The SOTF Manual of Arms

[Shiola]

A Guide to Firearms, and Writing Them

Greetings!

I've spent some time to try and put together a guide to some basic information about firearms and to offer some suggestions and support as to how they can be written into SOTF. This was spurred on by what I've seen as a desire to know more about firearms, without necessarily digging into the confusing and often politically fraught world of guns.

I've been interested in firearms since I was quite young, and have familiarized myself through extensive firsthand experience and research. I've pursued this interest in academic settings in the context of the history of global conflict, as well as in a professional setting through a brief period working in firearms retail. I am a gun owner myself, though I will say my experience with handguns is particularly limited owing to strict gun laws in Canada and the expense of the hobby in particular. I am a strong believer in social responsibility as a firearms enthusiast, and I have made a point of introducing many people to firearms for the first time. As such, I have a very firm grasp on the common mistakes and misconceptions of people handling guns for the first time, which I believe translates well to informing the setting of SOTF.

I have included a Glossary that I hope to expand with both definitions and pictures where applicable.

[+] Glossary - WIP

Action: This refers to the method in which cartridges are loaded, locked, and extracted from the firearm’s mechanism.

Barrel: The cylindrical tube that the bullets come out of.

Bore: The hollow part of a gun barrel.

Smoothbore: A gun barrel that is uniformly smooth on the inside – there are no grooves or rifling. Commonly seen on shotguns.

Rifling: Spiral grooves on the inside of a barrel that impart a spin to the bullet, stabilizing it. (picture)

Single-Action: Single-action is when the gun is cocked manually, after which the trigger is operated to fire the shot.

Double-Action: A gun that cocks and fires with a single trigger pull, performing two (double) actions at once.

Bolt-Action: A type of action where a metal bolt is opened and then locked forward to extract a spent cartridge and insert a fresh one.

Semi-Automatic: Any firearm that fires a bullet every time the trigger is pulled, extracting the spent cartridge case and chambering a new one automatically.

Gas-Operated: A semi-automatic firearm that operates by directing exhaust gasses into the mechanism, cycling it.

Recoil-Operated: A semi-automatic firearm that operates by channeling recoil energy into the firearm’s mechanism, cycling it.

Blowback: A very simple form of recoil operation, commonly used in small caliber pistols and submachine guns.

Hammer: The spring-loaded arm that strikes the back of a firing pin, hitting a cartridge and igniting the powder charge, firing the firearm.

Striker / Firing Pin: A spring-loaded metal pin that strikes the back of a cartridge, igniting the charge and firing the firearm.

Fully-Automatic: Any firearm which can fire successive shots as long as the trigger is held down.

Burst-Fire: One of two things:
• A setting on a semi-automatic firearm that allows it to fire multiple bullets with one trigger pull; usually three.
• The tactic of firing short bursts from a firearm set to full auto for the sake of accuracy.

Receiver: The part of the firearm that pulls cartridges from the magazine and inserts them into the barrel.

Chamber: The strengthened part of the barrel that the cartridge fires from.

Magazine: A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a firearm. A spring in the base of the magazine helps feed cartridges into the receiver. Commonly mistaken as a Clip.

Clip: A device that is used to store multiple rounds of ammunition together as a unit, ready for insertion into the magazine.

The Difference Between a Clip and a Magazine

Caliber: The diameter of a bullet, typically measured in fractions of an inch (ex: .22, .30, .45, .50) or millimeters (ex: 5.56mm, 7.62mm, 9mm, 10mm, 12.7mm). More broadly used to refer to the specific kind of cartridge (ex:. 5.56x45 NATO, 7.62x39 Russian, .45ACP, .22 Long Rifle, .30-06 Springfield)

Cartridge: The brass case and bullet assembled together as a unit.

Primer: The small explosive cap at the base of a cartridge which ignites the gunpowder.

Stock: The wooden or synthetic body of a firearm that is placed against the shoulder.

Bullpup: A firearm where the trigger assembly is located ahead of the magazine and action. This design is utilized to decrease the overall length of the firearm while still maintaining barrel length (thus losing no velocity or accuracy compared to a traditional firearm). Examples include the Steyr AUG, FN P90, and Kel-Tec KSG.

Stopping Power: The ability of a firearm to incapacitate an assailant immediately.

Recoil: The force that pushes back the user of a firearm on firing. Factors that influence recoil are bullet weight, velocity, the firearm’s mode of action, and the weight of the firearm itself.

Primary Cavity: The immediate wound caused by the path of a projectile through living tissue.

Secondary Cavity: Wounds caused by the energy of a projectile which causes the surrounding tissue to cavitate, damaging it.

[Shiola]

Types of Firearms

In this section, I will give a brief and relatively basic overview of the primary types of firearms that exist in modern use, and some pointers on their function and how they are differentiated.

Please take note that when I use terms like “generally” or “typically” I’m referring to averages; there will of course be exceptions to every rule.

Attached are examples of every firearm in different versions of SOTF and the character they were originally issued to.

In this section, I will give a brief and relatively basic overview of the primary types of firearms that exist in modern use, and some pointers on their function and how they are differentiated. Please take note that when I use terms like “generally” or “typically” I’m referring to averages; there will of course be exceptions to every rule. Attached are examples of every firearm in different versions of SOTF and the character they were originally issued to.

[+] Handguns

Handguns are ubiquitous in the United States and see service around the world in any place where concealability and portability are key factors. The main trade-offs when using a handgun over any other type of firearm are accuracy, capacity, and stopping power.

For the reasons of concealability and controllability, most of the ammunition that handguns fire is considerably less lethal and with shorter range than that of rifles or shotguns. This is not to say that handguns are not deadly, but they are far less likely to kill someone than a larger firearm. Roughly seven out of ten people who are shot with a handgun end up surviving (more on that in a later section). Some handgun cartridges do match rifles in lethality and stopping power, but they are typically unwieldy and difficult to use effectively.

The effective range of most handguns is around 50-100 yards depending on user skill, though the bullets are still deadly at a far greater range.

In untrained hands, the lack of a stock to brace a handgun against means that they are difficult to use effectively. The reason is that handguns are actually quite unstable in outstretched hands, and take a considerable amount of discipline to steady and aim correctly. Recoil is absorbed into the arms instead of the shoulder, meaning that repeated usage of a handgun with high recoil is more taxing on the shooter. The slightest adjustment on the part of the shooter can throw off the point of aim quite a bit.

However, handguns present a number of advantages against long guns. They are much simpler to carry around, with lighter overall weight both in the gun itself and its ammunition.

Their small size means that they are more easily used in close quarters. Most handguns can be concealed in clothing or small bags, and are relatively easy to use at short distances.

There are two primary types of handguns in modern use: the revolver, and the semiautomatic. There are such things as single-shot pistols, which are typically used in target shooting and which are covered in the "Antiques, Muzzleloaders & Other" section.

[+] Revolvers

Revolvers are defined by the method through which they store and chamber ammunition: revolving cylinders. They were some of the earliest repeating handguns that saw widespread use in the United States, and continue to be used today for a variety of reasons.

The most important reason cited is that in typical usage, it is extremely unlikely if not impossible for a revolver to “jam” or malfunction to the point of being inoperable. Every time a revolver is cocked, the cylinder rotates to chamber the next cartridge for loading. Should a cartridge fail to fire, one only needs to re-cock the pistol and attempt to fire a different cartridge. There are also fewer moving parts in a revolver that are likely to fail in normal circumstances, as opposed to a semi-automatic pistol.

The second often cited reason for modern usage is that revolvers are easy to chamber in powerful cartridges, particularly those that could be used for defense against wildlife. The ubiquitous .44 Magnum and .500 Magnum are notorious for being exceptionally powerful handgun cartridges, though they still by and large pale in comparison to rifles and shotguns. The revolvers that can typically chamber magnum loads, like V3's .50 Beowulf BFR, are unwieldy and difficult to shoot even by experienced individuals.

Revolvers are also typically considered to be quite accurate in the right hands, as the barrel does not move while firing unlike many semi-automatic pistols. The movement of a barrel on any firearm means that the point of aim is more likely to change between shots.

Disadvantages of Revolvers include limited ammunition capacity and greater felt recoil due to the higher axis of the barrel relative to the shooter's wrist. A phenomenon known as "cylinder gap" also presents some issues. The space between the barrel and the cylinder is typically not perfectly sealed owing to the design, leading to gas escaping from the sides of the gun on firing. This can cause serious injury to the shooter if their hands are positioned incorrectly on the firearm, and has the net effect of (very slightly) reducing the velocity of the fired projectile.

There are two basic types of revolvers, Single-Action and Double-Action.

Single-Action Revolvers are the typical revolver one might find in westerns, and were the first kind to be developed.

The reason they are referred to as “single-action” is that in order to fire it, one must pull back the hammer at the back of the revolver in order to shoot it. Nothing will happen if you try to pull the trigger on a single-action revolver without doing so.

This means that they are typically much slower to fire and more physically demanding for a shooter. Their depiction in westerns as fast-firing is typically only a trait that extremely accomplished marksmen could hope to achieve. “Fanning” a single-action revolver by repeatedly pulling back the hammer while the trigger is held down will largely result in bullets flying everywhere but where you are trying to aim. It can also damage the firearm.

Reloading a single-action revolver is accomplished by two main methods:

Most had what is called a loading gate – a small opening at the side of the cylinder through which one inserts cartridges one at a time. To unload or reload a single-action revolver, the shooter has to unload each spent cartridge one at a time as well. This means that single-action revolvers frequently were slow to reload.

Exceptions are the Smith and Wesson Model 3, which was a “break-action” revolver. One only had to open the revolver, and all of the spent casings would be ejected by a spring. This was not a common feature of single-action revolvers.

Double-Action Revolvers are revolvers where every pull of the trigger cocks the hammer and releases it, firing with each trigger pull.

One can still manually cock the hammer in most double-action revolvers, which is often done to lessen the effort needed to pull the trigger. These are the most common “modern” revolvers, though that definition includes those nearing one-hundred years old. In this respect they are sometimes referred to as "Double Action & Single Action" or "DA/SA" revolvers.

There are a variety of ways double-action revolvers are reloaded. Some have the cylinder swing out to the side, at which point one can tap an extractor which removes spent cartridges. Others are break-action, extracting cartridges as the whole firearm swings open. These methods are depicted below.

Popular companies that manufacture revolvers are Smith and Wesson, Colt, Ruger, and Taurus.

Examples:

V1: Peri Barclay’s Colt Trooper (DA/SA)
V2: Adam Amato’s Ruger Redhawk (DA/SA)
V3: James Ellet’s BFR .50 Beowulf Revolver (SA)
V4: Claire Lambert’s North American Arms .22 Magnum Mini Revolver (SA)
V5: Becca Everett’s Colt Anaconda .44 Magnum (DA/SA)
V6: Jeremy Frasier’s Scoped Taurus Raging Bull (DA/SA)

[+] Semi-automatic Handguns

Semi-automatics are the most common type of handguns. They are considered any handgun where the action of firing, extracting a spent cartridge, and inserting a new cartridge are all done automatically by the mechanism. Advantages they have over revolvers are higher capacity and superior ergonomics, which means a shooter can typically fire and reload more quickly.

