OK I still miss Raygun who could add a lot to things like this but I just wanted to put a few ideas out here about gun mags and concealment based on RL observation in the hopes that in sharing someone might be helped and or entertained by it.

Now in SR we have guns with mags and if you get an extended mag, you get a bit sticking out of the bottom of your gun. Now that made sense in gun terms- more ammo, longer bits. I will admitt I am an Italian gun slut and I love Berretta to bits. I have a .25 with an 8 round mag. A .380 with a 10 round mag and a 9mm with 15 round. It seems like a logical progression. The bigger guns have bigger mags and hold more rounds. I'm more comfortable and a better shot with the .380 than the 9mm so that is my fav' carry, wardrobe allowing, I'll sacrifice the larger ammo and harder hit for more accuracy.

Then I was talking to the guys at the range who said my .380 should be able to carry 13 rounds. I was shocked. I don't want something sticking out the bottom. No they explained my 10 round mags were "Brady mags" from the mid 80's and the more modern mags stack up the ammo side by side (sort of) meaning a 30% increase in capacity with no increase in size, meaning my 'concealment' doesn't suffer. which in game terms you may well be able to increase capacity for hand guns without a loss of concealment.

Now this does not always seem to hold true. I was curious about a Walther PPK and PPK-S. also a .380 and I didn't want to be just an Italian snob. It is a .380 as well, good, my prefered caliber and it is lighter than the Berretta and at a price tag about $100 less you could do well. So why am I still an Italian gun slut? Because it's barrell is about an inch shorter and while this helps for weight/concealment, it drops accuracy and more importantly, the PPK only holds 7 rounds in it's mag. The S model at $50 more holds 1, count it, 1 more bullet. Now I don't know if you go into this sort of detail in your games but just for a difference of 100 there is a significant reason to buy Italian. I can't imagine even a stacked mag, if possible, would make the Walther better.

Lastly I recently read the James Bond book Dr. No. This is the one where he must retire his .25 Berretta and gets the PPK (snort) for daily carry and for heavy work a hammerless 38special Smith and Wesson Airweight. Declared the best gun in the world. I am now convinced Fleming knew F*** all about guns. I have owned a S&W airwieght for several years. Hammerless, the official name is the "Extended J frame" the nick name is the 'bodyguard' because it lacks the protruding bits to snag on a jacket as you draw it. The problem with airwieghts and the reason I doubt Fleming's gun sense was that it is described in the book as a weapon for when things go down but in fact it is for concealed work. It has only 5 rounds, meaning a smaller cylinder so it's flatter and it is made of very light materials (airwieght) so it doesn't make a bulge in your jacket pocket BUT that lighter material means there's nothing to absorb recoil and the damn thing kicks like a stone b****. which means acucracy goes all to hell. At the range I can, with lots of work get it good at 30 feet which shocked the guys there who said it's only for about 10 feet. So this is a gun with great concealment levels but accuracy and such goes all to hell.


Oh and for the bitter record, new mags do not go for $/ 5 each.

Got me, every pistol magazine in Canada has to be 10-rounds or less, period. Rifle magazines have to be 5-rounds, even if they're internal magazines.

Made for a problem for SMLE owners, let me tell you.

Dr. No was written in 1958 wasn't it? I could see the weapons cited in the book were good at that time. My history of guns is piss poor, so I have no idea. However, the character was a spy, so tactically, he used what was discrete. A "heavy weapon" for a spy would probably be a .38 at max. Anything larger or heavier would be a "cannon" for them & not fitting what was needed.

I'm more interested in what happens if I take 2 magazines, tape them together so I can get a quick reload out of them... like so. Still a simple action to load your gun?

Not quite. The double-stack magazine fad was introduced with Browning HP, and even some modern pistols (ie. Desert Eagle) use single-stack magazines. Magazine capacities for SR guns are hit-or-miss, though - I don't understand why things like Morissey Elite or Hammerli 620 use much less ammo than others in their class (ie. very sensible 12 rounds). Of course, not every future gun is a Glock, but come on. Five rounds in a heavy pistol? Eight in something that is basically a pistol-sized shotgun?
Oh well, Remington Roomsweeper gets replaced by OTs-62 in my campaign.

