Help: Firearm Type Weapon?

[Manji]

You could have a simple cylinder/hammer system. You have a cylinder, a circular chamber that holds 'bullets'. You hold the 'gun' in your hand, pull the 'hammer' back to cycle the cylinder and pull the trigger to fire. The 'hammer' shoots forward, hits the blasting cap and explodes the 'gunpowder'. The resulting explosion propels the round from the cylinder and down the grooved barrel. The grooves will accelerate the round and increase the power of the bullet.
Wow. I made all of that up myself. This must have been how the guy who created the revol. . . . ver. . . dammit, I created a previously existing system again, didn't I?

[Spiderkeg]

No no, that's a great idea. I'll do that. I can incorporate something like that into my story with ease, and it's so original. Now what can I call it? How about a revolver?

Like many topics in my epic, it's a work in progress. Eventually the answer will come to me, probably in a whacky dream.

[Manji]

I liked how the video game Wild Arms approached this particular subject. Guns, or Arms, were used in previous centuries. Eventually, the civilization that created these weapons crumbled. Centuries later, explorers found these weapons in the ruins of ancient cities. The hero of the game uses an Arm that his grandfather had found.
I really don't see why you can't use something like that in the story. I really see no point in trying to reinvent the gun when you could just use a more feasible early firearm type weapon. If the people are not advanced enough to have bullets, they're not going to be advanced enough to use atomic batteries or fusion cores, which will eventually need recharging just like a gun will eventually need reloading.

[Spiderkeg]

For the most part I have certain expectations for this firearm in my story. With that, I also have certain points that have to be met. This is why the idea isn't as simple as I wish it could be.

1. The firearm should not have any moving mechanical parts that are simple enough to be mimicked and understood if the device is taken apart.
2. I would prefer not to use a propellant that can be mimicked if studied. The firearm should either have a long lasting "battery" or a mechanical component that can act as a battery once a missing element is introduced. It is far easier to accept that device works if nickel is put into a chamber than asking the user to recreate gunpowder. Forcing the character to create a propellant would spin off into other firearms possible.
3. The ammunition used must be so simple that a simple blacksmith can make them (musket, nail) and just slide the ammunition into a chamber from which is will be shot.

Granted, I'm making this way more complicated than it is. However I am trying to introduce a high superior weapon into a society that doesn't have such devices, while at the same time protecting the integrity of the story so that the device can be studied and copied causing the dynamics of the story (and warfare) to spiral out of control. I merely want this item to be a unique one-of-a-kind device added to the story.

[aldan]

I still feel that my idea of a short rail gun, to a very non-electrically advanced/knowledgeable culture, would work well to meet those requirements. The ammunition, as I said before, would be whatever metal would be available to feed into the grinding tube. The metal fed therein would have to be some that would be able to be acted upon by the railgun's motivator, but if iron and steel are available, that would be easily accomplished. However, if you wish for some more complex method than electrically powered magnetism (if you will), then you could have the gun be made of a better metal alloy than the current population can duplicate, and the metals available to them would be softer, such as copper, bronze, brass, tin, lead, gold, silver and what have you. Those metals would be more easily ground by the grinding mechanism of the weapon, which grinder feeds a cache kept within the gun of metal fragments that could then be motivated down the barrel and into the air. Firing the gun would be silent, but loading it could be quite noisy, so that could give you some interesting possibilities...

[Manji]

My friend I talk to on IRC made this suggestion. . . . .
It's a hydrogen fusion power supply
it runs on water
It splits the water into H2 ond O2
then you can either use the H2 and O2 as an explosive propellant
or
you can use the hydrogen fusion to create heat and boil the water into an explosive expansion of steam
and use the steam or the H2/O2 explosion
to push your projectile

[Spiderkeg]

Interesting notion. I will look that up and do some added research. Thanks for the direction...