They also come in single and double action, though with fewer functional differences than in revolvers. A single-action semi-automatic pistol must be cocked once before firing; once a round has been fired in a single-action, the mechanism in the gun automatically re-cocks itself.

A double-action will fire as soon as the trigger is pulled with a cartridge in the chamber. The difference has more to do with the internal mechanism than it does with practical application.

Semi-automatic handguns have been manufactured with a very wide variety of mechanisms, though most follow the same basic principle: A slide at the top of the gun is pulled back to expose the chamber of the firearm, and then released to insert a cartridge into the chamber. Upon firing, the slide recoils back with the gun, ejecting the spent cartridge and automatically inserting a fresh one from the magazine. Most semi-automatic handguns are fed from box magazines that insert into the grip.

Once the magazine is empty, they are released from the gun with a button either on the bottom of the grip, or next to the trigger. It is not uncommon for a novice shooter to accidentally drop a magazine out of the gun by pressing the magazine release accidentally.

Most unusual mechanisms you will come across when it comes to semi-automatic pistols are those of early semi-automatic firearms. Their notoriety means that information on most of these is readily available. For the most part, the sequence of loading, firing, and unloading differs little as far as a writer is concerned.

Well-known manufacturers of semi-automatic handguns are Glock, Beretta, Heckler & Koch, Browning, Sig Sauer, Colt, Ruger, and Smith & Wesson.

The Browning Model 1911, Beretta M9, and Glock are perhaps the most well-known handguns commonly encountered in the United States. The Desert Eagle is another well-known semi-automatic handgun with a novel firing mechanism. It operates in a similar way to many rifles, functionally differing from most handguns in terms of its immense size and recoil. The Luger is a well-known historical semi-automatic pistol, and operates using what is referred to as a “toggle-lock” mechanism. The operation of the pistol remains much the same as most others, despite looking rather unique.

Fully-automatic handguns are not as common. They are essentially handheld machine guns, and are wildly uncontrollable even by the most experienced shooters. The guiding philosophy behind such weapons can be summarized as “Spray & Pray.” They are commonly referred to as Machine Pistols and will be covered under the section "Submachine Guns." One example that has occurred in several versions of SOTF is the Ingram MAC-10.

Examples:

V1:Adam Dodd’s Ballestair-Molina
V2:Seth Mattlock’s Walther P38
V3:Julie Mikan’s H&K VP70
V4:Raidon Naoko’s Type 77
V5:Theodore Fletcher’s Browning Hi-Power
V6:Asuka Takahara’s Mauser C96

[+] Rifles

In the context of small arms, Rifles are any weapon that fires a projectile through a "rifled" barrel. This can be typical "Centerfire" cartridges or "Rimfire" cartridges, both of which can be found chambered in many of the types of rifles listed below.

They are the most used type of firearm when it comes to military applications and hunting. Generally speaking, rifles have greater range than handguns and shotguns, and are typically more lethal at average combat ranges.

[+] Semi-Automatic

Semi-Automatic rifles are the most common types in use today, and vary wildly in their designs. Some are basic hunting rifles, others are expressly designed for military application. They have been in common use for about a century, and have a wide variety of designs and modes of operation. The most basic definition is any rifle which fires a round, extracts a spent cartridge, and chambers another round all with a single pull of the trigger.

That’s it. It’s an incredibly broad category. These are all semiautomatic rifles:

The most important thing to figure out when writing a character operating a semi-automatic rifle is how it is loaded, as this is (in my experience) the thing most people have difficult with at first. Most modern rifles load from a box magazine, which is a simple process that takes maybe a few seconds. One presses a button or pulls a lever, the magazine drops out of the firearm, and another is inserted in its place. Pictured is a translucent box magazine, which should give you some idea of what they look like on the inside and how they function.

Older semiautomatic weapons might load from an integral magazine, such as a SKS. The magazine is also a box that holds all of the cartridges, but isn’t removable from the gun. In that case, the rounds must be individually inserted into the weapon, or inserted all at once using a metal guide known as a “clip.”

Important note:

Semi-automatic rifles are typically considered more effective than other kinds of rifles because they fire a round every time the trigger is pulled. This means that there is little else required of the shooter besides their ability to aim. Additionally, most military variants of semi-automatic rifles possess the ability to be switched to fully automatic, meaning that successive shots are fired so long as the trigger is held down. Rates of fire can typically range from 650-950 rounds per minute depending on the firearm.

These factors, combined with the ease of aiming a rifle compared to a handgun, make them some of the most dangerous weapons in inexperienced hands.

[+] Bolt-Action Rifles

Bolt Action rifles were the most common type of rifle used in the twentieth century, and formed the bulk of military rifles produced up until the end of the Second World War. They continue to be used by hunters and sportsmen typically out of a perception for reliability and accuracy, though they aren’t dramatically more accurate or reliable than modern semi-auto rifles. Some are loaded via stripper clip, others use a box magazine.

Bolt action rifles are operated by unlocking the bolt, pulling it back to eject a spent cartridge, and pushing it forward to insert a fresh one. Some bolts cock their striker on opening, others cock the striker as the bolt is closed. There are also some bolt action rifles that operate via a simple straight back-and-forward motion, though these are rare owing to their mechanical complexity.

Typically bolt action rifles fire cartridges on the more powerful end of the spectrum than semi-automatic rifles, given their heritage from a time when stouter cartridges were the norm, or from their primary modern use as hunting weapons.

For instance, a common military-caliber semi-automatic rifle might be loaded to fire a four gram projectile at 860 meters per second towards a target.

By comparison, my hunting rifle fires a nineteen gram projectile at roughly 750 meters per second.

This means that my semiautomatic rifle is imparting 1900 Joules of energy into its target, whereas my hunting rifle imparts closer to 5000 Joules. The latter cartridge was designed to kill large African game and is perfectly capable of doing so; on a human target the result would likely be instant death.

The difference is that a hunting rifle is primarily designed to efficiently kill large animals, whereas military rifles are primarily designed to incapacitate their targets.

The logic behind this is that a wounded combatant must be tended to by his comrades and tie up the chain of logistics of an opposing force. A lighter, higher velocity round will also have greater armor-penetration capabilities and are typically designed to punch straight through a target. Hunting rounds are designed to penetrate hide and then expand, transferring as much energy into the target as possible and maximizing physical trauma. Make no mistake though, military rifles are still exceptionally lethal weapons and far outstrip handguns in this respect. It is simply the case that a hunting rifle, designed to bring down targets well in excess of the size of a human being, would be even more lethal.

This is of course, not always the case. Care must be taken when examining a firearm your character will be handling; what I'm describing here is what will often be the case. I will go over wounding and terminal ballistics in a section further below.

[+] Lever-Action Rifles

Lever Action rifles are mostly popular in the United States, and came into use starting in the late nineteenth century.

They can vary greatly from firing pistol-caliber cartridges like the .357 Magnum to powerful hunting cartridges like the 45-70 Government.

Simply put, a lever is pulled down and then back up again to extract and chamber a new cartridge. They typically have what is called a tubular magazine - a tube beneath the barrel which contains the ammunition.

Not all lever-action rifles use tubular magazines, but most do.

The primary advantage of lever-action rifles over bolt-action rifles is their speed; racking a lever action is mechanically simpler as a motor function for most users.

Their primary disadvantage, and the reason very few were adapted by militaries in the twentieth century, is that the action precludes easily firing from a prone position.

[+] Pump-Action Rifles

Pump action rifles, while rare, do exist. They function similarly to pump action shotguns, though have never really caught on in widespread use. They are almost always hunting rifles.

[+] Single Shot Rifles

Single-Shot rifles were among the first cartridge-firing rifles to be put into military use, and continue to exist today as collectibles and as specialized hunting arms. You may find these referred to by the names of their actions, such as "Trapdoor" , "Falling Block" , "Break Action" , "Rolling Block" , and so on.

Advantages of single-shot rifles primarily come through their accuracy and the fact that the action of the firearm is quite small – this means that a single-shot rifle with a long barrel can have a similar or shorter profile than a rifle with a conventional action. A modern example would be the Ruger No. 1, whereas antique examples include the Springfield Trapdoor, Martini-Henry, and Snider-Enfield rifles. The actions of single-shot rifles are also considered to be quite strong, and can be chambered for higher pressures than might necessarily be safe in another type of action.

They also possess an additional advantage in that the actions of single-shot firearms are quite foolproof, and will almost never malfunction to the point of rendering the firearm inoperable.

Much like semi-automatic firearms, this is an incredibly broad category that encompasses many different types of weapons. I suggest doing additional research if you happen to come across one of these.

[+] Common Terms

Sniper Rifles are not any particular category of rifle. They are, simply put, any rifle used by a sniper. Typically this means that they are equipped with optics (a scope) and ergonomic modifications that make it more suited for long range engagements. The action used is not especially relevant, though most are chambered in powerful cartridges so as to be useful at long range, making them typically bolt-action or single shot rifles.

Hunting Rifles are similarly, any rifle that has been designed for hunting. Typically more mind is paid to aesthetics and outdoor durability, as well as user comfort. They do not necessarily possess any different mechanical characteristics than any other kind of rifle, but they have been optimized for hunting. This might mean that they fire a caliber that is particularly adept at a certain kind of game (.308 Winchester for Deer, for example). By and large it has more to do with the ergonomics of the rifle and its intended purpose than anything related to its performance. As the needs of a hunter can vary from customer to customer, so do the design of various hunting rifles.

Assault Rifles are also not a particular category of rifles, being more of a colloquial term than a technical one. The term comes mainly from the progenitor of the modern combat rifle, the Sturmgewehr 44 – literally translated as “assault rifle.” The term was invented for propaganda purposes and indicates little as to the capabilities or function of the rifle itself. Their primary characteristics are being semiautomatic, chambered in an “intermediate” cartridge, and with detachable box magazines. Given the advances in military tactics in the last seventy-five years, these are the most commonly used military arms in the 21st century.

Anti-Materiel Rifles are the modern evolution of the Anti-Tank Rifles of the First World War. They are typically massive, unwieldly weapons chambered in monstrous cartridges like .50BMG, 14x114mm, or 20x138mmB. They are marginally more useful than the Punt Gun given their extreme range and assured lethality; still, a student issued with one would mostly find it a liability as they can range in weight from thirty to over one hundred pounds, not counting the weight of the ammunition.

.22 Caliber Rifles are commonly used as target shooting rifles, as well as for hunting small game. They fire the diminutive .22LR Cartridge, which can also be found chambered in a number of handguns. Just about every type of rifle action has been chambered in .22LR at one point or another. While small, .22LR can be exceptionally lethal if the shot is placed correctly. Survival rifles are frequently chambered in .22LR as it is easy to carry large amounts of ammunition on your person. There are smaller cartridges like .17HMR, though they are less common. I will cover more of this in the "Rimfire" section of Muzzleloading, Antiques & Other Firearms.

Examples:
V1:Angelina Kaige’s Diemaco C7 (Semiauto; Cold War/Modern Assault Rifle)
V2:Mariavel Varella’s SKS (Semiauto; Early 1950s)
V3:James Brown’s M1 Garand (Semiauto; WW2-Era)
V4:Tiffany Chanders’ 1903 Springfield (Bolt-Action; WW1 Era)
V5:Hansel Williams’ FAMAS (Semiautomatic; Cold War Era Assault Rifle)
V6:Candice Banks' AWC G2 (Semiautomatic; Prototype Cold War Era Assault Rifle)

[+] Submachine Guns

Submachine Guns were first extensively developed during and after the trench warfare of the First World War. They are defined as magazine fed, automatic carbine-sized weapons that typically fire pistol-caliber rounds. The “first” submachine gun, the MP-18, made an appearance in SOTF V5 as Matt Masters’ assigned weapon.