Thats quite simple, Elite is a light pistol firing heavy pistol ammo witch severly restricts the ammo capacity and Hämmerli is a target shooting pistol not a combat weapon so no need for a huge magazine capacity.

This probably has a pretty hefty Concealment modifier.




-k

If anyone in this thread is confused:

"Brady Mags" = Magazines that usually have a block inserted in the bottom to prevent holding more than 10 rounds. Sometimes they're manufactured smaller to only hold 10 rounds. Nicknamed after the Brady Campaign. You have to deal with these a lot in states like California or in Canada. You can often return these magazines to full capacity by simply removing the block (of course that makes them illegal in the states where it's required.)

Dont think I can add more without being all opinion-y so I'll leave it at that.

Since there isnt a lot of variety in the SR world and the game designers arent even close to gun nuts, so I tend to think of "extended clip" option being either a double-stacked magazine or a true magazine extension.

I catch Ray online from time to time I'll see if I can cajole him into some commentary. No guarantees, but it's worth a shot.

Actually, it's not Fleming's gun sense. That change was specifically caused by an American (I think?) who wrote him letters; it's sort of an interesting story.

Maybe I should write for them? What do you guys think?

There's also "Cripple Clips" (Magazines actually, but you can see why they used "Clip" in this instance) which are PHYSICALLY bent at the bottom to only allow ten rounds to be loaded. Due to the actual physical damage done to the magazines, I hear they're considered unsafe and often cause misfeeds. Rifle Magazines in Canada are restricted to 5-rounds, BTW. Even with internal magazines/tubes/etc, IIRC. Pain for all the folks that owned SMLEs.I'm right here. Commenting.

No offense shot but sometimes I think you just talk to hear yourself speak. And while maybe it's funny sometimes, sometimes it really does just clutter the board with a lot of "noise" that really confuses the "signal."

My question about writing for CGL and talking about Cripple Clips was Signal.

And I honestly thought you were talking about me. Which may either be noise or signal or jamming used to hide the actual signal.

I think it's meaconing, you spoofed the target location.

Bah, forgive me. I'm a crass and crabby bastard at best. And after a few bottles of bad decision in a jar I should probably prohibit myself from posting. That said, I'll still see if I get Raygun to post over here...

Not me. I hit that gun-toting backwoods redneck every single time.

Hmm. He's, uh, standing right behind me, isn't he? [Hi, Ray!]

He probably knew more about guns that the people who get paid to write SR's gun rules. ...


Neither do rounds cost 2 each.

Actually, you can't. They had to be virtually unable to be modified to hold the normal amount of ammo to be legally sold. Given a machine shop etc you could "fix" that, but it requires significant work.

There are mag blocks used for hunting that work that way, but they are different.

My take on this is that sure, you could go to Weapons World and get ammo for 25 nuyen a box, but then you have RFIDs in the bullet, RFIDs in the case (if cased) and scatterable RFIDs in the powder.

A smarter move is to go to this guy your fixer knows, who runs a small production line in the back of his pawn shop, and makes clean ammo for the shadow community.

Or just use that handy dandy tag eraser on the bullets.

Back OT-My experience with extended mags was to my Hakim rifle (which I've sold as 8mm Mauser ammo is expensive and on semi-auto--well you getthe picture). The 30rd clip jammed constantly-but that was due to bad manufacturing. It was much larger than the original 10 rd clip. I've also seen the Luger Snail-drums (there goes concealability).

As someone who shoots a lot in tactical style sports like steel shooting I actually prefer classic low capacity single stack mags. They are easy to reload, but double stacks hurt your fingers when you try to fully load them and being heavier are more likely to break when dropped.

Pluses and minuses to everything. Even Revolvers have their place, after all.

I've also found that they-double stack mags-also wear out quicker. Obviously unless you're doing a lot of shooting it's not as big of a deal.

Aren't pistols made for double-stack mags also have a thicker grip? I heard a few folks complain about a few double-stacked pistols being too large for their hands (Like the Para-Ord High Capacity version of the M1911A1.).

I've actually seen quad-stack mags for rifles.







-k

Depends on the gun. The 1911 with a double-stack feels really fat, but others dont. One of the principle exercises you do when buying a gun is find one that fits your hands. I carry a full-size Springfield Armory XD45 as my CCW and it feels nice.

