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Garrowolf
A friend of mine is really into ballistics. He hates how shadowrun damage codes are so he worked up this list. He has studied this stuff at school so I trust him on it. I thought that other people might find it useful. I don't know enough to debate about this but debate amoung yourselves. The entries with NA are apparently because not everyone makes each kind of round or it wouldn't work right in it or some other problem.

Enjoy

Damage Codes by Caliber

Pistol and Submachine Gun Calibers
Caliber Short Barrel / AP Medium Barrel / AP Long Barrel / AP
4.6x30mm HK 4P/-2 5P/-3 6P/-4
.22 Long Rifle 2P/-0 3P/-1 4P/-1
.25 Automatic 2P/+1 3P/-0 4P/-1
5.45x18mm Soviet 3P/-0 4P/-1 5P/-2
5.7x28mm FN NA 5P/-3 6P/-4
7.62x25mm Russian Tokarev 4P/-0 5P/-1 6P/-2
.32 Automatic 2P/+1 3P/-0 4P/-1
9mm Makarov 2P/+1 3P/-0 4P/-1
9mm Parabellum (Luger) 4P/+1 5P/-0 6P/-1
9x23mm Winchester 4P/-0 5P/-1 6P/-2
.357 SIG 5P/-0 6P/-1 7P/-2
.380 Automatic (9mm Kurz) 2P/+1 3P/-0 4P/-1
.38 Super 4P/-1 5P/-2 6P/-3
10mm Automatic 5P/-0 6P/-1 7P/-2
.40 S&W 5P/-0 6P/-1 7P/-2
.400 CorBon 5P/-0 6P/-1 7P/-2
.40 Super 5P/-1 6P/-2 7P/-3
.44 AutoMag 5P/-1 6P/-2 7P/-3
.440 CorBon Magnum 6P/+1 7P/-0 8P/-1
.45 ACP 5P/-0 6P/-1 7P/-2
.45 Super 5P/-1 6P/-2 7P/-3
.45 Winchester Magnum 6P/-0 7P/-1 8P/-2
.475 Wildey Magnum 6P/-1 7P/-2 8P/-3
.50 Action Express 6P/-0 7P/-1 8P/-2

Revolver Calibers
Caliber Short Barrel / AP Medium Barrel / AP Long Barrel / AP
.22 Long Rifle 2P/-0 3P/-1 4P/-2
.357 Magnum 5P/-0 6P/-1 7P/-2
.38 Special 3P/+1 4P/-0 5P/-1
.41 Magnum 4P/-0 5P/-1 6P/-2
.44 Special 5P/-0 6P/-1 7P/-2
.44 Magnum 5P/-1 6P/-2 7P/-3
.45 Long Colt 5P/-0 6P/-1 7P/-2
.454 Casull 6P/-1 7P/-2 8P/-3
.475 Linebaugh 6P/-2 7P/-3 8P/-4
.500 Linebaugh 6P/-3 7P/-4 8P/-5
.500 Magnum 6P/-3 7P/-4 8P/-5