The design principle was based on the notion that the individual soldier needed far more firepower to clear a trench or an enclosed space like a room. A submachine gun could, firing pistol-caliber rounds, could provide controllable, high rates of fire at close range. After finding some limited but notable success against troops armed with bolt-action rifles, they were quickly developed and adopted by law enforcement and military forces alike. Going into the Second World War, they were extensively employed by the world’s militaries, with the most prominent examples being the American Thompson Submachine Gun, German MP40, British Sten Gun, and Soviet PPsH-41.

Submachine guns are often capable of high rates of fire, and are on principle designed to put out a large volume of fire in a short time-span. At close range, there are few small arms that are as viable at engaging unarmored targets as a submachine gun.

Rates of fire can range from as low as four-hundred rounds a minute to over one thousand. However, given that they are firing pistol calibers, their lethality drops off significantly as distance increases. It is for this reason, and the comparable and compact firepower of semi-automatic rifle carbines (which have typically more lethal projectiles), that they were primarily shunted into second-line service. They continue to see limited military use, but are primarily used by law enforcement and security agencies worldwide.

Well-known submachine guns of the postwar era include the Heckler & Koch MP5, the Uzi, and Kriss Vector.

There are also two important, closely related categories to talk about in regards to submachine guns. The first is what are referred to as “Machine Pistols.” Typically these are either purpose-built, handgun-sized automatic weapons with extremely high rates of fire, or semiautomatic handguns that have been modified to be fully automatic.

The design principle of these weapons is compact firepower in a small package, that hopes to overwhelm body armor and increase hit probability by a large volume of fire in a short time. The limited magazine capacity of most machine pistols means that at full-auto they have at most a few seconds of continuous fire.

Given their similar role and caliber, they are frequently mistaken for submachine guns and there is considerable overlap. The best way to think of it is this: all machine pistols could be considered submachine guns, but not all submachine guns could be considered machine pistols.

Examples include the Ingram MAC-10 which has made many appearances in SOTF, as have the micro-Uzi and vz.62 Skorpion.

The last category of note that is related to the submachine gun is the PDW, or Personal Defence Weapon. Specifically, these are essentially submachine guns designed for extended tactical use insofar as they are capable of defeating body armour.

They are intended for a combatant who isn’t necessarily on the front-line to be able to fight front-line soldiers equipped with body armour. They have also seen use as compact automatic weapons by various security services. The two most notable examples are the H&K MP7, and the FN P90 (both of which have appeared in SOTF).

The primary distinction is in ammunition type – they both fire small caliber, very high velocity projectiles which are designed to punch through armour. While their small size limits physical trauma caused by the round, the volume of fire and ammunition capacity more than makes up for this. Think of them as a hybrid between a submachine gun and an assault rifle.

You can see the difference in ammunition types here.

The longer cases are designed for higher velocities, and more resemble tiny rifle cartridges than common pistol cartridges. However, as the primary force of recoil is a result of mass + velocity, the smaller, faster PDW cartridges do not necessarily generate more recoil more than the larger, slower, stouter pistol cartridges. I will go into greater detail on types of ammunition in the “Ammunition” section of this guide.

This category isn’t functionally very significant, but I felt it important to include should you come across this term in research. These terms are mostly employed either as a marketing term or as a statement of intended purpose. To make a point of how muddled the distinction between SMG, Machine Pistol, and PDW is: There is a compact variant of the MP5 (a submachine gun) called the MP5K (Kurz, as in “short”). It being compact means it is often referred to as a machine pistol. However, there is a version of the MP5K called the MP5K-PDW with different ergonomics, which (for some reason) makes it a “Personal Defense Weapon.”

This kind of silliness will come up again, rest assured. For the purpose of a writer describing a relatively inexperienced individual using a firearm, it is by and large irrelevant.

Expect just about anything designated as a submachine gun to have a fully automatic fire; some are capable of firing three-round bursts with one pull of the trigger, but this is a minority. Magazine capacity varies wildly; the FN P90 has a 50 round capacity whereas the MP5 may only have a 30 round magazine, and the machine pistols typically not much more than that. Some may come equipped with rotary “drum” magazines that could contain as much as 100 rounds. If this isn’t specified, check with SOTF_Help or assume that it carries a “standard” loadout (this is usually the magazine that is issued with the gun and what you’ll likely see if you look up images of it.) I have more to say on ammunition & how it relates realism in the sections below.


It is my opinion that in the right hands, submachine guns are almost certainly the most effective and dangerous weapons to possess given the circumstances of SOTF. I explain why in the “Firepower” section.

Examples:

V1: Jason Andrews’ Uzi
V2: Harry Constantine’s Agram 2000
V3: Julie Mikan’s JS 9mm (BKA)
V4: Madeline Smith’s PP-90
V5: Ruby Forrester’s FN P90
V6:Matthew Moradi’s Madsen M50 (BKA)

[+] Shotguns

So I’ll admit I’ve been looking forward to this section. Shotguns happen to be some of my favourite firearms to shoot, both in terms of utility and in terms of how fun they can be. Blasting apart paper targets, fruit, and other miscellaneous junk I stick on a range really never gets old.

However, much like the rest of this hobby of mine, I’ve found that my experiences have reinforced just how frightening and destructive firearms can be. More than anything else, my use of shotguns has convinced me that I much prefer my firearms on a range or out in the woods to anywhere else.

At close to medium range, it is really quite startling just how destructive shotguns really are. There is a reason they are employed largely for urban combat. In 1918, the German Military – the progenitors of poison gas and flamethrowers – considered the wounds caused by the trench shotguns to be so horrific as to be in violation of the Hague Convention of 1907.

Why though? And what constitutes “close to medium range”?

To explain this, we first really need to understand what a shotgun actually is.

What makes a shotgun?

Shotguns are mostly smoothbore firearms; there is no rifling in the barrel. They are designed to fire shot, which are spherical pellets of lead or steel from shot shells; they are also capable of firing solid lead slugs. Shells operate at lower pressures than rifle rounds, and the projectiles fired typically move (relatively) more slowly than rifle projectiles.

While shot sizes can vary greatly, the image above does an excellent job at showing the difference between “birdshot” “buckshot” and “slugs”.


The primary civilian purpose of shot-firing shotguns was originally in hunting birds. As shot is designed to spread out (hence the lack of rifling in the barrel), it creates a pattern of projectiles that can cover a wide area. When trying to hit a flying target, this is a necessity. As you can see from the image above, birdshot is typically of a smaller diameter so that more shot can be packed into a single shell, thus covering a wider area.

Buckshot on the other hand is designed to take down larger targets, such as deer. A common loading of Buckshot referred to as 00 or “Double-Ought” Buckshot fires pellets with a diameter of 0.33 Inches, or 8.38mm. This is similar in diameter to a bullet fired from a nine millimeter handgun, and a typical shotgun shell might hold eight or nine of them. You may be starting to see why these kinds of firearms are so destructive, and why they have the reputation they do.

This video demonstrates the effect of various shotgun pellets on ballistic gelatin, an analogue similar to human tissue that is used for ballistic testing.

Slugs are solid projectiles (usually lead) used for hunting big game at short ranges. A 12 Gauge slug is typically more than sufficient to kill large land mammals like bears, and transfers a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. They are several times denser than large rifle projectiles, and typically deliver more energy. The downsides of slug-firing shotguns compared to hunting rifles are that slugs are heavier and typically moving at half the speed of a rifle round, and therefore drop much more quickly over long distances. They are also usually composed of homogenous lead, which is designed to deform on impact and penetrates the hide (or armour) of a target through sheer brute force. This means that they are much less likely to blast through any sufficient cover or particularly effective body armour.

Also, it’s important to point out what “Gauge” means. Gauge is the historical term of measurement used for shotguns as they are “guns” (smoothbore) and not “rifles”(rifled bore). Gauge is a reference to the number of lead balls equal to the diameter of a gun’s bore that it would take to equal one pound. Therefore, it would take 12 lead balls with the same diameter as a 12-gauge shotgun bore to weigh one pound. The higher the number, the smaller the bore.

As an aside, Punt Guns can range from the smaller 8-Gauge (.83 Caliber or 21mm) to what would be considered ½ Gauge (2.1in Caliber or 53mm). As custom firearms that are usually muzzleloaders, you won’t find the term “Gauge” associated with them often.

What is “effective” range for as shotgun?

So I’m going to focus on buckshot here as the vast majority of shotguns loaded for combat are 12-Gauge shotguns loaded with 00 Buckshot. Based on what I’ve read from a ballistics testing website (here), shotguns with this configuration can maintain a 50% hit probability at 50 yards, and the pellets could continue to be lethal* up to a little over 100 yards (46m & 91m).

*insofar as they can penetrate over twelve inches of tissue at that distance

The primary reason I would say that 50 yards is the effective range of a shotgun as opposed to 100 yards, is that it could not be considered an “effective range” if that the shot spreads out far enough that one can’t necessarily guarantee a hit.

Could a person stand 100 yards away from someone firing a shotgun at them, confident that they won’t get hit? Absolutely not.

Should someone with a shotgun be altogether confident engaging someone armed with a rifle at 100 yards? Nope.

As far as combat with firearms is concerned, “long range” is typically considered anything past 300 yards, medium range anything from over 50 to 300 yards, and short range anything below 50 yards.

Still, 50 yards isn’t exactly a small distance as far as most people are concerned. It isn’t the same kind of “short range” that one might get from video game depictions of where shotguns are effective. Inside of 50 yards encompasses pretty much most indoor spaces, and quite a bit of range in outdoor areas as well. A typical shot pattern at 50 yards could very well be over a torso-sized area. In many respects, one is less likely to miss at that range than they would be with a firearm that fires a single projectile. This does present an advantage in situations where having time to aim is difficult - either due to inexperience of the shooter or other factors. The saying with this sort of thing is – You aim a rifle; you point a shotgun.

However, just because you can hit with a few pellets doesn’t mean it is going to be as effective on target at that range. Close-up, one might be able to hit a target with every single pellet in a tight pattern as opposed to a few pellets at a greater distance. Thus, a shotgun is generally more lethal at close range.

So having said all that, how would we describe the destructive potential of a shotgun?

Inside of its effective range, the mass equivalent of nine handgun rounds is fired out in a tight pattern, each of these projectiles comprised of malleable lead that will twist and deform on impact with tissue and bone. From personal experience, at close range it typically creates fist-sized holes in whatever you might be pointing it at. The resulting wounds (as I’ll describe in greater detail in the “Wounds” section) are the kind that people popularized the use of chlorine gas against enemy combatants would consider “inhumane.”

[+] Pump-Action

Pump-action shotguns are some of the most popular shotgun actions. They are generally praised for their reliability and famous for the sound that they make when they chamber a shell.
The way a pump-action shotgun functions is that the pump is connected to the bolt, which is pulled back to eject spent shells and to chamber a new one. As this is happening, a shell from the tubular magazine is raised by a lever and placed in front of the bolt.

