The Rifle:
So you may ask, how do people living in a world of the future where technology is disrupted happen to have rifles? My thinking is that The Federals, having a larger population and agriculture, would have devoted virtually their first effort to avoid losing the ability to make firearms. So, I thought about how they'd be able to do that with the limited technology they could reasonably preserve. From my experience with technology and particularly metal working, I am certain that the more involved forms of mass production could not be sustained. (Could not be economically sustained, you can do anything if it's important enough.) These processes include two which are key to making ammunition as we know it. One is the making of sheet metal. This requires rolling mills and a lot of complex machinery. The other is a process called deep drawing whereby sheet metal is forced through a die and drawn into a cup. This is the primary way that both shell casings and percussion caps are made, and also requires complex specialized machinery.
So what kind of technology could be preserved? Well, older machine tools such as lathes and milling machines and shapers and planers and to some extent grinders could all be salvaged and kept running. When I say older, I mean stuff built before and shortly after the turn of the century in AD 1900. These old machines used no ball bearings, and were mainly driven by flat leather belts from central power sources such as water wheels and steam engines. Tool steel for cutters would be available in great quantities, left over from our industry of today, and when it ran out, one could back up to carbon steel cutters which can be made of ordinary materials. Back to the Nineteenth Century again.
So with that in mind, I designed a type of ammunition that could be made with these resources. What I came up with is a straight shell casing that can be machined from brass castings or bar. Nothing too novel about that, but the primer or detonator has always been the trick in firearms throughout the ages. Now historically we went from the flintlock to the external percussion cap. The industrial revolution was in full swing and the world's population was big enough to sustain complex mass production at that time. From the percussion cap we went through a number of unsuccessful inventions to the type of ammunition we have today in a rather short time. So the system I have invented for the book was never needed or used (or to my knowledge invented).
How does it work? Well, in the back of the shell casing is a little bore about 3/16 of an inch in diameter by about 3/8 inch deep which has a narrow shoulder at it's bottom. This bore communicates with the main powder chamber ahead of it through a small drilling about 1/16 inch in diameter by 3/16 of an inch long. A steel piston fits in the bore at the rear in such a way that it's bottom end impinges on the narrow shoulder. The piston is held in place by a wire spring ring, (not shown) or if that is lost by a bit of beeswax or whatever you have available that's sticky.
To load the primer, the piston is punched out from the open end of the shell casing with a special punch. Then
the small 1/16 inch bore is plugged with a bit of paper or dry grass, or whatever you have, rolled up into a plug
and pushed in with the same punch. Then a pinch of primer is added to the small bore, just enough to fill it to
the shoulder. The primer can be black gunpowder or anything which will detonate if struck a sharp blow. Now the
piston is replaced. When the firing pin strikes the piston, the primer at the bottom of the bore gets pinched in
the shoulder area and ignites, blowing the fiber plug through to the main chamber and igniting the main charge.
So what? Well the "what" is that these cartridges can be reloaded in the field with nothing but powder and lead and the special punch and a bullet mold, a distinct advantage in the world of the book. Of course the firing pin becomes a rather thick rod to strike the primer piston without deformation, but otherwise it's a normal bolt action rifle.
So what's the final cartridge? As all of us who are knowledgeable about guns know, plain lead slugs are velocity limited to around 1400 feet per second, which is rather slow by modern standards. And, jacketed bullets get you right back to sheet metal and cup drawing, and entirely away from making bullets in the field out of lead from old car batteries and such. So, at low velocity we use a rather large caliber by current standards, .44 in the book. The cartridge in the book is called a .44-25 Langley (.44 caliber, year 25 after the volcanic eruption, inventor Langley)
So we wind up with a thing that turns out to be an awfully lot like a .45-70 Government, coincidentally a mid 1800's cartridge. The cartridges in the picture are in fact .45-70. The rifle in the picture is a Short Magazine Lee Enfield, a British infantry rifle dating from the turn of the century. If you look carefully at the muzzle, you'll notice it has a .44 caliber bore. How did I do that? I drew over it in the computer.
So why does this girl who's carrying a sword have a rifle? It's captured from the Federal Army, along with the ammunition belt she's wearing.