Rifle and Carbine Calibers
Caliber Carbine Assault Rifle Sporting Rifle Sniper Rifle
.22 Long Rifle 4P/-1 NA 6P/-3 NA
.22 Hornet 5P/-1 NA 6P/-3 NA
5.45x39mm Soviet 5P/-1 6P/-2 6P/-3 NA
5.7x28mm FN 6P/-4 6P/-5 NA NA
.223 Remington (5.56x45mm NATO) 5P/-1 6P/-2 6P/-3 6P/-4
.22-250 Remington NA NA 6P/-3 NA
.243 Winchester NA NA 8P/-4 8P/-5
.25-06 Remington NA NA 9P/-3 9P/-4
6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser 8P/-2 NA 8P/-4 8P/-5
.260 Remington NA NA 9P/-3 9P/-4
.270 Winchester NA NA 9P/-3 9P/-4
.270 Weatherby Magnum NA NA 9P/-4 9P/-5
7x57mm Mauser 8P/-2 NA 9P/-4 9P/-5
7mm-08 Remington 8P/-2 NA 9P/-4 9P/-5
7mm Remington Magnum NA NA 9P/-4 9P/-5
.30-30 Winchester 8P/-2 NA 8P/-4 NA
.308 Winchester (7.62x51mm NATO) 8P/-2 9P/-3 9P/-4 9P/-5
.30-06 Springfield NA NA 9P/-4 9P/-5
.300 Winchester Short Magnum (.300 WSM) NA NA 10P/-3 10P/-4
.300 Winchester Magnum NA NA 10P/-3 10P/-4
7.62x39mm Soviet 5P/-1 6P/-2 6P/-3 NA
7.62x53mm Russian NA NA 9P/-4 9P/-5
.303 British 8P/-2 NA 9P/-4 9P/-5
8x57mm Mauser (7.92x57mm Mauser) NA NA 9P/-4 9P/-5
.338 Winchester Magnum NA NA 11P/-3 11P/-4
.338 Lapua Magnum NA NA 11P/-4 11P/-5
.340 Weatherby Magnum NA NA 11P/-4 11P/-5
9x90mm Metallwerk Elisenhϋtte Nassau (MEN) NA NA NA 14P/-4
.375 Holland & Holland NA NA 13P/-3 NA
.404 Jeffrey NA NA 13P/-3 NA
.408 Cheyenne Tactical NA NA NA 14P/-4
.416 Rigby NA NA 13P/-3 NA
.416 Remington Magnum NA NA 13P/-3 NA
.444 Marlin 8P/-2 NA 9P/-4 NA
.45-70 Government 9P/-1 NA 10P/-3 NA
.450 Marlin 9P/-2 NA 10P/-4 NA
.458 Winchester Magnum NA NA 13P/-3 NA
.470 Nitro Express NA NA 13P/-3 NA
.50 Browning (BMG) NA NA 14P/-4 14P/-5
12.7x108mm Soviet NA NA 14P/-4 14P/-5
14.5x114mm Soviet NA NA 16P/-3 16P/-4
.585 Nyati NA NA 13P/-3 NA
.600 Nitro Express NA NA 13P/-4 NA
.700 Nitro Express NA NA 14P/-3 NA

Austere Emancipator
Seems reasonable on a quick glance. There are oddities which, I assume, are down to the author being a fan of certain calibers and not having completely thought through the effects of different kinds of ammunition on terminal ballistics -- for example, the 5.7x28mm and 4.6x30mm are hugely overrated here, and say what you will about the 5.56x45mm but it will outperform a .22 LR from a 20" barrel by a mile. As good as any of the other similar lists that have been posted here, I'd say.
Sir_Psycho
O_o

So what's the best caliber to blow my head clean off.
Serbitar
this one:

14.5x114mm Soviet NA NA 16P/-3 16P/-4

Where is 7.62x51mm NATO ? Edit: ah there
Austere Emancipator
...I thought the layout looked familiar.
Does your friend hang around over here or did he run into Raygun's site in some other way?
Thanee
Apparantly used Raygun's table as a starting point, yeah. smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
cetiah
This is cool.
But I know nothing about calibers or firearms.
Any chance of getting descriptions and/or stats about their associated weaponry?
Austere Emancipator
The more common calibers you can simply check up on Wikipedia. Nearly all you will find good, thorough descriptions for with Google. But if you know very little about guns, a good starting point is the Wikipedia article Firearms and Raygun's site.
sunnyside
Hmmm. I'm thinking that his list doesn't mesh too well with the shadowrun system.

For example I believe that "heavy" pistols are supposed to be about as high a caliber as you'd see in a pistol. The preditor would at least be a .50AE and by 2070 I wouldn't be suprised if they have magnums fireable in a pistol.


And the Ruger super Warhawk is supposed to be carrying such a big caliber that a pistol frame can't handle it. That would put it at least in the .50 magnum catagory.

And so on.

What I'm saying is that while he may have the calibers roughly well aligned with each other he hasn't calibrated them to shadowrun, and any campaign that runs with these numbers will be deadlier than usual as players will fall over each other tossing out all the crappy 2070 guns and heading over to the antique store to get a REAL weapon.

(And don't even get me started on what they'll be asking their gunsmith contact for)
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (sunnyside)
For example I believe that "heavy" pistols are supposed to be about as high a caliber as you'd see in a pistol.

I'm quite confident the makers of SR4 intended no such thing. Otherwise they'd have heavy weapon recoil penalties, far smaller magazine capacities, ranges up to and beyond 200 meters and they'd do almost as much damage as the shotguns.

QUOTE (sunnyside)
[...] by 2070 I wouldn't be suprised if they have magnums fireable in a pistol.