I should point out here that a tubular magazine is not unique to pump shotguns; most shotguns use them as they are simple and more compact than a box magazine, given the relative size of shotgun shells.

As the pump is closed, the shell is chambered.

As a side note, when the bolt is completely closed it is referred to as being “in battery.” A common and dangerous malfunction is when a gun discharges without completely sealing the action, which is referred to as an “out of battery discharge.”

While the pump does slow down the potential rate of fire of the shotgun, it is a robust action that is not especially prone to malfunction. The large size of the chamber and ease of operation mean that they deal with dirt and debris fairly well.

The most common issue I have seen when teaching people to shoot a pump shotgun is that they tend to be far gentler with the action than is necessary; this can lead to shells not properly ejecting or chambering. As the force of ejection is in some respects dictated by the force at which an individual pulls back on the pump, it behooves a shooter to do so forcefully. Usually I tell people that guns are robust implements that are meant to be “manhandled” as that tends to ensure reliable operation.

The two most common pump-shotguns in widespread use are the Remington 870 and the Mossberg 500.

[+] Break-Action

Break-action shotguns are generally the most mechanically simple in terms of design and operation, and are functionally identical to break-action rifles of similar configuration. Typically they are operated by a small lever which allows the barrel to hinge downwards. At this point, a shell can be inserted and the gun is closed. If the gun does not have an exposed hammer, it typically cocks the firing pin as it is closed. These shotguns are almost solely used for hunting as they are extremely reliable. They are not repeating firearms; every time you fire, you must open and eject a shell before you can insert and fire another.

To counteract the limitation of break-action shotguns, some have multiple barrels – typically two. They are aligned in either an “over and under” or “side-by-side” configuration. This is often abbreviated to “o/u” and “sxs.”

In the case of a shotgun with multiple barrels, because they are mechanically separate from each other they can typically fire in very quick succession. Some use a configuration with multiple triggers – one set in front of the other – to fire each barrel. Others have a single trigger that will fire the barrels sequentially.

It is possible to fire both barrels of a shotgun at one time, but this is typically something one could accomplish with older models. Newer shotguns often have feature that prohibits them from firing both barrels at the exact same time – at least, I’ve never been able to do so on my own hammerless model. Doing so will not damage the gun, though it is dubious as to how useful it would actually be. As mentioned above, a single shotgun shell is more than enough to down a human sized target. I could easily see someone doing so in a panic, though.

[+] Semi-Automatic

Semi-automatic shotguns (sometimes referred to as “autoloaders”) are commonly used for the same reason that semiautomatic rifles are. The ability to have an immediate follow-up shot, especially when shooting at moving targets, is very important. The types of actions used include blowback (utilizing the force of the shell firing to move the bolt), gas-operated (channeling gasses from the barrel to reciprocate the bolt) or recoil-operated (channeling recoil forces to reciprocate the bolt). A gas-operation can be seen in the animation below.

Many semi-automatic shotguns use tubular magazines, however box and drum magazines are becoming more and more popular as more shotguns are designed expressly for use in urban combat.

There are a few fully-automatic shotguns, which function by re-cocking and firing so long as the trigger is held down. The AA-12, USAS-12, and Saiga-12 are some well-known examples.

[+] Lever-Action and Revolver Shotguns

Lever-action shotguns and revolver shotguns are two uncommon, yet somewhat well-known types of shotgun. The Winchester 1887 is the most well known lever-action shotgun, and exists more or less as a fluke; it was designed to appeal to buyers as a particularly “American” shotgun, though the designer felt that pump-action shotguns could be superior and would later develop several well-known and commercially successful designs.

Revolver shotguns are a pretty simple concept; using a revolving cylinder like in a handgun, they were initially developed as early attempts at creating a repeating shotgun. The concept was never really particularly popular but has stuck around in a number of modern designs, notably the Pancor Jackhammer, MtS-255, and Crye Precision’s Six12 (seen above).

[+] Franchi SPAS-12

Vincent: This is a shotgun, Sol!
Solomon: It’s a fucking anti-aircraft gun, Vincent!

So the SPAS-12 gets its own section for a few reasons – it’s appeared in every version except for V6 and V3, and was the signature weapon of V2’s Bryan Calvert. As well, it has appeared in numerous video games, films, and television series as its distinctive appearance makes it something of a fan-favourite. My first introduction to the firearm was in the video game Half-Life, where it served the role as the game’s shotgun. Until I really got into firearms I was under the impression that it was just an unusual looking pump-action shotgun, but the truth is far more interesting.

The Franchi Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun (or Sporting Purpose Automatic Shotgun as it was later renamed) was developed in the late seventies as a combination of a pump-action and semi-automatic shotgun.

This means that the shotgun can be switched from firing in a pump-action configuration to a semi-automatic configuration relatively easily. The reason for this is that less-lethal riot shotgun shells often operate at too low a pressure to reliably cycle gas-operated shotguns.

So a user could switch the shotgun to pump when firing less-lethal shells, and semi-automatic when firing standard shells. To do so, the user has to push a button on the bottom of the pump and move the pump forward slightly. At that point, the gas-operation is engaged and it is able to fire with successive pulls of the trigger.

Downsides to the design of the SPAS-12 include mechanical complexity and weight; the SPAS-12 is noted for being a particularly heavy and cumbersome firearm. On the one hand, this means that felt recoil will be less than a lighter shotgun; on the other, heavier firearms become increasingly difficult to carry over long distances or maneuver in confined spaces.

For more information, Forgotten Weapons does an interesting rundown on the SPAS-12.

[+] Pancor Jackhammer

So the Pancor Jackhammer has also made appearances in SOTF as a strange and unique weapon, at least in appearance. It is a mechanically over-complicated prototype combat shotgun, which never went into official production. Yet, its appearance in popular media has made it something of an iconic weapon. The last existing prototype’s magazine is not actually removable without the use of a hex key and some disassembly of the gun; the two models that were sent off for military testing (and later destroyed) used removable magazines. There are ten shots from the large revolver magazine before it must be reloaded; these magazines are bulky and it is unlikely one would be able to carry too many spares for quick reloading.

For the most part, it would be outperformed by modern automatic shotguns such as the AA-12, USAS-12, or Saiga-12 considering that all have higher magazine capacity than the Jackhammer and are less mechanically sophisticated. Still, the weapon is an interesting relic from a time when so many prototype guns looked the kinds of “space-age” weapons one might find in Aliens or Starship Troopers.

If you’d like to know more about the Pancor Jackhammer, Ian from Forgotten Weapons does a really thorough rundown here.

[+] Punt Guns

Aw, geez. Well, y’know, I might as well cover these just in case.

Punt Guns were designed to be fired from a Punt, which is a type of small fishing boat. They were employed in hunting flocks of waterfowl on an industrial scale, with groups of up to fifty punts out bird hunting. The typical one-ounce load of birdshot in a twelve gauge shotgun can have around 291 pellets; the typical one-pound load of birdshot in a punt gun would have somewhere in the realm of 4600 pellets, give or take.

This depends heavily on the type of punt gun. While yes, some were twelve feet long and of an obscenely large bore diameter, others were simply large, 6 or 8 gauge hunting shotguns. Firing one of these at somebody would create horrific wounds; I daresay firing a full-size punt gun at a human target would completely eviscerate them. However, given what we know of birdshot and its spread pattern, the lethality of such a weapon would very quickly drop off at a not especially long range. Birdshot does tend to spread out quite a bit, which means that someone issued with a Punt Gun has a weapon with the weight and size concerns of an anti-material or anti-tank rifle, but none of the advantages.

It’s wacky, but it would be probably terrible to get as a weapon and terrifying to be on the receiving end of.

Examples:

V1:Hawley Faust / Adam Dodd’s Remington 11-87
V2:Bryan Calvert’s SPAS-12
V3:Keith Jackson’s Remington 870
V4:Albert Lions’ TOZ-194
V5:Kathryn Nguyen’s Winchester Model 1897
V6:Irene Djezari’s Mossberg 590

[Shiola]

V7 Firearm Rankings

[+] The List

So these rankings are based on a couple of factors:

First and foremost, I'm looking at how effective these weapons are in the hands of inexperienced users in a high-stress situation. Just because something has a lot of firepower doesn't mean it's going to be effective. Next to that are things like portability and ease of use. Lastly, I try and consider how dangerous the weapon might be to the person using it. So think of this list as a ranking of both the likely usefulness of these weapons, and as a ranking of their potential usefulness.

Green indicates a BKA Reward weapon. Red indicates a weapon that has been disabled or destroyed in the course of the game.

1. FN P90

Oh, boy!
Okay, so the P90 is in a category all to itself because of a few glaring advantages it has over most of the other firearms. Firstly, it's incredibly compact - designed as a Personal Defense Weapon, it was meant to be carried by rear-echelon troops and personal security guards, specifically to be handled in confined spaces. The gun is only 20 inches long. It's quite small. It is technically a bullpup-configuration weapon - the active component of the weapon is inside of the stock. This means that it doesn't sacrifice accuracy by having an exceptionally short barrel given its size - reputedly, they are quite accurate firearms and typically come with integral optics or a red dot sight.

Additionally, the magazine is an unconventional design that holds an astonishing 50 rounds. The 5.7×28mm is a small-caliber, high velocity cartridge designed to pierce body armor. It has relatively low recoil, flies straight, and has ballistics more comparable to a rifle round than a pistol cartridge. While there are debates as to its lethality, chances are with the P90 a target isn't going to be hit just once - it has a rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute.

Be on the lookout for this one.

1.5 GM-94 Grenade Launcher

This one is an especially interesting weapon, given that it's (to my knowledge) the only explosive weapon in the entire version.

Given the information that was provided (it was a pump-action 43mm grenade launcher) I surmised that it was the Russian GM-94 Grenade Launcher. It is designed to be used in relatively close range urban combat by Russian security forces and can be configured to fire high-explosive fragmentation grenades, teargas canisters, aerosol explosives, or rubber bullets. Given that the de facto guideline with weapons on the site is to utilize them with their most typically issued equipment, we can also generally agree that it would be issued with high-explosive fragmentation grenades. This also appears to scan with the fact that the weapon was explicitly issued with six grenades, which with this weapon means the ability to reload the magazine once over (it has a capacity of three - one in the chamber, two in the upper tube.)

So when it comes to grenade launchers, because of the size of the projectiles and the fact that they do not derive their lethality from the actual speed of the projectile, they tend to actually be relatively slow-moving; 43x30mm grenades fired by the GM-94 typically travel at 280 feet per second (compared to 1100 feet per second of an average pistol cartridge) and have a maximum effective range of between 330 and 500 yards.

To prevent premature detonation injuring the user or those in their immediate vicinity, most grenades utilized in this role have some kind of time or distance delay built into the projectile, activating either after a set time or number of rotations that the projectile makes.

What this means is that at an especially close range, the projectile is very likely to just impact a person or surface without detonating. This is a good thing! It means that the user isn't as likely to explode themselves as you might think. At that distance and given the weight and speed of the projectile, it is also still very capable of causing lethal injury.

