Chapter 42: Firearms (2)

According to Shi Bin's instructions, Xie Qiangbing did his best to make steel. Half a month later, Xie Qiangbing refined the first batch of qualified good steel. Although the cost has doubled, the steel produced is indeed much better. It is neither brittle and fragile, nor soft and lacking in profit.

More than ten days later, a new assault gun with three steel barrels was finally created.

Its performance was not bad, firing fifty shots without blowing up the barrel, which was a very big step forward, and everyone who supported the development of the new assault rifle was very happy.

However, it takes a lot of tempering to produce the essence, and only then can they really walk in the front, and all Shi Bin and others did not get carried away because of such a small achievement.

Fortunately, he did not get carried away, because soon there was a small accident - in the process of a continuous test firing, because the gun was overheated, and the soldier was afraid of the superior and did not dare to speak out, resulting in his own hand being burned.

This can make people feel uncomfortable, the problem of barrel heating makes Shi Bin first think of the Maxim water-cooled heavy machine gun in World War II; and then there is the Gu Wheat in "My Leader, My Regiment", who was burned to death by the Gang of Mystery Dragon Duan Makqin Gang.

However, he knew that pouring hot steel with water would lead to internal cracks and shorten the service life of the steel, which was not good for today's steel barrels, which were not of high quality, so he had to reluctantly abandon this idea.

It didn't take long for it to turn on the lights again, and Shi Bin had just returned from the barracks to comfort the wounded soldier from the barracks. Now he really wants someone to send him a copy of the technical paper.

This time, he simply summoned a few of his subordinates, who were still smart, to the conference hall to discuss the plan, and according to his opinion, it was best to build a new type of assault rifle that could be fired continuously until the gun was scrapped without burning hands and exploding the chamber.

In the eyes of everyone, this is a fantasy, Xie Qiangbing said that it is definitely impossible to create a steel gun body that fires continuously but does not explode, so it must rest after firing continuously for a period of time, otherwise the gun body will explode because of overheating.

Old sleeves? Thinking of this word, Shi Bin immediately asked: "Strong soldier, big brother, I have thought of a method, do you think you can add another layer of iron barrel to the outside of this barrel to ensure that the chamber is not blown up and the soldiers are not burned?" ”

"It's not impossible, but big brother, the cost of such a gun is too expensive, and we can't afford it. The service life of this barrel has not become longer, it just does not explode, and it has little practical value. Xie Qiangbing replied with some frustration.

Indeed, no matter how much he Shi Bin cares about the soldiers, he can't ignore the financial issues and give orders indiscriminately.

"Big brother, your worries are indeed right, since it is difficult to make a good gun body, why don't we think about any way to make the gun body not heat up so quickly and burn the soldiers?" Wang San asked.

"Why don't we just put the barrel of the gun in the giant bamboo barrel?" Li Chao said tentatively.

This is a solution, the bamboo has water, can absorb heat, heat conduction will not be so fast, and will not shorten the service life of the barrel due to drastic changes in cold and heat.

But Wang San denied this view, he thinks that the bamboo is too easy to age, and it is estimated that he will have to change the bamboo tube if he can't put a few shots.

After careful analysis, I found that this proposal is indeed not feasible, but it is a bit of a cold joke.

In the end, it was decided to go a little more complicated: hire a few carpenters to make a standard wooden butt for the barrel. Such a butt has a long service life, is not easy to deform, and the key is that the thermal conductivity is very poor, which ensures that the soldier will not be burned.

After the discussion was completed, the order was immediately issued, and in about half a month, the first batch of fifty new assault rifles was built.

The results of the practical test are very good, and the most gratifying thing is that the general assault rifle is used only a few thousand times, and the assault rifle made of this good steel has not exploded tens of thousands of shots.

Seeing the progress in this aspect, Shi Bin and others were very happy. In fact, the cost of firearms is greatly reduced, the service life is improved, and the economic burden is reduced.

What made Shi Bin even happier was that the musket array formed in this way was safer and more lethal naturally. The dense shooting and stable formation made him look like a hedgehog covered in thorns, and first of all, it was guaranteed to reduce the casualty rate of the soldiers, and the Yuan soldiers would have nowhere to start.

At present, he still has a little regret about the accuracy and rate of fire of this assault rifle. Although the rate of fire was still very slow due to the inability to produce acceptable bullets, the increase in range greatly increased the deterrent power of the assault rifle. But if he could make a rifled gun, he saw hope.

On the way home, Shi Bin walked leisurely, looking at the slightly cloudy sky, he didn't think it was a sign that it was going to rain, but a prelude to the Yuan soldiers who were about to burst into tears. And the wind before the rain made him feel that this was the encouragement of his commander to sweep the grassland and destroy the Yuan Dynasty. Thinking that this weapon, once fully manufactured, would be a one-sided slaughter of the enemy, he felt like a national hero.

Wang San was naturally very happy to follow alongside, but he didn't expect Shi Bin to be so happy. Knowing Wang San's doubts, Shi Bin couldn't say, he couldn't explain how he knew about this weapon, so he could only nod to him silently and let him guess the "answer" by himself.

