancer.

In regards to the wood, the best thing I can imagine would be to get a 10 gauge super magnum round, take out the cushion in the middle. The wood would be some sort of super-special wood (like I said), probably with a heavy penetrator core, maybe tungsten. So it would be sort of like a giant tungsten pencil. It still wouldn't have the range of normal steel, I couldn't imagine, but with the tungsten there, it would have enough umph to get out of the barrel and the metal point would make for a fairly effective penetrator, with the "stake" following.

Having never done metalworking, muchless with tungsten, I have no idea how difficult this would be manufacture, but it would be tremendously cost-prohibitive, and probably almost impossible with a rifle of any reasonable size.

[DocTaotsu]

But I'm sure dedicated vampire hunters have probably found a way. Severe allergy wood will ruin anyones day.

[nezumi]

Well there's certainly nothing stopping them from putting hardened wood chips (again using whatever magical and natural methods are available) into some sort of a battle club or sword.

Then again, my ganger's board with a nail in it is suddenly a lot more valuable than it was before...

[Stahlseele]

or they could just use things like bow and arrow and crossbows for that . .

[Shrike30]

Bow and crossbow would work. So might a hollowpoint with a wooden sliver in the tip, or an explosive round with some wood worked into it... somewhere.

Honestly, it depends on how much of an issue you want it to be to get wooden ammunition into your game. Keep in mind, ironwood may only have a SG around 1.5, but how well does it compress? I'd probably take a note from Hi-C ammunition, and go that way... maybe adding the +2 AP from Frangible ammunition on top of that.

[jago668]

Well actually some of the steel duck shot do warn of barrel damage, just as a general fyi. For the loading mechanism troubles, that is what pump, double barrel, and over and unders are for. As to the OP, any metal could be used, I imagine with the correctly worked materials stone could easily be put in as well.

Wood is the one you could run into trouble, you wouldn't want to try to load a bunch of after dinner toothpicks into a round. I imagine slugs could be made to work, though range and accuracy would be less than ideal, along with damage. Thinking about it, the easiest way if you just need wood in the wound and not the leading edge. Take a flat piece of metal, and attach a thin rod to the middle of the flat side, so you have something that looks like a T. Then get a cylinder of wood and put a hole through it so it slides down over the T of metal. Then put a metal cap on it shaped kinda like ^ (with the pointy bit on the opposite side from the flat piece of metal). Then you have something that will penetrate and hold the wood. |----> would be the closest example I could think of to something that might work.

A solid shaped wooden slug would fire, but my above frankenstein round might give you slightly better range, and penetration. Be hell to craft and load them though.

[Snow_Fox]

Shotgun shells generally keep the shot inside of a shot cup, basically a discardable sabot. In normal shells, that keeps all the shot together as it passes through the barrel. As long as you can keep whatever you're firing inside of that cup and it'll come free of the cup once it leaves the barrel, it should be fine. However how effective the shot is is largely a function of density. Wood won't work well because of its low density.

that covers it pretty well but at close range, wood should work but it will be expensive as hell.-remember arrows. They actually did this on Mythbusters- loading details into a smooth bore cannoin and shaped wood did just fine. Do the same thing of a 12 guage scale is expensive but do able.

[Angelone]

Still amused by this. How big a wtf?!? moment would it be if a ghoul shot you up with some. Doesn't even have to be a ghoul just the thought of being shot with this would freak people out. Not to mention it probably stings to high heaven.

[DocTaotsu]

hehe... smoked wood chips vs. vampire. Tasty and deadly.

If a ghoul eats a vampire... is it still wrong?

[ICPick]

Quite simply use a sabot round of whatever you want to use, lead included, and inlay it with wood. The sabot is already lesser in diameter, so the added bulk from the wood will not be a problem. The wood doesnt necessarily have to do the damage, but its presence will aggravate the wound and not allow it to close correctly. The is exactly the reason why arrows work, even though they have a metal head.

If you are a dedicated vampire hunter, you probably know a mage as well... How about a shape wood spell, and then the outside of the sabot round can now be coated with wood, all except for the tip, as the pressures could cause it to flake off in flight. Hell, doing that you would even be able to use the original packing.