The thing that keeps this weapon from taking the top spot is also the reason it's so effective and deadly. The main mechanism by which grenades kill is by fragmentation. Basically, the purpose of the explosive within the grenade isn't primarily to blast apart the intended targets - it is to create a lethal burst of shrapnel that will kill anyone caught within the vicinity. This can come from the case of the explosive itself as well as any debris kicked up by the blast. Blast effect is actually a secondary lethal effect of these kinds of weapons, and is most prominent when grenades explode indoors - the walls of a building will reflect the blast back onto the occupants, intensifying its ability to cause physical trauma.

Why is this a disadvantage? Well, there's simply no way to be completely safe from shrapnel if you're within line of sight to the explosion, unless you're at a pretty significant distance. While it's difficult to blow yourself up with a weapon like this, it's still entirely possible to become the victim of your own attack. The kill radius of a comparable fragmentation grenades is within 16 feet or 5 metres from the explosion - but the casualty (injury) radius can be up to 427 feet or 130 metres.

The GM-94 is quite clearly unparalleled in its ability to cause massive destruction to a large area relative to every other weapon on this list. Nothing else even really comes close. In terms of ergonomics, it's also not that bad as far as weapons are concerned, clocking in at about twelve pounds fully loaded. However, it still fails to take the top spot for the reason that it's also incredibly easy to accidentally kill or maim yourself with it, as well as being one of the few weapons on this list with an explicitly limited supply of ammunition.

2. Beretta M12; Amaranta Montalvo’s M4 Carbine; Rock River Arms LAR-15 Elite Operator 2 ; ST Kinetics BR18 ; H&K PSG-1


A submachine gun, the M12 is fairly ergonomic and comes with a select-fire option; it can be fired in full-auto or semi-auto. It is light, portable, and has a folding stock for more accurate fire. The 9mm round typically provides little recoil in a shoulder-fired weapon. Additionally, the M12 has a relatively low rate of fire for a submachine gun, which means that it is actually relatively easy to control when firing in full-auto. This is a weapon to watch out for. While ostensibly less effective than the M4 Carbine, I’m keeping this weapon in the top spot as it is more likely to be extremely useful for a student with little firearms experience.


The M4 Carbine would be “pound-for-pound” the most dangerous weapon currently on this list if not for the P90. Given the range provided by the 5.56 Cartridge and the lightweight ergonomics of the weapon, it will prove extremely lethal in the right hands. The weapon is also select-fire, and fires at around 850 rounds per minute in full auto.



The first Best Kill Award Weapon, issued to Blaise D'Aramitz.

Functionally identical to the M4 Carbine. A lightweight, select-fire* rifle in 5.56x45 NATO is an extremely deadly weapon, and relatively easy to use.

*I'm not clear on whether or not this weapon would be select-fire or not. Civilian purchased rifles would not be, but those manufactured under contract to various law enforcement agencies in the US would be capable of full-auto. It entirely depends on where the AT sourced their guns from.


The BR18 is a fantastic weapon, and I kind of want one myself. I didn’t know it existed until now but given a once-over it seems to be the pretty standard 5.56 assault rifle in a bullpup configuration, with a whole ton of features that make it pleasing to use. Bullpup rifles have the action behind the trigger assembly as part of the stock, which means that they are able to be much shorter than conventionally designed rifles while not sacrificing barrel length. The downsides of bullpup rifles (from my experience and that of others) is that they tend to be a bit rear-heavy, and the trigger pull isn’t fantastic. Those aren’t really downsides in this context as far as I can tell, making this one of the best weapons currently out there.


BKA Reward Weapon issued to Michael Froese & Erika Steiglitz

So this one requires a bit of qualification; in the right hands, this is very much one of the most dangerous weapons on this list. However, it has a number of limiting factors that keep it from the top spot which I still ultimately believe belongs to the P90.

The PSG-1 was designed following a need for the German police and counter-terrorism for a medium to long range sharpshooter's rifle, following the Munich Olympics Massacre. Essentially what they did was take a standard G3 assault rifle and heavily modified it into a precision sniper's rifle. This meant installing a thicker barrel, steel reinforcement rods in the receiver to stabilize the action; an ergonomic and fully adjustable grip and stock; and a Schmidt & Bender 3-12×50 scope. Additionally, it was equipped with a forward-assist mechanism that enables one to chamber the first round in the gun more quietly than one might be able to do otherwise.

The accuracy demanded by the German government was 1 Minute-of-Angle, which means being able to hit a one-inch circle at one hundred yards consistently, two-inches at two hundred yards, three inches at three-hundred, and so on.

Suffice to say, it's an extremely accurate and lethal weapon, but it has several notable disadvantages that make it ultimately difficult to use for those unfamiliar with firearms. Firstly, it has no integral iron sights - if the scope breaks, there is no way to accurately aim the weapon. Secondly, it weighs a little over fifteen pounds. Weight is a good thing when it comes to accuracy and absorbing recoil, but it's not good when you need to carry the thing around all the time. Third, it has no bolt hold-open feature; this means that there is no visual indication that the firearm is out of ammunition. Altogether that means that while this has a great deal of potential in the right hands, most of the SOTF participants would be better off with one of the handguns or assault rifles.

3. Bryan Calvert’s SPAS-12 Shotgun; Sawed-Off Browning A5; Benelli M3; Glock 19; Brügger & Thomet MP9 ; Uzi Pro


I explained the SPAS-12's advantages above; it’s a semi-automatic shotgun and heavy enough that the recoil is actually quite manageable. Reloading isn’t quick, but that’s more than made up for by the sheer amount of firepower at one’s disposal.


The Sawed-Off A5 is excellent for all of the reasons the SPAS-12 is. Unlike the SPAS-12, the A5 with a sawed off barrel would be fairly portable. This does have the tradeoff of greater perceived recoil. Additionally, if the weapon has been sawed off it is unlikely to have a choke at the end of the barrel; this means that the shot will pattern more widely, losing it some effective range.


The Benelli M3 strikes something of a balance between the A5 and the SPAS-12, being lighter than the A5 though slightly longer and having a similar semi-auto/pump capability as the SPAS-12. Recoil might be slightly more noticeable given its light weight, but in general Benelli shotguns are known for being generally quite manageable and relatively user-friendly.


The Glock 19 ranks above the Walther and Jericho for a few reasons, despite firing the same cartridge as both of them. First, Glocks are legendarily reliable handguns that aren’t prone to many malfunctions out of the box. Secondly, it’s a compact handgun with a 17 round capacity. While we aren’t tracking ammo counts in total, I can only assume we’re tracking reloads (so as not to have someone firing 30 uninterrupted shots out of a Colt SAA) - in which case, the Glock 19 has the highest capacity magazine of any weapon besides the assault rifles and submachine guns. Generally speaking, if I was in a place where I personally needed a handgun for self-defense, I would probably buy a Glock 19 as it does absolutely everything a person needs a pistol to do, and nothing more. Plus, if you find a crowbar you can totally pretend you’re Gordon Freeman.


The Brügger & Thomet MP9 is the modern incarnation of a submachine gun that would be familiar to anyone who’s played Counter-Strike - the Steyr TMP. It’s a tremendously dangerous weapon, firing a 9mm cartridge from 30 round detachable box magazines. There’s an important reason I’d rank it below the Beretta M12: The M12 has a rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute while the MP9 has a rate of fire of 990 rounds per minute. This means that at full-auto, the magazine will be burned through in about two seconds. This is also detrimental for the ability of a user to actually maintain a point of aim, provided they even have the presence of mind to fire in short bursts. That factor prevents it from sharing the top spot on this list.


The Uzi Pro fills a similar niche to the B&T MP9, though it has an even more absurd rate of fire at 1050 rounds per minute. It fires the same 9mm cartridge from 20 (or 30) round detachable box magazines. The incredibly high rate of fire means that once again, the magazine can be burned out in less than two seconds. Still, with a neatly folding stock the Uzi Pro is very portable and maneuverable in close quarters; the detrimental temptation to "spray and pray" with a weapon like this is what keeps it from rising any higher on this list.

4. Walther P99; IWI Jericho 941; Sig Sauer P226 ; Vektor SP1 ; Pancor Jackhammer


The Walther P99 is a modern polymer-framed 9mm pistol with a 15-round box magazine. It’s portable, easy to use, and could have quite a bit of longevity in the game. Not especially useful at longer ranges, unless the user is particularly adept with firearms. Its high ranking primarily stems from ease of use, lethality, and portability.


The IWI Jericho will tie for this spot as well, as it fills the same niche.


The Sig Sauer P226 is a well-known military and law-enforcement sidearm issued worldwide. It has a variety of chamberings, though I suspect it is in .357 SIG as it is a common chambering of law enforcement agencies. It’s a bit hotter than 9mm and might see a marginal increase in lethality, but probably not by much. The standard-issue magazines hold 13 rounds.


The Vektor SP-1 falls into the same category as the rest of the modern nine millimeter handguns. It is renowned for being particularly ergonomic and reliable, and comes with a 15-round box magazine akin to the Walther and the Jericho.



Ah, the Jackhammer. On the surface it might seem like a particularly powerful weapon. It's a select-fire twelve gauge shotgun in a bullpup configuration, with an automatic rate of fire of 240 rounds per minute. Given its compact size and cool futuristic appearance, it might seem appealing. Unfortunately, there's a few major problems with the gun - mostly tied to the fact that it was a tool-room prototype that was never meant for mass production, nor did it ever actually progress past the development stage.

The main problem is the fact that reloading the Pancor Jackhammer just... sucks. Putting aside the fact that the version that we typically think of as the Pancor Jackhammer was a tool room prototype that needed to be disassembled before it was reloaded, the two later iterations of the Jackhammer still suffered from a pretty major design flaw: The gun had no automatic extraction of shells from the drum magazine. The empty shells remained in the drum until it was removed and they were taken out by hand, similar to that of a revolver. Given the size and weight of the magazine itself, carrying a significant amount of spare magazines becomes something of a chore, and not a task that would be easy to do with any expediency in combat.

Second, the design of the gun is that of a blow-forward, automatically indexing revolver. This means that the entire barrel assembly slams forward as the gun fires, likely leading to a characteristically violent recoil, even for a twelve gauge shotgun. You can see an animation of the Jackhammer's mechanism here.

Third, the full-auto nature of the Jackhammer largely works against the shooter. If you flip this weapon to full auto, it will blow through its magazine within about three seconds. Given how tempting something like that would be for an inexperienced shooter, the Pancor is essentially tailor-made to force someone into a situation where they're struggling to reload the bulky drum magazines after they excitedly sprayed buckshot everywhere.

Even given the fact that the SPAS-12, Benelli M3, and Auto-5 are all semi-auto only shotguns that can only load a single shell at a time, they are far more preferable as weapons than the Pancor Jackhammer given just how much more reliable and simple they are to operate. The only reason it isn't ranked lower than the Mossberg and the MSs-255 is because it is an autoloading shotgun, which is a significant enough advantage to negate its downsides. Depending on who is using it, it's entirely possible that those two weapons would be preferable to the Jackhammer if only for the sake of simplicity. Its position on this list still reflects the fact that, as a shotgun, it's still an especially lethal and dangerous weapon in the right hands.

It is far from the best shotgun on the list, and wildly inferior to modern combat shotguns like the USAS-12, AA-12, Benelli M4, and Saiga-12.

5. Mossberg 500, MTs-255 Shotgun



The Mossberg 500 is an excellent weapon. Remember the golden rule of long-guns: with a rifle you aim; with a shotgun, you point. As I mentioned in the guide above, close range shotguns are messy and brutal weapons and exceptionally lethal. Keeping this from the top spot is the fact that it is a manual action (pump), and therefore requires at least some coordination to use effectively.


