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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

I guess it's like guitars and bikes, a small group will "need" a new one/another one (guilty of both), but for most people you either need zero or you need one and never need to swap once you have one. But I agree that having a site for comparing feels quite alien to those of us outside the US (for reference, I'm 40+, made military service and still haven't even seen a handgun outside of its holster on uniformed officers).

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I didn't really get handgun culture (I'm in the UK, everyone has rifles and shotguns, handguns aren't a thing any more since we had a school shooting in the 90ss) until I read an exchange on Reddit which was full of comments like "Ah yeah but what you do is you unscrew that top part, drill and tap it a size larger, and then you can bolt on <some part off a different gun> which allows you to mount <some sort of otherwise incompatible accessory> and by taking a bit off the grips it'll actually be lighter and better balanced and easier to get the sights dialled in and then..."

Wait a bloody minute, I get it now - you guys are geeks! Just like the synth geeks and Landrover geeks I know, it's the same conversations with some different nouns in it.

I call them "Barbie dolls for men". You gotta accessorize!

There's something sexy about the CZ Shadow 2, even though I don't own nay handguns.

We do still have some handguns, such as single-shot flintlocks, muzzle-loading revolvers of 1850s design, and some modern handguns which have been extended with long barrels and counterweights to make them >= 60cm in length (IIRC). I think that these aren't very common at all compared with shortguns and rifles though. From what I've heard, when modern handguns were banned some shooters switched to modern reproductions of the mid-19th century models only to find that they didn't much like the cleaning (black powder makes a lot of mess), fiddling and slow loading that goes along with these guns.

https://www.henrykrank.com/guns/muzzle-loading-guns/

> From what I've heard, when modern handguns were banned some shooters switched to modern reproductions of the mid-19th century models only to find that they didn't much like the cleaning (black powder makes a lot of mess), fiddling and slow loading that goes along with these guns.

One cleans black powder firearms with regular old soap and water, which is really interesting to me. I hear some people even just put them in the dishwasher!

A practiced shooter can load faster than you'd think, but using a powder horn and the plunger is still considerably slower than loading a cartridge revolver with a speed-loader or by hand. It is possible to make paper cartridges with pre-measured powder charges that can just be dropped in and then plunged. In that case it's almost as fast as loading brass cartridges one at a time, which is still considerably slower than modern alternatives. This is why American cowboys would carry at least two revolvers for a total of 10 rounds, or 12 if they were feeling brave. The reason why 10 is that there were no firing pin safeties, so if you got banged hard and there was a round in the top chamber it could accidentally discharge.

As an aside, in the USA a 19th century design muzzle loader isn't even legally a firearm under federal law. You can buy one on eBay and have it mailed straight to your door. I don't know if any of the states have restrictions, but so far as I know black powder firearms aren't really used for any kind of criminal activity except maybe poaching.

Cleaning is indeed quite easy and could indeed be done with a bit of hot water and soap. It can take a while, though. I've heard that about the sale of these guns in the US. Presumably there's not much demand given the prevalence of better modern designs. Over here, an original antique revolver of that period could also be posted directly to a purchaser who could hold it without a licence, as long as they weren't a known criminal. If the owner wanted to fire it they would need a licence. I am reminded that there are a small number of modern revolvers using smokeless powder that have been converted to a loading mechanism resembling that of the mid-19th century. These are also legal here.

http://www.westlakeengineering.com/products/

Before the 19th Century, black powder was so incompletely combustible that firearms, despite allowing a huge amount of windage (the difference between the diameters of the barrel and the ball), would become too fouled to load after as few as 4 shots. That's why smoothbores were used long after the rifle was invented. During battles, soldiers peed down the barrel and used their ramrods to clean them.

For the sake of our society, I really hope most gun owners don't need to replace stolen guns as often as bike owners have to replace stolen bikes.

I don't think that's what GP meant, rather the common trope amongst cyclists is the the ideal number of bikes to own is `n + 1`, where `n` is the number of bikes you currently own.

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