I'm actually surprised that you owned three guns for that long and didn't know about double-stack versus single-stack magazines. I understood those before I ever actually shot a gun, just from being a big ol' gun nerd.

That said, I assume that the caseless magazines in SR are ALREADY double-stacked as far as the magazine well will allow. Like if you look at the designs of some of the guns in SR visually, there's no way they're fitting the DEFAULT amount of ammo without an ergonomically designed double-stacked magazine. So I would imagine that if you wanted to go above that you would need a magazine with a little bit sticking out at the bottom, for reduced concealability.

This is *one thing* about firearms in Shadowrun that actually makes sense, to me at least.



You sir, are clearly a badass.

Keep in mind, 1 nuyen is (about) $5 US. I know plenty of magazines that still don't go for just $25...but it's closer, at least, and closer to average.

Isn't that adjusted for inflation in the U(CA)S doller, though? Like, isn't $5.00 UCAS in 2050s/2060s/2070s roughly equivalent to $1.00 USD today?

Then ammo is absolutely overpriced XD

Hey all. 32, Paul.

What's going on in here? Was there a particular question that needed answering? I have to warn you guys, I've been out of the SR loop pretty much since sr4 was released. Not sure how much help I'm going to be around here these days.

Well, yeah. But there's also the issue that one round for the tiniest hold-out pistol costs the same as one shotgun shell costs the same as one round for a powerful rifle. I figure the corps (spearheaded by Ares) got together and decided to level prices for ammunition, across the board.

"We'll market it as rifle ammo going dirt cheap," one executive said, "Not pistol ammo getting ridiculously expensive."

"Let's make a bunch of burst fire and full-auto stuff legal to own, while we do it. Really hit home the 'savings' to our idiot customers," another said.

"Oh! And make sure all the ads show rifles and shotguns and crap. We'll sneak in the increase in pistol ammo by distracting 'em with the big toys," spoke another.

"Yeah! And make these ridiculously huge hand cannons, like the Predator, the default. Really, let's just go ahead and take most of the powder out of light pistols and hold-outs, anyways, y'know? If we make the basic rounds really weak and charge people an arm and a leg to load their Colt Security, well, they'll eat up all this specialty ammo we offer."

"Excellent idea. If we play our cards right, we can get these assholes to shell out 10 nuyen a bullet, easily, for small caliber rounds! And we do it just by convincing them they're getting a great deal on the same specialty ammo when it's offered for a huge hunting rifle."

"Brilliant!"

And then, after a Corporate Court agreement was reached and every ammunition manufacturer in the Sixth World shook on it, someone spoke up from the back row.

"Hey guys...what about the magazines?"

I LOLed



?

Sup homes. I think there was some question about how magazine capacity really works. The difference between single stack magazines and double stacked magazines; as well as costs.

IIRC, the design for that was for a French SMG.

Just trying to have a firearms discussion that doesn't turn into a flamewar. So far, we're winning against the Internet!

Yeah, Surefire adapted them for AR-15s and the like in 60 and 100 round capacities, I'm pretty sure there's some for AKs as well.

The kicker is of course that the quad-stack magazines are MORE expensive than separate 'regular' magazines containing the same number of bullets. The 60-round mag, for example, is 120 to 130 bucks, far more than the cost of two normal 30-round mags.




-k

The flipside is that you don't have to reload after those 30-rounds. With an AR-15, NBD. Any of the other family, that can be an important difference. Wonder if they work in the Diemaco C7/C8 family.

C7/C8 is a Colt licensed clone, before Colt bought them.

Where is this figure from, and what does it mean [i.e. $5 US in 2012 dollars, or what]?

It's a general number that's been in my head for maybe ten or fifteen years now, so heck if I remember exactly where I first read it.

Of course, now that I'm looking for it I can't find it anywhere. I don't have time to really go digging right now (busy with some stuff getting close to the deadline, and I don't want Bull to get his Panther Assault Cannon out), but at a glance I can't find it in Shadows of North America. I can't seem to find my Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America, it might've been in there. It's a number I remember seeing in a section about border crossings and currency exchanges, and it's just something that stuck with me.