When I returned home, my mind was full of the word "rifling". But he only knew how to use a drill bit to cut steel pipes, and he didn't know anything else, so he had to call Xie Qiangbing and the two craftsmen over to ask.

Shi Bin could only vaguely tell him that he was drawing lines in the barrel of the gun. And at the same time, the front-loading gun was changed to a rear-loading gun, so that the bullet was loaded from the rear end of the barrel.

Although Xie Qiangbing didn't know what Shi Bin meant by rifling, as soon as he heard that it might improve the range and accuracy of the gun, he immediately came to his senses and said that he would definitely study the best rifling manufacturing method.

In order to make Xie Qiangbing understand more clearly, he, a half-bucket gun enthusiast, explained in detail all the methods of rifling that he thought were feasible.

Seeing that Xie Qiangbing was still confused, he had no choice but to explain again and again, and finally even simply drew a rough graphic with a brush for Xie Qiangbing to take back to the camp.

Although he knew that Xie Qiangbing definitely didn't fully understand, he believed that he still had the ability to pull out a few lines in the barrel. As for what form it is, even Shi Bin himself is confused.

It didn't take long for Xie Qiangbing to pull out an assault rifle with five rifled lines in its inner diameter. Seeing that there was a sample so soon, Shi Bin was very happy with Xie Qiangbing's dedication.

However, he was also both happy and a little worried, I am afraid that the practical performance of something that came out so quickly would not be very high. But it is very satisfying to make progress in one area, after all, the real standard guns did not appear until the late nineteenth century.

Calmly came to the playground, Xie Qiangbing pulled Shi Bin with a happy face and said, "Big brother, what you said is indeed right, little brother really admires, admires!" ”

Knowing that the performance of this new assault gun must have been improved to a certain extent, this will only give Xie Qiangbing a lot of encouragement, but it is nothing to him. In order not to dampen their enthusiasm, Shi Bin still asked "curiously": "Brother Qiangbing, how much progress can make you, an experienced firearms expert, so excited?" ”

Originally, the maximum firing distance of this assault rifle was only 250 meters, and the effective attack distance was only 100 meters, and it did not have much accuracy. However, with the addition of the straight-line breech assault gun, the maximum shooting distance has reached nearly 500 meters, and the effective distance has also reached nearly 300 meters, and the accuracy has been greatly improved.

Shi Bin was also very happy to hear this result, after all, this result was far beyond his expectations. He finally understood why Xie Qiangbing was so happy, after all, doubling the performance would make people ecstatic.

With this kind of progress, it naturally arouses people's spirit of exploration, Shi Bin saw that rifling can increase the range and accuracy, but what about the curved rifling? So he told Xie Qiangbing about this idea, and gathered the craftsmen who participated in the research, and each of them was rewarded with ten taels of silver.

This time, Xie Qiangbing uncharacteristically signaled Shi Bin to reward a few more people, and rewarded those craftsmen's assistants with two taels of silver. Shi Bin knew that this was to increase the research process and quickly improve the army's firearm attack capabilities, so of course he followed Xie Qiangbing's advice.

Perhaps it was the successive successes that made Shi Bin have high expectations for further improving the performance of the gun, but he was a little disappointed that the research did not make the slightest progress in the next two months.

It turns out that this curved rifling can't be pulled well, either it is crooked or it is drawn in different shades, and it is not as simple and practical as straight rifling.

One day, after training, I walked around with nothing to do, trying to blow my breath. Not far from the barracks, there was a knocking sound, and then it turned out to be a few pawns repairing stools with nails.

He, a college student in his previous life, is completely a young master, where does he know what carpentry, and he is naturally interested in seeing new things. So I walked over to see and kill time, and at the same time satisfy some curiosity.

The pawn probably wasn't very good at it, and even after a few nails, the stool was still loose. He couldn't help but lose his temper, pulled the nails out of the stool, and threw the tools aside.

Seeing Commander Shi coming, the pawn immediately stood up and saluted. Shi Bin nodded, then picked up the stool on the ground and looked at it, and found that there was a curved rifling in the hole that had been nailed.

Seeing this, he immediately excitedly picked up the nail that was thrown aside by the pawn, and looked closely at it, it turned out to be a screw, and the tool that was thrown aside was a cross.

As if he had been empowered, he immediately summoned Xie Qiangbing over and said his thoughts. Hearing this, Xie Qiangbing was also enlightened, and before he could bow and leave, he turned around and ran back to the armory.

Sure enough, within five days, the updated musket was manufactured, and the maximum shooting distance had reached 650 meters, and the effective killing distance had also been increased to 350 meters, and the accuracy was higher. It's just that the molds used in this kind of manufacturing are relatively demanding, so the production of new muskets is limited.

These are nothing to Shi Bin's, he thinks that as long as there is such a force, it can definitely run rampant and beat the Yuan soldiers. Thinking of this, Shi Bin felt that the dust in this armory workshop was sweet.