Bullets in a flintlock pistol?

They made lead balls, later bullets, in a mold. You can still find them online at one of the blackpowder supply company's websites. Lead was used both for its weight and it low melting point and, because of the softness of lead, it would "conform" to the barrel.

There would have been very little reason to make the balls out of iron, even if they'd work (which I'm not sure they would . . . iron might damage the barrel). I'm no expert on blackpowder however. They may very well have made balls out of iron (they used all sorts of things during the Civil War). One of the blackpowder shooters around here should know.

Is there a particular reason you want to use something other than lead?

There are a number of problems with attempting to use an iron bullet aside from the extreme difficulty in manufacturing them, they rust; it would quickly score the barrel (thus lessening the accuracy); must less dense then lead and lead melts at such a low temperature that lead bullets can be manufactured in the field.

A soft metal would be a better choice. Does one of them have an effect on faeries . . . say silver, or something like that?

I suppose you could have a lead ball with an iron core. Since you've already got faeries, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have a gunsmith who makes such a thing. Something like that would be fairly easy to make.

And just why are you shooting at the poor little faeries? ;-)

<nerd>The best thing for killing faeries would definitely be cold iron. However, in a black powder weapon it would be very destructive to the barrel unless it was encased in lead. It would also have a rather poor velocity as lead shot is compressed when rammed home and seals the barrel.

An iron shot would have space around it to allow gas to escape, thus seriously impacting its effectiveness.

In all honesty, guns would be a very poor choice against fey. Bows and blades would be far better. Unless...

I guess you could so something like a mini-shotgun but the barrel would have to be tempered steel and the shot cold iron. That would be horribly destructive to a faerie. It would wear down the weapon much faster than lead shot but you're still looking at a couple hundred shots before you are getting to the risk zone.</nerd>

Blunderbuss?

Lycius said:

<nerd>The best thing for killing faeries would definitely be cold iron. However, in a black powder weapon it would be very destructive to the barrel unless it was encased in lead. It would also have a rather poor velocity as lead shot is compressed when rammed home and seals the barrel.

An iron shot would have space around it to allow gas to escape, thus seriously impacting its effectiveness.

In all honesty, guns would be a very poor choice against fey. Bows and blades would be far better. Unless...

I guess you could so something like a mini-shotgun but the barrel would have to be tempered steel and the shot cold iron. That would be horribly destructive to a faerie. It would wear down the weapon much faster than lead shot but you're still looking at a couple hundred shots before you are getting to the risk zone.</nerd>

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Blunderbuss full of scrap iron?

Well, I still think lead balls with an iron core would work, but a blunderbuss is a great idea. Why, that's just the thing to blast a few bad faeries. Fill it full of rusty nails and give 'em hell.

Or, just run the little bastards through with an iron sword.

DecemberQuinn said:

Hmm, I may have to give up on the idea. It was more a character who had a gun just happened to have iron bullets, because he preferred them. (It has to do with his nickname and was all very clever.) But if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I doubt my readers would be experts, but I'd hate to have someone who is--as you wonderfully helpful gentlemen obviously are--read it and think I didn't know what I was talking about.

I will continue thinking about it, but if you have any other suggestions or thoughts please post them! Thank you!


(Oh, and Alleycat, these are Unseelie Fae, not sweet little faeries! )

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Give me a little history behind the character and I'll figure out the mechanics for you

alleycat said:

Well, I still think lead balls with an iron core would work, but a blunderbuss is a great idea. Why, that's just the thing to blast a few bad faeries. Fill it full of rusty nails and give 'em hell.

Or, just run the little bastards through with an iron sword.

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Problem is that iron harms faeries by grounding them in the conventional sense. Wrapping the iron in lead would be like shooting someone with a poison dart covered in plastic.

Swords and blades would definitely be the easiest way but iron shot in a black powder pistol is far cooler.

Lycius said:

Problem is that iron harms faeries by grounding them in the conventional sense. Wrapping the iron in lead would be like shooting someone with a poison dart covered in plastic.

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Obviously, I need to improve my fairy killing technique.

Would some kind of sling-shot and iron balls work?

I think the shotgun suggestion covers what you need, although it might be more of a blunderbuss.

How big are your fairies? Trying to hit tiny things with a pistol is a tough proposition anyway. Murdering everything in a room with a blunderbuss reduces the target size issue.

alleycat said:

Obviously, I need to improve my fairy killing technique.

Would some kind of sling-shot and iron balls work?

