After arriving at the workshop, Chi Fei soon saw what the craftsmen called the flintlock pistol, which had a total of three shots.

It's just that the shape doesn't look like the flintlock pistol in his impression at all, or rather, it's more like an improved version of the former gun.

Not only is the barrel as thick as the front gun, but it also looks very bulky and rough.

The only difference is that the barrel of the front gun is flared, thick at the front and thin at the back, while the barrel of these knock-off guns is straight.

Chi Fei picked up one of the copycat guns and tried it, it weighed almost a dozen catties, which was about the same as the weight of the previous firearm.

In addition to the barrel, he focused his attention on the firing device in the rear of the gun.

I saw that the firing mechanism was not inside the body of the gun like a real flintlock pistol, but on the outside.

Craftsman Wu, who was in charge of the superintendent system, explained to Chi Fei: "My lord, according to your instructions, we used flint to make a striking fire door.

As long as the switch is flicked, the strip can be actuated.

Since the switch length is fixed, as long as it is pressed hard to the end, the card strip will break away from the switch and hit the copper plate with flint.

This causes the flint to crash into the striking plate next to the medicine room, creating a spark that ignites the ignition.

When the ignition is ignited, it will deflage with the gunpowder in the chamber along the small hole, and then the lead bullet in the fire gun will be ejected.

In addition, we have also installed a fixed pin in front of the firearm to facilitate aiming, as you ordered.

With this fixed pin, it really helps to aim at the target. ”

Chi Fei clicked the switch a few times, and found that although it required a large amount of force to press the switch to the end to drive the card bar, it could indeed successfully cause the copper sheet with flint to hit the striking plate next to the medicine room and produce sparks.

There has not been a spring in this era, maybe there are foreigners, but Dawei definitely doesn't, this point Chi Fei has confirmed with Wu craftsmen.

In the absence of springs, it is already very good to be able to do this, and Chi Fei is still quite satisfied with this ignition device.

Sure enough, the craftsmen of ancient times were all ingenious people, and as long as it involved the art of the mechanism, they could generally take it by hand.

Although the flint will need to be replaced after a certain number of hits, it will certainly work much better than a traditional arquebus, and it will fire at a faster rate.

Being able to successfully make an ignition device fired with flint, Chi Fei felt that the research on the musket was at least half successful.

It's just that the barrel of this gun is too bulky, and it is too far from the flintlock pistol in his impression, and Chi Fei doesn't dare to have too high expectations.

"Let's find a place to test the gun." Although he didn't have any expectations, Chi Fei decided to try it first.

After the group arrived at an empty space outside, Chi Fei asked the craftsmen to place a target as a shooting target at three different distances: 20 steps, 50 steps, and 100 steps.

According to Chi Fei's requirements, each cottage flintlock pistol is considered to pass only after being critted multiple times with a uniform amount of gunpowder and not exploding.

And each piece of gunpowder was wrapped in oiled paper as a standard for rationing.

Because he had experimented many times before, Wu craftsmen were very skilled in stuffing one of the gunpowder and a finger-sized buckshot into the barrel, and then used a push rod to push the gunpowder and lead bullet together to the end of the barrel.

Next, Craftsman Wu held the gun in a standing position, and then carefully aimed at the first target twenty paces away.

With a muffled "pound", a flash of fire erupted from the barrel of the gun, and then thick smoke rose, and the target visibly vibrated for a moment.

Chi Fei and the craftsmen walked over to take a look, only to see that there was a hole in the edge of the target, which was pierced by the lead bullet.

finally knocked out the lead bullet, and Chi Fei suddenly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.

As long as the lead bullet can be shot out, it means that the copycat flintlock pistol has the basic shooting function, which is one step closer to success.

Next, Chi Fei asked Craftsman Wu to continue to test shoot targets at different distances, and he had to try every shot.

Within a distance of 20 paces, it is generally possible to hit three or four shots with ten shots, but it is only barely hitting the target, and it is still far from the bull's-eye.

But when he reached the target of fifty paces, it was basically difficult to hit one out of ten shots.

Not to mention a hundred steps, you can't even rub the edge of the target.

This accuracy is not even as good as that of the previous dynasty.

Because the fire gun fired iron sand in front of the court, which is equivalent to the current shotgun, the spray area has also become correspondingly larger, and it is easy to scrape the target within a distance of twenty or thirty steps, but the penetration is very poor.

And these knock-off guns fire a single lead bullet, there is only one chance, if you can't hit, you can only reload and try again.

After Craftsman Wu finished the test shot, Chi Fei also personally tried it one by one, and the result was still the same.

There is about a two-to-three-percent hit rate within twenty steps, and once you exceed this distance, you can only rely on luck.

Although this copycat gun has the basic functions of a flintlock pistol, this hit rate is too worrying.

In addition, Wu craftsmen have also installed a fixed needle similar to a crosshair on the head of the gun according to Chi Fei's requirements, which should not be a problem of aiming.

And at such a close distance, you should be able to hit even without a crosshair, why is the hit rate so low?

When he was watching videos and materials, he once looked at a set of data.

Someone once conducted an experiment on French smoothbore guns: let a hundred ordinary soldiers shoot 100 rounds with a smoothbore gun at a humanoid target, and at a distance of about 70 meters, they can hit 50 rounds, with a hit rate of 50%; At 200 steps, that is, a distance of about 150 meters, you can hit 30 shots, and the hit rate is 30%.