The MTs255 is really neat! It’s a five-shot revolver shotgun designed in Russia, with the market of hunters in mind. I’m assuming it’s the 12 gauge model as the rest of the shotguns probably would be, so it’s just as deadly as the other shotguns. The reason it shares the spot with the Mossberg is that while it ostensibly can fire faster (you need only keep pulling the trigger) it also shares the disadvantage of the double-action trigger design: the trigger pull is going to be quite heavy. The reason for this is that unless you manually cock the action (not a bad idea) the trigger is going to be doing the work of rotating the cylinder and cocking the hammer as well. In such a large revolver-style action, this problem would only be exacerbated. Still, it’s likely going to be markedly reliable and useful as a weapon.

6. Luger P08


The Luger P08 is an antiquated but very effective design, and the (primary) progenitor of the popular 9mm cartridge. It feeds from an eight-round detachable box magazine; this and the reduced recoil compared to a .45ACP just barely puts it ahead of the Ballester-Molina.

7. Adam Dodd’s Ballester-Molina


The Classic. The Ballester-Molina takes a lower spot because of its low magazine capacity, and the high recoil of the .45ACP cartridge. It’s a heavy-hitter for sure, but V1’s Big Iron is showing some age in the era of nine millimeter handguns with high-capacity magazines.

8. Winchester Model 88


The Model 88 is a versatile hunting rifle (probably chambered in .308) that is relatively easy to use, though the lever-action may be a bit awkward for inexperienced users. However, it is a robust firearm that will take quite a bit of punishment before it has any trouble functioning. Add in the long range, and the only thing keeping this weapon from placing higher is the skill ceiling required to use it effectively.

9. Wildey .45 ; Automag 180


So far the better of the two hand-cannons currently on this list, the Wildey is chambered in .45 Winchester Magnum and has an eight-round detachable box magazine. Like the Desert Eagle, it is a “gas operated” firearm. This was primarily an easy way of making a pistol that could be simply switched to different cartridges with a parts kit (barrel, bolt face). The reason the Wildey ranks above the Desert Eagle is that the recoil from the cartridge is by and large more manageable. The .45 Winchester Magnum is a powerful round - 3 times more potent than the standard .45 ACP - but is still not quite as monstrous as the .50AE. More controllable recoil means that it’s less jarring for the shooter and more likely to score follow-up shots. Ergonomically it’s still a massive handgun, but you’re probably going to have a better time shooting it than the Desert Eagle.

The reason it ranks below the smaller handguns is that quite frankly, the benefits gained from a really powerful handgun cartridge do not outweigh the disadvantages in recoil, weight, and limited magazine capacity. A strong handgun cartridge is still not really going to compare to the average rifle cartridge.


The AT really seem to have a thing for weird 1970s magnum pistols, don't they? The Automag 180 fires a .44 Magnum cartridge, which is comparable to the .45 Winchester Magnum in strength. The magazine capacity is also similar, with both guns having seven round detachable box magazines. I haven't read anything to indicate recoil would be especially different from one to the other, although the Automag utilizes a short-recoil mechanism whereas the Wildey is gas-operated. Generally speaking in the field, a gas-operated firearm is going to be a touch more finicky in terms of cleaning and maintenance and the information I've read seems to indicate as such. Once again, the benefits of a magnum pistol are outweighed by the negatives, especially in a run-and-gun situation like SOTF. Nevertheless, one absolutely does not want to be the receiving end of it.

10. Arsenal Firearms AF2011-A1 Second Century


You’d think I would put this above the Ballester-Molina as it is essentially two of those guns welded together. However, that only really presents it with two major disadvantages - twice the recoil, and twice the width. I’ve seen videos of people shooting these who remark that they are particularly awkward guns to handle, given that it’s actually two guns. Still, a pistol’s a pistol and if you manage to land a hit with it, there’s two bullets on target instead of one.

11. Kel-Tec P-32


A solid gun to get your hands on. It’s small, so it actually skews in the opposite direction to most firearms - smaller students will find it easier to use. The .32ACP is something of an anemic cartridge though, and it’s often the case that those shot with it not only survive, but aren’t really slowed down. A knowledgeable student would know to try and use a weapon like this in close quarters, where they can aim a shot to the head or several consecutive shots. The magazine capacity is 7-10 rounds which puts it in the same group as the Luger and Ballester-Molina.

12. Desert Eagle


Ah, the Desert Eagle. Big, scary, fifty-caliber handgun. Made famous in just about every first-person shooter and a whole bunch of movies. It’s notoriety was as far as I can tell a clever marketing strategy combined with it being a beautiful and unique handgun. They’re huge, they have a fairly considerable amount of recoil, and they look awesome. You can see where the problems lie. I’ve held one of these before - comfortable, but they really are quite heavy. That might not seem like a problem until you’ve got it outstretched in front of you, desperately trying to hold it steady so you can hit something.

On top of that, the combined momentum of the gun’s slide and the massive recoil from the .50 Action Express cartridge mean that it’s not going to be manageable. Furthermore, the gun only has a 7-round magazine. For all that, you get to look cool and you have a big cartridge that’s gonna put down anyone it hits pretty hard. It’s going to rank below the Wildey and most of the standard military-style sidearms but above the the Colt SAA. If you’ve got the muscles or the experience to handle the recoil it should serve you reasonably well.

13. Colt Single-Action Army


Despite its age, the Colt SAA could be an excellent weapon in the right hands. Given that it is a handgun, it is more portable and easier to use in close quarters. The .45 Colt cartridge isn’t the most ballistically efficient, but it is still quite lethal. The greatest disadvantage of this weapon is its slow rate of fire and the difficulty of reloading. Additionally, carrying it fully loaded presents a hazard insofar as the hammer is resting on the primer of a loaded round - it would be especially likely to discharge accidentally if bumped or dropped.

14. Steyr Scout Tactical Rifle ; Venom Tactical Taipan ; Martini-Henry Rifle MKIV Pattern ; K3 Stutzen


The Scout would take a higher spot were it issued with a scope. As it stands, with only iron sights it is considerably more awkward to use than the Winchester 88. Points in its favor include its light weight and integrated bipod that will help with aiming from a prone or stationary position. A skilled user could make great use of this weapon.


In terms of sheer physical power, the Taipan fires the most powerful projectile of any weapon issued out to the students so far. The .338 Lapua round is obscenely powerful, and is commonly seen as the next-best thing to a .50BMG in terms of maintaining energy at long range. It was developed as a long range sniper cartridge for use in situations where extreme range was required. Various loadings of the cartridge have been used to engage targets at ranges past 1800 yards, and it is sufficient to down large game up to and including elephants. Consequently, any rifle firing the cartridge is going to be pretty hefty. The Taipan mitigates this by featuring a folding stock that minimizes the overall length of the weapon for transport. It is not, however, a "take-down" rifle. They are essentially custom variants of the popular Remington 700, built with ergonomics and portability in mind. I wasn't able to find a listed weight for the rifle, but it's at least eight pounds or less altogether.

It finds itself in this ranking based on the fact that while effective, it isn't necessarily easy to use in a scenario where one is running from place to place, or in an active firefight. It's going to be most useful in the hands of someone who's a decent shot with a rifle, or at least has the wherewithal to set it up somewhere instead of using it off-hand. The recoil of a .338 Lapua in a light rifle like this is going to be immense, as will the report: the rifle comes equipped with a muzzle brake that to the layman may as well be referred to as a "loudener." Still, there's no doubt that it's an incredibly deadly weapon. One thing to keep in mind is there isn't much cover on the island that's actually going to stop one of these bullets, past a thick tree or rocks. It will punch straight through a house and keep going.


So full disclosure, I submitted this weapon. It’s terrifying in concept, even though it’s a single-shot rifle. The .577/450 round is from the days when powder was relatively inefficient, and so it made more sense to just make larger and larger cartridges to create greater lethality. It fires an enormous lead-alloy slug that was reported to have been able to punch fist-sized holes in unarmoured fighters. On top of that, the action is relatively quick to use consisting of a simple lever that ejects the cartridge and opens the action. Furthermore, the black powder creates huge clouds of smoke that can obscure the battlefield. You absolutely do not want to be shot with this. Major disadvantages are the weight and length of the weapon - it’s around four feet long. Additionally, the recoil is particularly nasty.



The K3 Stutzen is a really nice rifle - for hunting! Or hanging above your mantlepiece to impress your rich friends! It's essentially an exceptionally well made break-action rifle, chambered in a variety of cartridges and marketed primarily to hunters who have a lot of money lying around. It's typically sold with an expensive, well-made Swarovski scope with a 3x to 10x optical zoom. By all accounts it's an accurate, easy to use, and exceptionally lethal weapon. The trigger pull on guns like these is typically exceptionally crisp, and altogether the amount of workmanship that goes into them means that you end up with an exceptionally accurate, light, handy rifle.

The main downside of it is that it isn't really a weapon designed for combat. It does not eject the cartridges out of the chamber, they have to be manually removed after each shot. This means that as far as follow-up shots are concerned, it is exceptionally slow - more so than the Martini-Henry or some of the bolt action rifles on this list. The best situation for this weapon is in an ambush, where there isn't a high probability of a target firing back or having allies who would do so.

15. Repeating Crossbow (Day 2 BKA, to Violet Schmidt)

Day 2 Best Kill Award Weapon, issued to Violet Schmidt.

I can only assume that the repeating crossbow is something akin to the Cobra RX Adder repeating crossbow. It's essentially a lever-action crossbow that performs the actions of re-cocking and loading a new bolt in a single action. This presents a few key advantages and disadvantages. It's going to be less powerful and have shorter range than Min-Jae's Crossbow as it would have to have a lower draw weight to be able to function the way it does, therefore limiting its range and (possibly) lethality. On the flipside, it's relatively easy to ready another shot compared to the normal process of drawing back a crossbow and loading it again.

While Violet was right to consider it something of a downgrade from her Winchester 88 rifle, it's still an entirely serviceable weapon.

16. Min-jae Parker's crossbow (20 bolts)


Crossbows are extremely lethal weapons in the right hands, and therefore scores well. The slow reload time is a definite handicap, but crossbows are much quieter than firearms while still effective long-range weapons. Included in this list as it's a ranged weapon - in some jurisdictions, crossbows are legally considered firearms.

17. H&K P11


It’s designed to be used underwater, and fires rocket-propelled steel darts. Very likely a lethal weapon, though it has a small effective range and a limited capacity of five shots. Yes, I know we’re not keeping track of the ammunition this version; just noting that the original design requires the weapon be sent back to the manufacturer to be reloaded. For this reason and its limited accuracy, I’d rank it below the other firearms.

18. Punt Gun
*laughs maniacally*

This thing is insane. As it was one of my issued weapons, the model I was approved to use was a 3-Bore (29.41mm) Punt Gun. It has a seven foot long barrel and loads from a breech more comparable to a cannon than a shotgun. It’ll require some creativity to land a hit, but if it does the person(s) in question will be blown apart. Its ranking is more or less solely from its destructive potential.

