Ammunition
There's no "9 mm round" item that you craft. A cartridge is made of up to three things:
- a case, made of some metal
- a charge: powder, or redstone for a coilgun, or nothing at all for a jar round
- a projectile: a bullet, or a nugget for shot
You can also add a payload if you like. You put these together at the Reloading Press, at whatever size (bore) you set the press to. A gun takes any cartridge that fits its bore, whoever made it and whatever it's made of.
Hover over a cartridge to see what it is: size, case metal, bullet metal, what's in the charge and how much pressure it makes against what the case can hold.
Cases
Draw a metal plate through a Wire Drawer to make a case of that metal. A case holds 0.75 × its metal's strength in Pu, whatever its size:
| Case | Holds |
|---|---|
| Steel | 11.3 Pu |
| Iron | 6 Pu |
| Bronze | 4.5 Pu |
| Brass | 3.75 Pu |
| Copper | 3 Pu |
A case weaker than the pressure inside it can hurt you even if the gun is fine. The press shows this before you seat anything.
Bullets
Two ways to make them:
- Cast them. Pour molten metal into a Bullet Mold from a crucible. One ingot's worth makes eight bullets. Copper, iron, gold, lead, bronze and brass can all be cast this way.
- Hammer them. Hammer a nugget into a bullet, by hand or with a Mechanical Hammer.
Bullet Mold: two Iron Drilled Plates (from the Drill Press) with a Stick on each side.
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Lead is the usual bullet metal because it's dense (11.3, against iron's 7.9): heavy bullets keep their energy. But lead is soft. A harder bullet goes through armour and breaks less on hard faces: see What bullets do. A coilgun needs a magnetic slug.
Charges
The charge is loose powder. The press takes everything in its charge slots, so the size of the stack you put in is how much powder goes into the round. A case holds at most 8 items of charge. Four of anything is the "standard" charge the spec sheets are read against.
More charge means more pressure. More pressure means a faster bullet, but too much is dangerous to the gun and to you. See Overpressure.
Gunpowder
The standard propellant: 0.75 Pu per item, so a standard four makes 3 Pu. It's reliable and fairly gentle. It burns slowly, so it needs a long barrel to burn completely: a 0.2 m barrel burns 85% of it, a 0.1 m barrel less than half. Cooks off at 300 Tu.
Blaze Powder
2.25 Pu per item, three times gunpowder, but it's pure fuel. On its own it barely burns, because there's nothing in it to burn with: a blaze-only round gives about a tenth of its pressure.
Blends
The press has a second charge slot so you can mix two powders. Gunpowder brings spare oxygen and blaze powder needs it: two gunpowder to one blaze powder is exactly balanced and burns completely.
| Charge | Pressure |
|---|---|
| 4 gunpowder | 3 Pu |
| 2 gunpowder + 1 blaze | 3.75 Pu |
| 4 gunpowder + 2 blaze | 7.5 Pu |
| 6 gunpowder + 2 blaze | 9 Pu |
A blend also burns fast, so it works even in a short barrel. Downsides:
- It's easy to make a round your gun or your case can't hold. Check the press's preview line.
- Blaze powder catches at 220 Tu, so blended rounds cook off in a cooler barrel.
Lean blends (more than one blaze to two gunpowder) don't burn completely and lose much of their punch.
Redstone
Redstone is a charge for a coilgun only, and it can't be mixed with powder. See Coilgun.
Shot shells
Put a nugget in the projectile slot instead of a bullet and the press forms it into shot: a shell of buckshot pellets. Only a shotgun fires shells, and a shotgun fires only shells and slugs (an ordinary bullet of its bore).
The pellet count is the bore's projectile volume cut into 8 mm balls, at most 12:
| Bore | Pellets |
|---|---|
| 10 mm | 4 |
| 12 mm | 8 |
| 14 mm and up | 12 |
The pellets share the shell's energy and leave at the same speed, spread in a cone at least 4° wide however long the barrel.
Jar rounds
Seat a case and an iron slug with nothing in the charge slots and you get a jar round: a coilgun round that carries its drive as an electric charge, a tiny capacitor. It's flat when made. Charge it on a Round Charger.
Payloads
The payload slot is optional. Whatever you put there is carried in the bullet and used up, one per round:
| Payload | Result |
|---|---|
| Glowstone Dust or Redstone Dust | Tracer: the bullet draws a bright line along its path. |
| Gunpowder or Blaze Powder | Incendiary: sets whatever it hits on fire for 5 s, and lights fire where it lands if fire spread is on and you're allowed to build there. |
Loading
Box and belt guns take a Magazine. Guns with a cylinder, tube or barrels load loose rounds, one at a time, while you hold R.