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I received a post from some one who was very critical about my post about Salmon River Slim. His points are well taken. They center around the fact that the steel used to make the hand tools and rifles was produced by modern Technology.
So I guess if you are going to build a rifle from scratch you have to mine the iron ore your self, smelt the ore into Iron, convert the Iron into steel, make the hand tools to make the barrels, receiver, springs, hammer, firzen, etc. before you can build your rifle from scratch.
Since the original post was building the rifle from scratch are we to assume the bar stock steel is available or do we have to smelt iron ore itself.
In my never to be humble opinion it is probably much more difficult to smelt iron ore, then convert it into steel than using hand tools to make a flint lock rifle. Look at the problems Mao's China had with its back yard smelters in the great leap forward. This does not mean it cannot be done. Look at the old sword masters of Japan. The smelted their own iron then using a forge and hammer and anvil they kept re-heating the metal folding it and then using pressure welding techniques until the Iron got the proper carbon content and other trace elements to make steel. So I guess it could be done but with great difficulty.
The Independent
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