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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dogbrain" data-source="post: 1362800" data-attributes="member: 14980">Mind you, this means that the gunsmiths of this world are far more stupid than are the gunsmiths of our own.  Rifling was discovered very early on in our own history.  It was originally invented to reduce powder fouling (give the cinders some place to go).  Shooters soon discovered the great benefit of accuracy.  However, for centuries, rifling was restricted to hunting and target weapons for two reasons:It requires time to do by hand.  Essentially, a barrel has to be bored twice.  This doesn't increase the cost of the weapon enormously, but it does slow down production--and speed is very important when equipping an army.More importantly, it slows down loading time significantly.  I have loaded muzzle-loading smoothbores and muzzle-loading rifles.  The smoothbore can usually be loaded in 1/4 the time of the rifle.  When hunting or target shooting, this is no big deal.  In battle, this is a very big deal.These two things combined to mean that overall demand for rifles was much lower than for smoothbores.  As anybody can tell you, this means that prices for the less common item will be far greater than the demands of labor, skill, or materials might dictate.  The smith charges not only for labor/skill/materiale but also for the hassle of making an item that has not become second-nature for him to knock out.  Likewise, since he doesn't turn out a whole bunch, most of his apprentices don't know how to make the barrels, so HE has to do it, and his time is much more expensive than his apprentices'...When that price elevator kicks in, it means that only a higher class of customer would be interested in the first place.  These customers are more likley to insist upon ornamentation, gold inlay, etc., driving up the "average" price of an item even more, making it even rarer.This little lesson is meant to show that an item can be very rare and expensive without being extremely difficult to make.  It only has to be just enough of a hassle to use and/or make to not let it get over that basic production/market threshold.</blockquote>

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