You can fire a whole lot of "magnums" from semi-automatic pistols -- consider the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle, for example. The .500 S&W is just too huge to fit into a through-grip magazine, otherwise I'm sure someone would've done that.

QUOTE (sunnyside)
[...] players will fall over each other tossing out all the crappy 2070 guns and heading over to the antique store to get a REAL weapon.

That just requires the GM to be not to be a complete fucking moron. There should always be a balancing factor, just like there is in real life. A .50 AE might, all other things being equal, do more damage to a human than a 9x19mm, .40 S&W or a .45 ACP. Yet the former sees almost zero use in actual combat, while the latter three are extremely common. There are damn good reasons for that, and if the GM wants realistic firearms in his games, he'll have to keep those reasons in mind.
Thane36425
Somewhere I saw an article about this. It said roughly that holdout pistols were like .22s and .25s. Light pistols were above .25 to 9mm, and heavy pistols .40 and up. A .357 magnum would probably be a heavy pistol though. Monsters like the .454 Casull and the .50 AE and .500 S&W should be another step up from heavy pistols because of their power. They should be in a Magnum class with + 1 or 2 power over heavy pistols. Wish I could remember where I saw that article.

The heavy pistols in SR have too high a magazine capacity to include the big magnums. That probably means the Predator is either a .40 or a .45, possible a .357. The Warhawk is probably a .44 magnum, since there is a real world class of revolvers by Ruger like the Warhawk that are .44s. The revolvers I have seen in the .50 range only have 5 shots in the cylinder, not six, though there may be one that does have six. There is also a conversion kit for the M-16 that consists of a new barrel and upper receiver that allows it to fire the .50 ammo. It uses the standard 30 round M-16 magazine, but it can only hold 10, .50 rounds.

The assault rifles would include everything from 5.45 Russian, 5.56 Nato to 7.62 x 39mm Russian and civilian rounds in the same range. Sporting rifles are probably .243 through .30-06, to include 7.62 x 51mm Nato. Sniper rilfes would be from 7.62 Nato to .338 Lapua (sp.) and others. The difference in damage and range int he game is from superior craftsmanship and accurization of the rifles.

The thing to keep in mind is that desginers were working on broad categories for simplicity of use in the game. Rather than have charts and charts of weapons, like in GURPS, you only have to look up a category of weapon and use the base stats. The easiest way to modify the base system would be to use the weapon customization rules in Cannon Companion. Want a heavy pistol with longer range/ Use the formulas and costs to make one. Want more power? Do the same. Gets to be a lot of book keeping though.
Thane36425
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

That just requires the GM to be not to be a complete fucking moron. There should always be a balancing factor, just like there is in real life. A .50 AE might, all other things being equal, do more damage to a human than a 9x19mm, .40 S&W or a .45 ACP. Yet the former sees almost zero use in actual combat, while the latter three are extremely common. There are damn good reasons for that, and if the GM wants realistic firearms in his games, he'll have to keep those reasons in mind.

The reasons those calibers are so common are: controllability during firing, magazine capacity, weight of ammo, and damage potential.

A heavy magnum can do a lot of damage, if you actually hit your target on the first shot. That isn't likely in combat. The recoil or the magnums, meaning the .44s and .50s, takes longer to recover from than a 9mm or a .40. The lighter calibers can get off more controlled shots faster, which will increase their chances of a hit. Just watch some video people firing a 9mm or even a .45 compared to firing a .50 and you can see the difference in controllability.

Ammo capacity is also big in combat. The old 1911 .45 was popular for its power, but it only had 7 rounds in the magazine. One reason the switch to 9mm was made was because a 9mm could carry 15 rounds. That's 8 more shots before having to reload over the .45. That might not sound like a big deal, but if you are fumbling around changing a magazine and the other guy is still firing or closing in with rounds still ready to fire, it is a very big deal.

Magnums have more power than the others, obviously, but probably too much. At the same time, the 9mm has too little. That's why there is a big push to bring back the .45 in the military today, in one of the newer pistols that has a higher magazine capacity.

Weight of ammo is another. It won't have much affect on SR, but in the real world, you can carry several more rounds of 9mm per pound than of .45. By the same token you could probably carry quite a few more .45s per pound than you could .50s.
sunnyside
Alright. It's true if I try to fire a .45 at a shadowrunish pace (one round every 1.5 seconds) the results are, frankly, embarrassing. While smaller guns do much better.

