Guns and Gruffs?

[Richard_Chilton]

During Summer Knight there were many Fae described as wearing armour and using swords.  Things that looked like and acted like metal.  It may or may not be metal as we understand the world, but the image of a fairy knight in full plate is an old one.

Today we have metals that have very little (if any) iron content, and some guns could be made from them.  You can buy ceramic or plastic guns.  Maybe that's what the Gruffs did?

My take on the "Holy shit, they've got guns!" reaction is that them using guns shows foresight and an ability to change.  My view is that they went out and bought (or stole) real guns to neutralise Harry's skills at blocking fairy magics.  In short, they saw a problem (a powerful wizard who is used to fighting Fae) and thought up a solution (real world guns) and them being able to do that really freaked Harry out.

Richard

[devonapple]

From http://www.firearmstalk.com/forums/f14/alloys-metals-used-gun-manufacture-36032/
"The first guns were likely made of brass and bronze. Later they were made of wrought iron, then steel/iron combined as Damascus or Twist , then various steels. Steels are in themselves a whole field of study- it forms different crystals at different temperatures- research terms cementite and austentite. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of different alloys (you DO realize that steel itself is an alloy?) that have different amounts of manganese, chrome, nickel,carbon, vanadium, molybdenum etc. Then you move to the field of stainless steels. There have been gun barrels made that were a combination of steel, aluminum, and synthetic fibers. There are "airweight" framed guns made of aluminum alloys (and THOSE are a field of its own), and titanium, Scandium alloys, etc.

Various polymer framed guns are forms of plastic, combined with steel- have even seen one AR style frame made of PET (same stuff plastic soda bottles are made of) and ONE made of wood. M60 machine guns have barrels lined with Stellite, and some guns have firing pins made of berylium alloy. I have even seen one handgun made for a spy agency that was ALL plastic."

Here is a closeup of the Gruffs with the gun (the illustration from the DFRPG book):
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,15682.0.html

And in that thread, someone brought up the iron issue, to which iago replied "That's assuming the gun's made of iron or an iron alloy like steel, of course"
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,15682.msg723267.html#msg723267

Soooooo... I guess it isn't iron or steel?

[Tedronai]

Soooooo... I guess it isn't iron or steel?

We don't have enough information to solidly support that conclusion, but it is a definite possibility.