Comments by "Crazy Eyes" (@CrizzyEyes) on "Ask Ian: "Last Ditch" Rifles for World War III?" video.

@Captain-Jinn Stamped metal production requires advanced tooling and manufacturing processes. In other words there's a lot of initial investment and development required to get to all-metal firearms production. That tooling may be sitting around after the war, but it will still require a lot of restoration and a lot of manpower to get up and running. It will also be in limited quantities since nukes were likely directly targeting those kinds of manufacturing facilities. The only factions that seem to have that capability are Gun Runners, NCR, and maybe BoS. NCR not so much since their bureaucracy is shit; Gun Runners have shown themselves to be the definite top dog in post-apocalypse firearms manufacturing. BoS is rather irrelevant since they seem to be dead set on not sharing anything with anyone.
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@toml3241 The Grease Gun wasn't really "last ditch," the Thompson was just overly heavy and had too much unnecessary crap on it. It was also a 15 year old platform by the time it was replaced, which was a long time because of how fast firearms design doctrine was progressing during that period, especially for automatic weapons. The Grease Gun was such a usable platform that they were in service with the Phillipines' military until a decade or two ago. It's very similar in design principle to the MP40, which was definitely not a "last ditch" gun.
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@IanGarris It was deliberate sabotage because the Ordinance Department was eternally ass-blasted that Stoner made a better rifle than the M1 Garand and its fetal-alcohol syndrome child, the M14. All at the mere cost of a few thousand American soldiers' lives
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