Raygun- -wavy- I just was floatingo ut a few things on mags- seem y first post. I still do 3rd edf so these are more generic than anything RAW spesific.

for money in 2070 1 = about $5 UCAS BUT 1 for pricing is about the same as a 2012 $1. So if you're wondering how much something costs that isn't in the rules, just get hte rl cost and then change the $ sign to a

You can't really do the tapped back to back mags for pistols. My whole point was to NOT have big ugly things sticking out of the gun. It works for long arms because they usually do not have internal mags. A double stack doesn't make the grip any bigger, the 10 and 13 round mags on my .380 fit into the same space. For the 'brady mags' I have a PS-90 carbie which is supposed to have a 50 round mag but under fed laws can only hold 30. I can see the block in there I just don't want to try and take it out- I know I'll scred it up in some expensively perminant way.

To get back to Bond, for most of the books he carries the .25 berretta. Which is no where near as good as he makes it out to be. I've described mine as "better than screaming for help...sort of" I suspect someone may have finally shown him how pitiful those were and he switched it in Dr No. For the concealment I'll grant the Walther is good. The idea for the airwewight though was that it was supposed to be what Bond takes out when he doesn't need to be subtle. Earlier he used a 'long barrelled colt.' The airweight certainly was NOT the best weapon in the world even in the 1950's. Like I said those are designed for hidden carry and a light wight but if it's the gun you leave in the glove box until... then that doens't matter. S&W and Colt both made good solid HEAVY bodied revolvers that would be superior to a freaking airweight for accuracy and ease-trust me the freaking recoil on these things is a BITCH.

The lack of a hammer on the extended j frame is also a pain- you can't cock it mannually. you have to draw from uncocked to fire each time and since the hammer is inside the frame you can't see it to see when it's about to go, the effect is at best, annoying. but it is another element detracting from accuracy.

To add another item to think on and remember i did confess to being an Italian gun slut, the most accurate hand gun I've ever fired was a Mataba, a semi-automatic revolver- a .357 magnum which used the recoil to work the mechanism-everything above the trigger rockes back. You have NO recoil effect on your hands or aim. The problem is the damn thing is honking huge- If you've ever watch Ghost in the Shell, Togasa's gun is supposed to be this .

Mataba's are pretty crazy expensive, too. Every time I've half-heartedly gone price-checking on them, they've been $1,500 or so.

It comes from here. and has been manipulated a bit. Most people figure it's UCAS$5:1 Nuyen in the 2070s.

The AWB "Brady" mags were 10 rounds. These are still made, and are what it is sold with in the PRK, though there are all sorts of other awful things you have to do to the poor gun to make it Cali legal. I've read that the 30 round mags are due to some sort of ATF rule due it being an import. FN usually doesn't do things by half-measures, so it's probably harder that it looks to convert it to 50 rounds. But you can just buy 50 round mags for $24 from Midway.

Looks like a fun gun, particularly after you form 1 or 4 it.

The most accurate pistol I've ever fired was a Desert Eagle .50 AE. I rented one at a range once. It was an amazing gun. Amazingly big, amazingly heavy, amazingly expensive, amazingly expensive to feed, and amazingly accurate. If I lived in Alaska and needed a pistol to deal with grizzlies I might look at it.

The only thing I'd heard about the accuracy of the Desert Eagle came from an acquaintance at college who said that he "had trouble handling it" despite his "Skill with firearms." I saw his targets from that run and at 20 ft he was all over the place. The smaller caliber handguns from the same night had better groupings at the same distance, so I assumed that the thing must be trouble if his ungodly ego allowed him to admit that he "had trouble."

I believe the exchange rate originated in the first edition main book, and I know it was mentioned in the original North America book. Obviously with the website having it up, all that is history.

Chiappa Rhino is new gun from the same guy who designed Mateba's.
It's very similar to Mateba's and as a new in production gun it's atleast a little cheaper.

Right, but that figure - and the figure Critias is remembering from NAGtRL - is for Shadowrun UCAS dollars to Shadowrun Nuyen, and that's not the figure that lets us compare a real-life US dollar to anything. That was why I was asking Critias, 'cause that figure's been around since NAGtRL, and people have gotten so they try to use it as if UCAS dollars from 205x are US dollars in real life.

Italian actually. SITES Spectre. Also had nice styling, it would fit right in CP2020.
I routinely make fun of people using Desert Eagles in RPGs. The gun is so impractical it's unbelievable someone was actually bothered to construct it.
Although I'd get an airsoft one, and a can of golden metallic car paint. Because bling.