19. Nock gun


Nock Guns are also some of my favorite historical firearms. They’re particularly unwieldy, being incredibly heavy while still the same length as a standard musket. It's essentially seven musket barrels in one gun. They were designed to be used on ships to give an individual shooter the ability to essentially fire a volley, not from the shoulder. The Nock fires all seven barrels at once, and fell out of favour because even as heavy as they were, they still generated an insane amount of recoil. The barrels of the gun are all smoothbore, but makes up for its lack of accuracy with sheer volume of fire. These are individual lead bullets as opposed to the hurricane of shot that the Punt Gun fires so it likely has more effective range. I’d assume the AT provided it with powder and lead bullets, as they are muzzle-loading firearms - so the main drawback here is how long it’s going to take to load this thing. Still, it’s a lot of firepower with one pull of the trigger.

20. Flare Gun


So it’s not the best “gun” out there to use on someone, but it’s certainly nothing anyone wants to be shot with. The kind of flares most available to the general public are 12-gauge shells that are shot out of plastic guns that aren’t designed to fire anything else. Don’t load a 12 gauge shotgun shell into a flare gun unless your student is the kind of stupid that doesn’t realize how profoundly stupid they are. It will explode, they will lose a hand. The flare itself is going to fly out of the gun at high speed and after a short delay, ignite. These things burn incredibly hot, and anybody with a lit flare stuck in their clothing or face is going to find themselves on fire in short order. Additionally, the bright light could be used to illuminate dark areas, blind someone wearing night-vision goggles, or as a distraction. Also worth noting is that standard 12 gauge flares can be fired from 12 gauge shotguns.

21. Shotgun Flashlight


This isn't much of an asset as a flashlight, because the students are already all issued flashlights; in this respect it makes more sense as a hidden weapon than a tool. I’d say it’s probably one of the better ones at that. Every student isn’t issued with lipstick, but every student is issued a flashlight. In that respect, carrying a strange looking flashlight around isn’t going to arouse much suspicion. Now, the shotgun shell that would be concealable inside of a flashlight as a weapon like this is not going to have a whole lot of range; bear in mind that there’s pretty much no barrel to speak of, and this would need to be used at pretty much point blank range. Make no mistake though, it would be fairly lethal.

22. The Liberator 3D-Printed Pistol


You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to pull the trigger on one of these. They’re manufactured from plastic, and designed to fire one .380 ACP cartridge at a time. More of a political prop than anything else, I’ve seen so many videos of these things exploding on the first, second, or third shot. It would mangle the user’s hand pretty horribly. That said, if it doesn’t fail spectacularly you have a pretty terrible handgun that’s not likely to hit anything accurately past about ten to fifteen feet.

23. Blowgun w/ 10 poison darts


The best weapon for a music student, particularly a horn player. Could be deadly in the right hands, but you’d need the wherewithal to use it properly; in particular, lung capacity. No clear idea as to the nature of the poison, but I’m going to assume it’s pretty lethal; it might also be a good idea to use the darts themselves as weapons.

24. Kiss of death (lipstick gun)


The main way you’d want to use it is by sneaking up to someone at point blank range and shooting them somewhere vulnerable - back of the neck, the eye, etc. However, the 4.5mm cartridge would have to be pretty anemic to fit in the lipstick to begin with, and the lack of a barrel means it has little appreciable velocity. Unless the round specifically hits a part of the body that would cause lethal damage (the brain stem, major artery) you’re probably just going to give someone a minor, if not pretty painful wound.

[Shiola]

Wounds

So after some time spent researching trauma as a result of gunshot wounds, I’ve put together something of a guide as to how best to describe and deal with gunshot wounds for characters. It’s by no means comprehensive and is mostly meant to give an overview as to what guns actually do to living tissue. This is essentially an entire area of forensic study and it’s not particularly easy to summarize. However, there are lots of resources online that can help out quite a bit.

It’s been a mission of mine to do so in a way that minimized exposure of members of the site to images they’d rather not see, and to save time by summarizing as many of the main points as possible.

The following lecture was a major help in putting together this guide. If you have the time, it’s worth a listen. https://youtu.be/wXwPtP-KDNk

First off, how do firearms kill?

Basically when a bullet hits a human being, it wounds in a few different ways.

The first is the primary wound cavity – the literal hole that the bullet punches through.

This is typically where a lot of handgun wounds begin and end, as they simply do not carry enough energy to do significant damage outside of this cavity. The primary wound cavity causes injury and death through blood loss and direct destruction of vital organs. If a handgun round manages to miss most vital organs on its way through a target, the primary concerns for anyone trying to treat that wound is to stem the blood loss and ensure that no fragments of the bullet remain in the target.

One common notion is that an exit wound is going to be larger than an entry wound. This is often but not necessarily the case, and depends entirely on whether or not the bullet had a clean trajectory through a target. If the bullet tumbles, fragments, or expands in the target it will typically create a larger exit wound.

The next major effect is what is referred to as the secondary cavitation injury. A projectile with sufficient energy will transfer that into the surrounding tissue, causing it to expand and create a temporary wound cavity. This will cause air to be rapidly drawn into the wound, potentially contaminating it. The temporary cavity can be 6-10 times larger than the primary wound cavity.

Hollow-Point 9mm handgun projectile fired into ballistic gel.

The pressure wave can also cause bone fractures and rupture the surrounding soft tissue. Generally speaking, the denser the tissue is the more it can resist cavitation effects. This means that relatively soft tissue like organs are particularly susceptible to this effect, whereas flexible tissues like muscle and skin are far more resistant. This is part of the reason that high-velocity projectile wounds to the head are so highly lethal, as the cavitation causes massive trauma to the relatively soft and inelastic tissue of the brain.

5.56 NATO Rifle round fired into ballistic gel.

The third and final effect worth mentioning is fragmentation. Fragmentation can occur as a result of the projectile itself – high velocity projectiles have a tendency to yaw and turn in living tissue, and they may disintegrate as they do so. Additionally, some projectiles are explicitly designed to expand and disintegrate as they impact tissue, utilizing a hollow point or a bullet tipped with a high-density material to encourage this. Either process will accelerate shards of metal into the surrounding tissue causing further trauma.

Additionally, projectiles can cause dangerous fragmentation by impacting and shattering bone; these shards of bone are often a primary complication in treating gunshot wounds as they can continue to cause further trauma to the body even if there are no bullet fragments left in the victim.

The likelihood of death is dictated largely by the above factors. The primary causes of death via firearm are from blood loss, organ failure, infection, and catastrophic damage to the central nervous system.

Comparison of various firearms vs a similar medium.

The above should also make it clear that there really isn’t any “best” place to be shot. There are definitely worse places than others – any shot to the brain stem will likely result in instant death, and being shot in the head or heart would be obviously worse than being shot in the leg. The key takeaway from this is that firearms can cause trauma far beyond the immediate site of the injury.

The main impetus in writing this guide is to help people understand the way these wounds work, because I find it’s often the case that people either greatly overestimate or greatly underestimate how deadly firearms can actually be. The unfortunate reality is that firearms are usually depicted as more lethal in television, film, and video games than they actually are. In reality, people are typically not silent or immobile after being incapacitated by a gunshot, they are usually still awake and aware of what has happened to them.

I can only surmise that the creators of this media are either unaware or consciously trying to spare their audience the viscerally uncomfortable sounds people make when they’re in egregious pain and bleeding to death.

Okay, so How Lethal Is My Gun, actually?

Ultimately this is up to whoever is writing a scene and the degree to which they want their character to be wounded.

However, I believe that ultimately a commitment to some realism does in the end help ground a work and make it more immersive to a reader. What you should find when looking at these details shouldn’t be constraints – “I have to do this because otherwise it would be unrealistic” – but instead, possibilities. Understanding the various ways a gun can wound a human being also makes it clear the ways in which a person can survive being shot, and it opens more creative doors in terms of describing a character’s personal experience of being shot.

I highly suggest, if you feel comfortable, to read interviews or AMAs of victims of gun violence. I’ve been lucky enough to speak to a few people who have been victims of firearms assaults, and they’ve given me valuable insights into what it’s really like. The overwhelming commonality between all victims is an intense burning sensation, as well as a notion that it took their bodies a few moments to register the pain. However, there are enough differences in personal accounts that I don’t think anyone should feel constrained in how they describe it.

Essentially there are a few major factors at play that are worth thinking about. These factors essentially dictate what kind of wound is going to be created and how lethal that wound is going to be. They are:

- Projectile Size
- Projectile Composition
- Velocity
- Shot Placement

The larger a bullet, the greater the mass accelerated towards a target and the larger the primary wound cavity will be.

A bullet’s design will dictate whether or not it is inclined to penetrate through a target, whether it flies straight through or tumbles through a target, and whether or not it fragments and expands.

A bullet’s velocity will exacerbate all of the previous factors as it ultimately determines how much energy is imparted. A slow moving bullet is much more likely to stop inside of a target, whereas a fast-moving bullet will pass straight through, its greater energy potentially creating more cavitation within a target.

Bullets rarely travel in a perfectly straight trajectory, and the placement of the shot can dictate the kind of path a projectile will take through tissue. Bone, muscle, and sinew all can affect the path of the projectile. The an inch or two in one direction or another can mean the difference between a superficial through-and-through wound and a mess of shattered bone and internal bleeding.

One small aside – the physical force imparted by a projectile is necessarily only as significant as the recoil force created by firing the weapon. If a gun isn’t causing someone to fly ten feet in the air backwards when they fire it, it isn’t going to cause someone to fly ten feet back when they’re hit with the projectile. That said, guns do impart a significant physical force on their target and people often tend to jump or flinch when shot, which is often mistaken for being "blown away."

So, here are a few things to think about depending on the weapon you may encounter. One important consideration is the difference between an incapacitation and a kill – when I refer to incapacitation, I’m talking about a wound or trauma that is so significant that an individual can no longer fight back or engage in any meaningful action.

Examples (no pictures)

What I'm trying to show here is that because there is so much variability in the ways in which guns can harm a human being, there are a ton of options open to you as a writer. Don't feel shoehorned into depicting one particular result or another because of someone else's idea of realism.

In the real world, one of the reasons that wounds from firearms are so dangerous is because of how wildly unpredictable the results of a person being shot are, and the myriad ways in which projectiles can cause physical trauma. There are recorded accounts of people surviving several direct hits from military combat rifles, and there are accounts of people being killed instantly by a single shot from a tiny rim-fire cartridge. There are a ton of potential variables.

The following are all examples of things that could happen, to illustrate the various possibilities available. Some are my own creation, others are taken from various accounts of gun violence online.

[+] Single 9mm shot to the chest

Bullet penetrates just below the right nipple, impacting a rib. Bone absorbs most of the energy of the shot, and so while it punctures the lung, it fails to penetrate out the other side. Bone fragments complicate closing the wound properly, and the punctured lung causes air to be sucked into the chest. Air and blood put pressure on the heart, compounding breathing difficulties with restricted blood flow. Without treatment, the victim will go into shock from either blood loss, hypoxia, or both - and die within hours, if not minutes. Treatment is likely too complicated for another student to accomplish in the field, and it is unlikely the victim would be able to treat themselves.

[+] 12 Gauge Shotgun at greater than 100 meters

Pellets cause small, scattered primary wounds to the soft tissue of the legs, and will fail to completely penetrate. The greatest risk comes from the pellets impacting the tibia or femur and breaking bone, or severing a major artery. The victim will have trouble walking, but if they are able to remove the pellets and/or bone fragments, suture the wounds shut, and sterilize the area they will be able to continue functioning to some degree within the context of SOTF.

