Handguns made of bronze?

I was looking at the history of gunpowder and guns on wikipedia, and a thought struck me. If a bronze-age civilization developed gunpowder, could they also develop bronze pistols and rifles?

I know that bronze cannons certainly existed in OTL, but I think that bronze handheld guns would be less economically feasible to manufacture due to the fact that making bronze at all requires gaining and combining copper and tin, which may come from distant sources from each-other. The idea of a bronze-age civilization with gunpowder has been explored in Guns of the Tawantinsuyu, but in that scenario the Incas only had cannons.
 

FDW

Banned
I think it would certainly be doable, though it would take some trial and error to get there though…
 

Delta Force

Banned
Iron is actually the more brittle metal in its pure form.

Adding to this, it is the reason why cannons were made out of bronze for so long (even into the 1900s in Austria-Hungary). If iron had any advantages over bronze it certainly would have been used in preference to it as iron costs much less.
 
It was done, even fairly early (check out the Tannenbergbüchse). It will make your gun heavy and expensive, though, and AFAIR explosions were not as much a problem in handguns as in cannon, so iron would be preferable earlier on.

In the absence oif iron, bronze would certainly work for simple handguns. I don't know how well it would stand up to being things like a revolver or a submachine gun, though.
 

Redbeard

Banned
AFAIU the problem with iron guns was in casting. Until late 18th/early 19th century you couldn’t make cast iron guns strong enough to be fired and wrought iron guns would be too expensive/complicated to make. A handgun is by nature much smaller and can relatively easy be made of wrought iron – essentially what a blacksmith and his assistant can do with hammer and anvil. A bronze handgun would be both more expensive and heavier than a wrought iron handgun. Wrought iron (steel) guns were made in 17th/18th century (some can be seen at the Armory Museum in Copenhagen) but were much more expensive than bronze guns.

When the casting of iron was refined enough to make guns, they became both less heavy and less expensive. Later again industrialization made it possible to make very big wrought iron (steel) guns relatively easy – that is where we see something resembling modern artillery.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
Many cannons were made of Brass weren't they? The only problem is that the guns might be heavy.

Not brass; bronze. Brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, is good for things like bells and door knobs where tensile strength is not a requirement; it's too soft to serve as gunmetal. It's also quite expensive; too expensive to put in the hands of common soldiers.

Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, is a much harder metal and a good choice for cannons, but too heavy and expensive for small arms. Effective small arms need worked iron or steel for barrels and breeches.

I know some writers have described brass cannons, but that's probably just ignorance on the part of those writers and/or their sources and the guns in question were almost certainly bronze instead.
 

Thande

Donor
Not brass; bronze. Brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, is good for things like bells and door knobs where tensile strength is not a requirement; it's too soft to serve as gunmetal. It's also quite expensive; too expensive to put in the hands of common soldiers.

Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, is a much harder metal and a good choice for cannons, but too heavy and expensive for small arms. Effective small arms need worked iron or steel for barrels and breeches.

I know some writers have described brass cannons, but that's probably just ignorance on the part of those writers and/or their sources and the guns in question were almost certainly bronze instead.

I'm pretty certain brass cannons are a thing. It may be a different ratio in the alloy to the brass we see on things like doorknobs though.

EDIT: The Genocide indicates there are many different alloys called 'brass' with varying metallurgical properties.
 
I'm pretty certain brass cannons are a thing. It may be a different ratio in the alloy to the brass we see on things like doorknobs though.

EDIT: The Genocide indicates there are many different alloys called 'brass' with varying metallurgical properties.

It's true that signalling guns and the like were made of brass, but those are not true artillery. Without tin or some other hardener the alloy lacks the strength to withstand the pressures necessary for effective artillery.
 
Guns are only good when used en masse, which means unless there is a significant factory system (this can be at medieval or even Roman level, not mass mechanization) that can mass produce guns, there is no reason to do so. At the time of the bronze age, no such system is in place. Ergo, there is zero chance of gunpowder weapons being used.

Not only that, there is considerable technological achievement that is needed for any kind of firearm. Not only do you need a barrel that won't explode, you need to design and build the firing mechanism and fuse. Deisgn wise, you also need to be able to put a bayonet on it, or your soldiers will likely get slaughtered. This all takes a tremendous amount of time to develop.

Europeans needed to develop this because they had extensive castle and fortification technology so there was incentive to invest in cannons, and once cannon technology sufficiently developed, then firearm technology became possible. Incidentally, a major reason why Europeans excelled in cannon design is that they already had long familiarity with making large bells for their churches.

It's important to remember how primitive bronze age societies really were. There was no money - coins hadn't been invented yet. The economy was based around palace complexes. The alphabet hadn't been invented yet, so literacy was extremely restricted. Social organization was very limited. They simply did not have the capacity to create firearms even if it were technically feasible.

Technically, our current civilization could have manned colonies on Mars, but there are all sorts of practical reasons why we haven't done it. Developing bronze age firearms would suck in resources best used for other things. Traditional ranged weapons would probably beat any workable firearm, so there isn't even a military advantage to be gained.
 
...you need to design and build the firing mechanism and fuse....
That isn't necessarily difficult. A matchlock is little more than a bit of smoldering rope stuck into the powder, and it's quite adequate for the earliest sort of firearm "industry." Later designs are better, of course, but just making the gun go "boom" is the easy part.
 
Many cannons were made of Brass weren't they? The only problem is that the guns might be heavy.

A quick google, now that the question has been raised, suggests that they were in fact bronze ... but polished enough that they looked like and were miscalled brass.

Sort of like how tin cans arent, being steel, and french metal roofs arent really pewter ,,tôle,,.
 
A quick google, now that the question has been raised, suggests that they were in fact bronze ... but polished enough that they looked like and were miscalled brass.

Sort of like how tin cans arent, being steel, and french metal roofs arent really pewter ,,tôle,,.

Wasn't a 100% certain, just a cursory thing I read at some point. Interesting stuff.
 
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