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Definitely. I just think DecemberQuinn is going for the faerie killin, gunslinger look and a slingshot would be kind of awkward

I'm only nerding out this bad on this because my wife is a pagan and has a ton of faerie books and I'm an RP dork and have played White Wolf games far more than I would care to admit. You have to come up with crap like this for a character concept and then you have to sell it to the person running the game.

If the concept can be sold to a gamer dork then you'll sell it to 90% of your readers.

Ah! I actually found a few references to iron bullets.

Here's one that looks promising: http://galton.org/cgi-bin/searchImages/search/books/art-of-travel/pages/art-travel_0257.htm See the last paragraph.

So, as long as they were tried and used at least at some point in time, I'd say go with your initial idea, December.

Hi,

Why not email the curators at some of the bigger museums? If they don't know, I'm sure they might know someone who does. I fire off emails all over the place in the hope someone somewhere will know somebody who knows something... sometimes it even works!

Cheers,
Steve

Ice

LloydBrown said:

I think the shotgun suggestion covers what you need, although it might be more of a blunderbuss.

How big are your fairies? Trying to hit tiny things with a pistol is a tough proposition anyway. Murdering everything in a room with a blunderbuss reduces the target size issue.

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How about a blunderbuss full of chunks of iron coated in ice?...Not the blunderbuss, but the chunks of iron....in ice....to make them cold despite the discharge thing...

I never knew fairy killing was so much damn trouble. I thought they, like, got hit by cars and eaten by squirrels and put in jars by little girls.

alleycat said:

Ah! I actually found a few references to iron bullets.

Here's one that looks promising: http://galton.org/cgi-bin/searchImages/search/books/art-of-travel/pages/art-travel_0257.htm See the last paragraph.

So, as long as they were tried and used at least at some point in time, I'd say go with your initial idea, December.

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Hehe nerdery.

Absolutely love it.

Sokal said:

How about a blunderbuss full of chunks of iron coated in ice?...Not the blunderbuss, but the chunks of iron....in ice....to make them cold despite the discharge thing...

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Cold iron isn't that literal. It refers to the iron being shaped without heat.

They make steel shot for shot guns taoday, for waterfowl in particular. A blunder buss would spray a cloud of little bb's at the damn little things.

Unfortunately, there's less momentum and they would only be good really for around 30 yards or less. If you have one solid of steel you will ruin the barrel.

You could also used steel tip crossbow bolts, couldn't you?

DecemberQuinn said:

You guys are awesome! I had no idea this would be so much fun already.

Lycius, I'm PMing you.

The idea isn't so much that they open fire on a roomful of faeries--at least, not this scene, but I'm totally stealing that blunderbus thing if that's okay. I have a man holding a gun on someone. A faerie goes running by (there's more to it than that, but basically.) Guy casually picks the fae off, and it works because he has iron bullets, and that's hwne they realize he's the iron bullet guy. (It's really less of a coincidence in the book than it sounds here.)

Thanks again!! I totally know where to come if I need any other myhtological creature killed.

Did they make iron swords, btw? Weren't they steel, like in Conan's riddle of steel?

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Cold iron would be a negative on swords unless it was specifically for rituals etc.. It's incredibly difficult to forge a blade out of iron without heating it. Think of wrought iron fences but done cold.

I'd have to know more about your setting and time period etc to be able to get you any historical info about weapon crafting. I'm definitely interested though. This kind of nerdery is right up my alley.

Cold iron spear-tips might be a better answer. Your shaft is normal, and all you have to do is file the lump of cold iron on the tip to make a point. A lot of the damage comes from the power of the thrust, not from a razor edge.

Actually, your idea is entirely plausible. And better yet, it has some precedent. As Parkinsonsd mentioned, they make steel shot for shotguns today due to problems with waterfowl eating the lead shot. This page has some info on the difficulties of steel birdshot.

For the other example of iron shot in history, you just have to look a little bit bigger. Cannons fired almost exclusively iron shot from the time they were invented, and although they are not thought of as the most accurate of weapons, a good gunner could easily hit a ship at a thousand yards.

Also consider that barrel wear is not going to be that big of an issue. Your gun would have roughly 330 shots before the barrel would show enough wear to hamper your accuracy (that statistic is from the Mark I 15" battleship gun, but I imagine that the pistol barrel life is somewhere in that ballpark range), and your character could go on shooting long after that before the gun became unusable.

But even before you reach that point, you have to consider: just how many Fae is your character planning to kill? A good rifleman could fire once every 15 seconds, and if you plan on taking out 300+ of those critters in one sitting then you have to wonder if he even needs the gun. Besides, if your characters are familiar enough with guns to notice that an iron bullet is out of the ordinary, it wouldn't be that difficult to find another pistol when the first one wears out (if you reach that point).

Hope this helps.