[+] Hunting or Military Rifle Round to the forehead at less than 500 meters

Instant death. The projectile penetrates the skull and the shock front causes significant cavitation within the cranial cavity. The bullet tumbles and blows out the back of the brain case on its way out, continuing to be a hazard for any bystanders behind the victim.

[+] Single .32 ACP pistol round to the face

Bullet enters at an angle just below the left cheek, and exits just ahead of the left ear. Victim is bleeding severely, has a minor jaw fracture, and is suffering hearing difficulties. The kinetic energy of the bullet was concentrated in the primary wound cavity, and caused little damage to the rest of the victim's head. With proper disinfection and wound care, they should survive.

[+] Martini-Henry shot to the abdomen at 50 meters

Solid lead alloy projectile punches cleanly through the abdominal cavity and out the other side, taking fragments of bone and viscera with it. The soft tissue of the liver is completely annihilated; the nearly fist-sized exit wound bleeds profusely and without any chance of stopping it. The victim will likely die in under a minute, perhaps in seconds, depending on how quickly they go into shock.

It's important to remember that many survivors of gun violence require years of physical therapy to get back to normal functioning, and carry the physical and emotional scars with them the rest of their lives. Though a person can to some degree fight through the pain and trauma of being shot, it will eventually incur some kind of serious physical consequences.

More Coming Soon.

[Shiola]

Incidents (Needs to be Updated)

Heckler & Koch PSG-1 - 7
- Day 3 BKA awarded to Michael Froese & Erika Stieglitz, relinquished to Erika without conflict.
- Used by Erika Stieglitz to shoot Julien Leblanc, Saffron Fields, and Katie Agustien, killing both Saffron and Katie.
- Used by Erika Stieglitz at close range to kill Oliver Lacroix, shooting him nine times.
- Used by Erika Stieglitz to kill Tom Swift with a shot to the back of the head.
- Used by Erika Stieglitz to kill Yuki Hayashibara with several shots to the torso.
- Used by Erika Stieglitz to kill Sal Bonaventura with a point-blank shot to the chest.
- Used by Erika Stieglitz in a firefight with Tanisha Abbey, Shauna Cooke, and Angie Cortez. Killed Tanisha Abbey with two shots to the abdomen. Scope was broken in the aftermath.
- Disabled and disassembled by Erika Stiegliz in the East Housing, late Day 6. Rendered inoperable.

Brügger & Thomet MP9 - 5
- A chaotic series of events resulted in the deaths of Mikki Swift, Terra Johnson, Bree Jones, and Philip Olivares.
- Mikki Swift killed by a shot to the gut, going into shock and bleeding out from a severed artery.
- Terra Johnson was shot around twenty times, died of shock and blood loss.
- Philip Olivares was shot in the face and died in seconds.
- Bree was shot in the chest, though her cause of death was trauma as a result of an ill-fated attempt to save her life with an adrenaline needle.
- Used by Zachary Beck to kill Brandon Murphy, shooting him multiple times at close range.

Rock River Arms LAR-15- 3
- Day 1 BKA Weapon, awarded to Blaise D'Aramitz.
- Used by Blaise D'Aramitz to shoot and kill Dolores Upton.
- Used by Blaise D'Aramitz to attack Nia Karahalios and Alexander Brooke. Hit Alexander Brooke in the abdomen, leading to his death via blood loss.
- Used by Blaise D'Aramitz to kill Joanne Coleman, shooting her twice.
- Used by Blaise D'Aramitz to wound Demetri Futscher.

Wildey .45 - 3
- Used by Tirzah Foss to shoot at Aurelien Valter. Recoil was significant, and she missed.
- Used by Tirzah Foss to kill Toby Underwood. Point-blank shot to the head, blowing out a massive exit wound. Death was instantaneous owing to tissue destruction of the central nervous system, shock, and massive blood loss.
- Used by Tirzah Foss to kill Ronald Kiser, shooting him in the back.
- Used by Adonis Cohen to shoot Wyatt Carter several times.
- Used by Tirzah Foss to kill Wyatt Carter with a shot to the head.

Walther P99 - 2
- Used by Tyrell Lahti to kill Felix Rees. First shot caused lethal damage to the heart, causing Felix to quickly die. Two further shots through the eye and temple were therefore superfluous, though they caused obvious and significant physical trauma.
- Used by Claudeson Bademosi to almost shoot Tyrell Lahti, instead intentionally hitting a wall mere inches away from Tyrell's head.
- Used by Claudeson Bademosi to kill Bryan Merriweather, killing him with a single shot to the head.

Winchester 88 - 2
- Used by Violet Schmidt to (accidentally) shoot Dante Valerio. Through-and-through wound to the left calf, bleeding severely but the trauma is localized to the surrounding muscle tissue. Treated with bandages and a tourniquet.
- Used by Violet Schmidt to kill Kyle Harrison in an act of mercy, after he suffered a severe head wound. Point-blank shot to the face obliterated much of his skull, killing him instantly.
- Used by Violet Schmidt to shoot Layla DeBerg in the head, killing her instantly.

Chainsaw - 2
- Initially issued to Beryl Mahelona
- Used by Henry Sparks to saw the Punt Gun's barrel down to 24 inches.
- Used by Marco Volker to decapitate Colin McCabe
- Used by Marco Volker to saw Ariana Moretti's arm off
- Inflicted severe physical trauma on Wyatt Carter, though this was not what eventually killed him.

Grand Power K100 - 1
- Used by Nia Karahalios to kill William Dover, shooting him three times.
- Used by Nia Karahalios in an exchange of gunfire with Michael Froese, grazing him.
- Used by Nia Karahalios to shoot Aoi Mishima

Sig Sauer P226 - 1
- Used by Quinn Abert to kill Richard Smith, shooting him twice in the back.

Liberator - 1
- Used by Blaise D'Aramitz to kill Dante Luciano Valerio. Point-blank shot to the head, death caused by the .380 pulverizing Dante's brain. The weapon was destroyed during use.

Martini-Henry - 1
- Used by Gervais Frans Lambotte to shoot at Johnny Silva Ruiz and Tyrell Lahti. Caused minor lacerations to Tyrell as a result of the bullets impacting his cover.
- Used again by Gervais Frans Lambotte to shoot Drew Woods. Severe trauma to the upper right arm. The shot seemed to have glanced off the bone, sparing Drew from a possible partial amputation of the limb.
- Used by Erika Stieglitz to take a long range shot at Thomas Buckley. She missed, killing Desiree Beck; the shot went through her forehead and blew apart the back of her skull.
- Currently hidden.

Mts-255 Shotgun - 1
- Accidentally used by Caroline Ford to shoot and kill Regina Petrov. Pellets caused several major puncture wounds in her abdomen, and she bled out.
- Used by Caroline Ford to destroy a nearby camera, thereby indirectly committing suicide via collar detonation.
- Used by Shauna Cooke in a gunfight with Erika Stieglitz.

Steyr Scout - 1
- Violet Quinn failed to take the safety off of the rifle when confronted by Quinn Abert, leading to her death.
- Quinn Abert shot at a group of other students on beach, sending them scattering. Started a brief firefight with Angie Cortez, with neither of them scoring hits.
- Used by Quinn Abert to shoot at Danny Chamnanma, unsuccessfully.
- Used by Quinn Abert to kill Ned Jackson, the original owner of the rifle.

Uzi-Pro - 1
- Used by Lorenzo Tavares to kill Dane Lennox with a shot to the head.

BR18 Assault Rifle - 1
- Used by Angie Cortez to return fire at Quinn Abert at the beach.
- Used by Ace Ortega in a gunfight with Quinn Abert.
- Fired wildly in a struggle between Ace Ortega & Justin Green, injuring Henry Sparks and Jackson Sullivan, severely enough in Jackson's case to eventually kill him.

Beretta M12 - 1
- Used by Valerija Bogdanovic to shoot and kill Camille Bellegarde

Punt Gun - 1
- Sawed-off by Henry Sparks using Beryl Mahelona's chainsaw.
- Tested once against a tree.
- Used to fire after Marco Volker following Ariana Moretti's death.
- Fired at Justin Green in the Infirmary, missed.
- Used to finish off Marco Volker at the Infirmary, with a point-blank shot to the chest.

Glock 19
- Used by Ariana Moretti to shoot at Marco Volker, injuring him.
- Used by Jackson Sullivan to mortally wound Marco Volker.

Flare Gun
- Danny Chamnanma used it to defend himself from Quinn Abert, whereupon the flare bounced off of her and set fire to the Aviary.

Heckler & Koch P11
- Used by Faith Marshal-Mackenzie to defend herself from Willow O'Neal. Steel dart penetrated and pierced through breast at an angle, causing localized and severe bleeding. Treated with basic first-aid.

Kel-Tec P-32
- Used by Toby Underwood to shoot Hel Fury. Grazed abdomen, causing a superficial wound.

Repeating Crossbow
- Day 2 BKA Weapon, awarded to Violet Schmidt.

Venom Tactical Taipan
- Day 4 BKA Weapon, awarded to Nia Karahalios.
- Obtained by Justin Green after killing Nia.

Automag 180
- Day 5 BKA Weapon, awarded to Madison Springer

Legacy Weapons:

Adam Dodd's Ballester-Molina - 9
- Poor trigger discipline caused Michael Froese to shoot the floor of the commissary.
- Used by Michael Froese to kill Camila Cañizares.
- Used by Michael Froese in a firefight with Nia Karahalios, injuring her.
- Used by Michael Froese to shoot Roxie Borowski
- Used by Michael Froese to shoot Catherine Zier
- Used by Michael Froese to shoot Jonah Heartgrave

Bryan Calvert's SPAS-12 - 9
- Used by Johnny Silva Ruiz in a firefight with Gervais Frans Lambotte, did not land a hit.
- Used by Johnny Silva Ruiz in a scuffle in the inner circle, injuring Parker Green.


J.R. Rizzolo's Tire Iron - 6
- Used by Justin Greene to fatally injure Benedict Murray.
- Used by Justin Greene to kill Nia Karahalios
- Used by Justin Greene to kill Johnny Silva Ruiz

Kimberly Nguyen's KA-BAR - 3
- Used by Teresa Rojas to stab Reuben Walters to death.

Amaranta Montalvo's M4 Carbine - 3
- Used by Marcus Volker to shoot at Arjen Kramer, intimidating him but not actually landing a hit.
- Shot wildly into the air after he was electrocuted by Sierra Cook, after which she took it from him.

Min-Jae Parker's Crossbow - 3
- Used by Claudeson Bademosi to kill Bret Carter, with a shot to the throat.

[Shiola]

-snip-

[Shiola]

Updated Incidents as of 10/07/2019.

[Shiola]

Updated Incidents as of Day 2, 28/07/2019 real-time. Added all 6 Legacy Weapons with their respective kills in prior versions as well.

[Shiola]

Updated incidents as of Day 2's last kills.

[Shiola]

To Do:

- Guns & Realism guide.
- Expand the wound section, talk about medical treatment for gunshot wounds and common mistakes. Discuss grazing hits.
- Melee & Joke Weapons and their kills.
- How to read up on Firearms, other weaponry.