On the other hand my wrist suffers from a notable lack of a pop out gyrostabalizer. I am also not seven feet tall, with thick slabs of bio augmented mussel.

These are problems many runners do not suffer from.

Now it actually would be interesting if guns had more variety and maybe it would be more realistic, but be aware you're essentially adding ~2DV/-2AP accross the board for at least the samies.
Garrowolf
Well he thought that most of the weapons were not deadly enough and I didn't have a problem with that given the medical technology. Now we are using real world guns with smartlinks added and have thrown out the guns in the book. I think that he uses two .45s for everyday shooting and he likes the FN P90 with the matching pistol using the same rounds.
Like I said though, I don't know guns very well at all so I take all my advice about them from him.
Spike
I know my guns reasonably well. I'm not even going to address this list or others like it, because I'm not that interested in realistic results in an RPG. This sort of granularity in the calibres is frankly embarrassing, and in the end probably no more accurate or realistic than what we have.

Instead you have a long list of calibres to look up, and from the sounds of thing higher lethality. How deep a penetration into ballistic jelly equates to what DV? There is no 'real world' study of that sort of thing, because we've got makebelieve rules to reflect a makebelieve reality with a slightly different set of assumptions than our own.

In other words: It's a game, and it works better the way it is, rather than adding another three pages of ammo classes... talker.gif
Thane36425
QUOTE (Garrowolf)
Well he thought that most of the weapons were not deadly enough and I didn't have a problem with that given the medical technology. Now we are using real world guns with smartlinks added and have thrown out the guns in the book. I think that he uses two .45s for everyday shooting and he likes the FN P90 with the matching pistol using the same rounds.
Like I said though, I don't know guns very well at all so I take all my advice about them from him.

I read a statistic a few years ago that 85% of people shot with handguns in the US survive. Now, that doesn't mean that like in SR they get off scot free. Most of them have some kind of disability from it, not to mention mental trauma. Didn't read anything though about shotgun and rifle kill ratios though, but I would imagine that they would be higher. So, the damage codes are probably pretty close to being right.

Most people get their knowledge of guns from the movies. Things like the hero fires in the general direction of the bad guy with a 9mm and the guy flies across the room, or someone take a little stab wound in the side and they keel over dead. Not very realistic. Now that's not saying getting shot or stabbed is a picnic, far from it. Rather, the movies and TV programs aren't really a good place to learn about weapon effects, except maybe those real life ER programs and even then they pick and choose cases so it is not completely accurate.

If you can find it, there is a book by Chris Pfouts (sp.) called Lead Poisoning. Its got stories about people who were shot and survived. Has everything from .22 pistols to 7.62 x 51mm NATO hits. Probably be hard to find though because it didn't have a big printing and was published around 1990.
Garrowolf
Well my friend didn't get his ideas from movies. He studied ballistics and he has been shot several times. I don't think that he has any dellusions about them. He focuses on realism in games about guns. I focus on realism about computers. It is just our interests.

The survivability rate is the body test.

I'm not saying you should use these tables. I do and they work fine. They increase the realism of the setting for some of my players. Those who don't know guns at all don't care anyway. I was just posing for those who are interested. If you like raygun's stuff then you might like this.

The whole idea is that now it is very easy to translate real world guns that you may like.
You would have to go through this step at some point to do that.

I have no problems making guns very deadly because I want people in my games to duck and seek cover. If they are just taking it most of the time (which i'm not saying they always do) then it ruins the game for me. They are behaving like video game characters at that point.

kzt
QUOTE (Thane36425)
I read a statistic a few years ago that 85% of people shot with handguns in the US survive. Now, that doesn't mean that like in SR they get off scot free. Most of them have some kind of disability from it, not to mention mental trauma. Didn't read anything though about shotgun and rifle kill ratios though, but I would imagine that they would be higher.

Pistol bullets are really pretty ineffectual in taking people out of a fight. Unless you get a CNS hit it's hard to stop a motivated attacker with one or two bullets. You may inflict lethal damage, but it doesn't mean that they can't finish stabbing you to death before their body decides to die.

Shotguns and rifles tend to be far more effective in actually making people stop fighting you right now. Which is why my personal belief is that handgun damage in SR is somewhat to highly overrated, and long-arm damage is somewhat to lot underrated.

