What materials are weapons made of in Fallout?

Sn1p3r187

Sn1p3r187

Carolinian Shaolin Monk
In particular, the pistols. I'm wondering if Fallout kinda went down are current path in history and stuck to making a lot of polymer framed pistols in comparison to steel alloy pistols. Knowing what I've seen with Fallout 1-4. I think maybe they went down the path of steel pistols, but I can never be too sure because of Bethesda changing the narrative. Polymer pistols are really damn reliable but the problems stem from them basically being industrial grade plastic. And what's plastic made of? Petroleum oil. I would think that by the oil crisis that struck by the 2050's they wouldn't be using the oil in making frames for pistols knowing they need it for energy and other products. But they could always have a large reserve strictly for use by the U.S Armed Forces. Anyway, what material do you think they used for their weapons? Here's some images to get an idea from-
http://cs402818.vk.me/v402818695/d8b/fV3nJ9vg30M.jpg
http://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/130/images/44946-2-1324070307.jpg
http://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/images/130/2580563-1423658450.jpg
 
I think they'd stick with metal and wood, maybe a little polymer (something classic like Bakelite, even) for grips and stuff.
Most of the weapons look like it, too, with the obvious exception of the XL70E3.
 
Hassknecht said:
I think they'd stick with metal and wood, maybe a little polymer (something classic like Bakelite, even) for grips and stuff.
Most of the weapons look like it, too, with the obvious exception of the XL70E3.
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Yes I happened to notice that with that rifle. And generally steel weapons in my opinion are more reliable and heat resistant than polymer Tupperware ware pistols or rifles.
 
they could recyclate? remember, you see plastic waste 200 years in the future. and many weapons have alot of plastic stuffs. hell, the institute weapons are almost whole from some sort of plastic. also, if you look outside you can find whole mountains of plastic waste around, in dumps and such. they could recycle it. also, there are even today alternative methods of gaining oil or making plastics.
 
Martin said:
they could recyclate? remember, you see plastic waste 200 years in the future. and many weapons have alot of plastic stuffs. hell, the institute weapons are almost whole from some sort of plastic. also, if you look outside you can find whole mountains of plastic waste around, in dumps and such. they could recycle it. also, there are even today alternative methods of gaining oil or making plastics.
Click to expand...
They could but generally I think steel is more reliable and just as common as plastic so it'd likely they be making weapons out of steel for the majority.
 
Sn1p3r187 said:
They could but generally I think steel is more reliable and just as common as plastic so it'd likely they be making weapons out of steel for the majority.
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well, worlds resources were pretty much at zero, we do not know how bad it really was, but we can see that most parts are indeed from some sort of metal, thats not even worth discussion, but certain parts are from plastic/wood. look at fallout 4 and possible mods for weapons. all types of materials are used. and since f4 is canon, its legit.
 
Recycling plastics isn't all that trivial, though.
Most metals you can smelt and reforge, but many modern plastics don't work that way.
 
Old thread, but going by the retro-50 aesthetic, a lot of consumer products were made of glass, ceramic or metal.
Nuka Cola comes in glass bottles not plastic ones.

Complete tangent:
And when I really think of it, carrying 5 or 10 glass bottles Sunset Sarsaparilla in your pack sounds terrible. Aside from being awkward, heavy and prone to breaking, soda is a not a good beverage for the wasteland survivor.

The only things that used plastics did so because it needed to be lightweight, sterile and/or disposable. A large share of those items being medicinals like IV bags of RadAway or syringes like Stimpacks. The other items being "futuristic" military gear that needed lightweight components like laser guns and combat armor.

The 10mm gun of Fallout 1 always fit this aesthetic quite well. It's this chunk of metal.
It's also partly why I think people didn't like all the futuristic guns in FO2. I recall there being a pulse rifle. And I don't mean an energy weapons. I'm talking about one of those rifles with a block of caseless ammunition.

Still I go with the idea of this uneasy truce between retro-50's with cyberpunk. They have the technology to use plastic, but for the average consumer, this wasn't practical. Your coffee comes in tins and paper bags. Your candy bars in paper wraps and foil. They could very well make a lightweight PDW style weapon out of plastics, because the material makes sense in that scenario.
 
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Hassknecht said:
Recycling plastics isn't all that trivial, though.
Most metals you can smelt and reforge, but many modern plastics don't work that way.
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Aren't most weapons made of alloys? I am by no means an expert! But even if we are just talking about something that seems to be as simple like swords, there seems to be quite a lot of work and knowledge behind it. You want materials that are flexible, to take the stress and vibration of blows. But at the same time you want the sword (metal) to be hard enough so it doesn't bend (easily).

As far as I get it, you can't just "melt" something, create a shape, and bad-tsh! Your perfect weapon/sword/gun/what-ever. You know, like in the opening scene of Conan.

Even guns, I think look for similar properties. Particularly if you're looking at more modern amunition, higher preasures in the gas chamber etc. If you have materials that don't meet the required qualities, you might end up with weapons that well, will simply fall apart. In the worst case explode right in your face (guns!).

So, just melting the material, and puring it in a form, seems not to be much easier than recycling plastic. At least as far as the critical parts of your weapon goes. Like the gas chamber, barrel, firing pins, etc.

*Shrugs* But, what do I know :P
 
Ironically, swords are actually really very simple after a certain level of metallurgy. Just one single piece of spring steel for the blade. You heat the handle, shove the blade in and quench. Handle shrinks down on blade. We could probably find an industrial method for making them, except that nobody really needs them anymore. Seriously. An engineer could probably figure it out.

It's only really very complicated if you can't make uniform spring steel. At which point you're stuck folding your iron a thousand times to get your katana, then start doing things like welding different kinds of harder steel onto a softer iron core because, hey, that's the best compromise you got. Early arming swords were made in a similar way. Japan has no iron ore, so the joke's on them. Pretend that this is a game of Civ and they rolled their start on a shitty start with no strategic resources as far as iron go.

Scholagladiatora on Youtube makes the analogy to cars. You can afford a car. You can afford some clunker or re-handled and resharpened blade from what was once a much longer sword. Or you can really shell out and get a nicer one. For a time, longswords were a symbol of the knightly class because that was one really long piece of spring steel. And it also assumes that you don't necessarily need a shield on the battlefield because you're fancypants rich enough to afford armor.
 
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Well, the question is more, if you can take a G36, Ak47 or M16, melt it down and just make another gun out of it. Is it really that simple?
 
Crni Vuk said:
Well, the question is more, if you can take a G36, Ak47 or M16, melt it down and just make another gun out of it. Is it really that simple?
Click to expand...

Probably not, but we have an extensive scrap metal industry that recycles cars so we've probably got it down to a science anyway. Like auto-engineers probably have it all figured out how they're going to source their metal.

I also would have to assume that's what knock-off production models are like. They follow the same schematic with some or no modification, perhaps to the detriment of quality or otherwise tailored to the requirements of your local industrial base.

I also imagine it's partly why different countries have such drastically different service rifles. They have some process where they and try to come up with their own "tried-and-true" or just otherwise suck it up and make do. (Hell, there are videos of Al Qaeda "finding" sabotaged AK-47's that then blow up in their faces.)

Also: Guns just tend to float around for a long time and get repaired by interchangeable parts. If you flee a country and lose a bunch of NATO guns in the process, you can pretty much expect it to get into the local black market. Or if you supply those rebels over there to topple that particular dictator or president you didn't like . . .
 
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