And this knock-off gun only has a hit rate of 20 or 30 percent within a distance of 20 paces, and 50 steps is not even 5 percent, which is too far away.

What's the problem?

Chi Fei couldn't figure out the problem for a while, so he asked Craftsman Wu another question, "How much time did you spend on these three firecrackers?" ”

Craftsman Wu replied: "Almost half a year." Originally, a total of five shots were made, but two of them blew up, so now only these three shots remain. ”

Chi Fei couldn't help but be a little disappointed after hearing this.

It is no wonder that the Ministry of Industry of the previous dynasty spent so much manpower and material resources to make more than 100 firearms, which was too time-consuming and laborious.

"What was the part that took the most time?"

"It's the pipe.

In order to shoot the lead bullet smoothly, we need to polish the inside of the barrel very smooth, otherwise it is easy to cause explosion.

This process is the most time-consuming, requiring grinding little by little, and if you push too hard, it is easy to crack the tube.

With this step alone, we have almost scrapped hundreds of guns.

Once it is scrapped, it can only be rebuilt and started again, which is why it is so time-consuming. ”

Sure enough, the hardest part was the barrel. If this problem cannot be solved, mass production will not be possible at all.

Chi Fei looked at the copycat gun in his hand with some emotion.

He can barely tolerate this accuracy problem, after all, the smoothbore gun is originally average, but he really can't compliment it with this output.

It took dozens of craftsmen half a year to make three barely usable poles, how can this efficiency equip the army on a large scale?

As he watched, he suddenly noticed a problem.

He hurriedly brought the other two copycat guns over and compared them carefully, and finally aimed into the barrel with one eye.

After a while, Chi Fei put down the cottage gun in his hand and sighed.

He finally knew what the reason for the poor accuracy was.

The inner diameter of each barrel is different, some are large and some are small.

And the inside of the barrel is not straight from end to end, there are some places in it that are curved. Maybe it can't be said to be curved, but it's not vertical enough.

Because the inner diameter of the barrel is not in a straight line, after the lead bullet is sprayed along the barrel, the shooting trajectory changes due to the action of inertia, so the accuracy is so poor.

The root cause of this phenomenon is that there is a problem in the grinding process.

Because the craftsmen polish it entirely by hand, it is almost inevitable that the inner diameter of the barrel will be large and small, and the angle will be prone to deviation.

After all, people are not machines, how can they be so accurate.

Wait a minute, machine?

Chi Fei suddenly thought of a place that he had neglected.

If you want to mass-produce standardized flintlock pistols, it is definitely not possible to rely on each craftsman to make them one by one.

Not only does there have to be an assembly-line division of labor, but most importantly, machine tools are needed.

That's right, what is missing is the machine.

It is also completely unrealistic that there is no need for a complex and advanced machine.

All he wanted was a simple drilling machine that could standardize the grinding process.

In other words, the machine only needs to do one thing, and that is to drill and grind the barrel inner diameter in a uniform and standardized manner.

The inner diameter of the barrel will not only be the same size, but it will also be straight.

As long as the problem of the barrel is solved, then it will be possible to want mass production.

If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools, and this simple drilling machine tool for grinding must be made.

Thinking of this, Chi Fei suddenly perked up, and immediately went to discuss with those craftsmen about this simple drilling machine.

The craftsmen had never heard of such a thing as a machine tool, and they were all confused.

Chi Fei knew that it would be difficult to get them to accept something they had never seen before, but he patiently explained to them the role of the machine tool and the basic principles.

"This so-called drilling machine consists of two parts. One is to fix the object, and the other is to drill and polish.

You should be able to understand that fixing the barrel is to use a machine to hold the barrel in place and not let it move.

Drilling and grinding is more complicated, to put it simply, it is to first put a very long thin drill bit into the barrel, and then the runner drives this thin drill bit to drill and grind the inside of the barrel.

After grinding, use a thicker drill bit to grind again, and increase the hole diameter again until the appropriate size hole is drilled.

Since the barrel is drilled with the same size and size, there are three advantages to this, one is that the inner diameter of all barrels will be exactly the same, and there will be no big and some small.

The second is that the inside of the barrel will be very straight, and it will not be high and low.

The third is the ability to produce more barrels quickly, much faster than grinding by hand. ”

The people present were all experienced old craftsmen, and after listening to Chi Fei's explanation, they quickly understood what he meant.

If there really is such a machine, it will indeed be much faster than hand sanding.

It's like weaving cloth by hand is the same as weaving cloth with a loom.

All the craftsmen were immediately excited, and they asked Chi Fei all kinds of questions about this machine tool.

But Chi Fei has only seen this simple drilling machine in the video and knows the general working principle. As for how to make it, that's not something he can do.

When they heard that Chi Fei didn't know how to make such a machine either, the craftsmen were a little disappointed, but they quickly cheered up.

I don't know how to make it, but as long as I know the general principle, there must be a way to make it.

For a while, the craftsmen were full of expectations, and they all wanted to make something that had never been seen before.

In this way, Chi Fei and these craftsmen devoted themselves to the research of making simple drilling machine tools, and they were busy again.