But I also think that maintaining a high level of abstraction is useful, mostly because it prevents the "perfect weapon effect". Given that there are 4 fairly popular pistol calibers and about a dozen fairly popular manufactures used by people and organizations that have invested a lot of effort into selecting the "perfect" pistol I'd tend to argue that there is really very little difference between them that doesn't boil down to personal preferences that can't be modeled in SR.
MaxHunter
I totally agree with you, KZT. I kinda like the mechanics so far. I won't use it myself, however, this list of ammo and calibers could be interesting for the gun-savvy members of the list, who are quite a few and whose knowledge is usually enriching and fun, more than detrimental.

And I would like to remind people that if you want to introduce your players to the sadly realistic grit of gunfire induced disabilities, you can always wait for a glitch in the damage resistance test.

(Now I would not do that, I value my personal life too much and I am not totally sure I can outrun my players forever)

Cheers,

Max
kigmatzomat
Anyone looking for some more detailed information should dig up a copy of "Edge of the Sword, Volume 1." It was a "generic" RPG supplement published by an armorer that evaluated each weapon from bench firing. There are conversions of the internal data to various RPGs.

It gives accuracy groupings at ranges along with velocity profiles, kinetic energy, and theoretical tissue disruption. Tissue disruption is essentially the volume of flesh that would be mangled by the bullet's passage but does not incorporate the quasi-mythical hydrostatic shock.

You can compare the relative penetrations of different rounds by calculating the kinetic energy vs. cross section. I'd probably apply a modifier to account for speed, as higher velocities require a greater rate of energy transfer. The converse is that more massive rounds are better able to survive impact intact.

Were I going to go through the exercise for SR4 (I did it for SR2 back in the 90s), I'd set the damage code by the tissue disruption, power by the kinetic energy and add an AP modifier based on speed (slow rounds have weak penetration, high velocity rounds get extra penetration).

But you'll never be able to completely model the real world of ballistics in a game. Heck, the military has a huge desire to do so and the best they can do to my knowledge is to get a statistical value over large numbers of troops.

An obvious problem is that RPGs fail to account for bleed-out in a useful fashion. .22LR is pretty hard to kill someone or even incapacitate them but after enough hits they can bleed to death. D20's -9hp and SR's stabilization only kick in after unconsciousness.

I am not sure the effort at the game table is always worth the "bonus" of added realism. If the game is fun, screw the rest.
sunnyside
By the way if you're looking to differentiate firearms more and your characters are into that sort of thing you might want to consider other factors. Some of which used to be around.

Concealability (plus minus modifiers generally encourages runners to take smaller frames)

acccuracy ( a modifier on the dice pool. )

reliability. (Guns jam and have other problems, more than a lot of people think especially if you're running around and banging them into things. I would treat this as a modifier for the number of 1's that need to be rolled for a glitch. If a glitch is rolled purely due to this modifier the player hasn't shot himself in the foot or anything but instead the gun doesn't fire or fires with penalties. I would generally be harder on the larger rounds here. it even makes (some) sense that problems are more likely to happen to unskilled users. For example I have a 9mm that is very particular about how you handle the slide when chambering a round. Punishing you by messing up the recoil spring. )

extra recoil penalties. (maybe even penalties to the first shot if compensation of some kind is not used. Technically recoil starts as soon as the bullet starts accelerating.)

Range tweaks

And anything in the cannon companion (some of these were in there)

Also feel free to give models special rules. For example maybe you could have a pistol that has an enclosed or different action so can fire it easier from inside your coat or when in close combat.

This, obviously, is for people who are into guns and like pouring over long lists of options and enjoy GM handouts about the newest models this month, not the people who required that the damage system be dumbed down.
Garrowolf
Actually one of the things that go us thinking more about this is that I ran a game of Spycraft 2.0 a while back and he really loved that he could actually visualize his character better because he knew abot the guns he had. When we started a SR4 game the vagueness was reinforced.

I am actually using the SR4 rules to run a STL scifi game. With a few tweeks like removing magic and some new equipment it is working great. There is a social movement to focus on the past in order to not loose our identity in space. People are trying to build old style guns and so it made it really easy to create them. I just figure out what caliber it had and modify it based on if it was inaccurate or whatever. I allows us to combine an interest in space settings with an interest in history and helps emmerce the players.
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