I will primarily be talking about tube magazines, but some of the following points apply to other integral magazines.
Some firearms with integral magazines are available with a variety of magazine sizes.
Some tube magazines technically are detachable, they are just complicated, or time consuming to remove and replace.
Some tube magazines (I’m not sure there are any this doesn’t hold true for) cannot hold ammunition when they are not attached to the gun.
Some tube magazines when removed, are removed as a unit containing the magazine, the barrel, and/or the hand guard.
Some tube magazines are compatible with speedloaders, which allow multiple cartridges/shells to be loaded simultaneously.
Tube magazines should be considered integral to the weapon. If there’s different magazine sizes, they should be treated as separate weapons which accept the same attachments.
Tube magazines should be considered integral to the barrel and that is the attachment that determines magazine size.
Tube magazines should be considered integral to the hand guard and that is the attachment that determines magazine size.
Tube magazines should be treated just like other magazines.
Tube magazines should be treated like other magazines, except, they need to be replaced through the attachment menu, because pressing reload refills them rather than replaces them.
Tube magazines should not be able to hold ammunition when off of the weapon, so pressing reload would never cause the player to switch to a different one anyway.
Speedloaders should be in-game.
These principles should apply to all tube magazines to keep it simple.
These principles should generally apply to most tube magazines, but should vary from firearm to firearm.
These principles should apply to other integral magazines as well.
The Winchester Lever-Action Rifles came in so many variants, it would be ludicrous to include them all, but they had take down versions, (in which the magazine and barrel could be removed from the stock and receiver,) which would allow the user to much more easily change the barrel and magazine tube to ones of different length. In some fairly modern shotguns, the magazine tubes have had small dents put in them to prevent the maximum amount of shells from being placed in them (because of import or hunting laws) by removing the magazine tube, the user can file the dents out to convert the limited magazine into a standard one. There are lots of other pump-action and lever action firearms that have takedown systems of one form or another, but in reality, they aren’t universal. I think that it would make sense to have more consistency in game than there is in reality, with differences like needing to remove the barrel just changing what the attaching and detaching animations would look like.
Yeah, tube magazines are the type that pump-action and lever-action firearms. (They’re also occasionally used on bolt-action firearms, but not as often)
Well, idrk as I’m more likely into automatics and pistols… So I guess it makes sense, though I think that anything you’re suggesting shouldn’t sacrifice too much of realism for the sake of feasibility.
The PP-Bizon has a detachable helical magazine. This post is mainly about how if and how firearms with tube magazines should be customized.
Helical magazines are like box magazines, except instead of cartridges laying lengthwise across eachother in a straight stack, they are laying lengthwise across eachother in a helical (like a coil spring) shape.
Tube magazines are are simply a pipe with an opening on one end, and a spring that pushes things out that end. In all the tube magazines I know of, the magazine lacks any features to keep cartridges from being pushed out by the spring, and they are instead held in by some part of the gun itself. Some tube magazines can’t be removed, some tube magazines need other parts to be removed before they can be removed, some magazine tubes are removed as a unit with other parts, and all tube magazines are quicker to refill than to replace.
Any lever-action repeater accept the Winchester 1895, basically any pump-action firearm, the Lebel, the Swiss Vetterlis, the Mauser-Koka, and the Gewher 71/84.