The arquebus building workshop was already busy at this time, and although it was only in the development and trial production stage, it still employed as many as 20 craftsmen, including as many as eight skilled blacksmiths.

"Your Majesty, please see that this is the barrel of the arquebus forged by us, with a caliber of 23mm, a barrel length of 680mm, an octagonal appearance, and a projectile weighing up to 50 grams, with a maximum range of 300m and an effective range of 120m." Claude picked up a forged barrel and explained to William.

"It's really good, but whether the barrel can be lengthened a little longer, whether the caliber can be smaller, and its weight is still too heavy, which will affect the reloading efficiency." William took the barrel in his hand and looked through it, weighed it, and looked at Claude and said.

"Yes, Your Majesty, I will follow your instructions to develop an arquebus with a smaller caliber, longer barrel, and lighter weight." Claude said as he bent over his chest.

"Of course, there is also a balance of power, after all, our enemies are about to have strong full-body plate armor, and you must make sure that this arquebus can penetrate the defenses of the chest plate when developing a new arquebus, whether it is Italian or my Norman plate armor." William did not forget to instruct.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

While William and Claude were discussing, Prince Richard suddenly cried out and said, "Father, which one I want to see." ”

William looked in the direction Richard was pointing, and saw one blacksmith with a tool clamping a solid rod of red, red, while the other struck the red-hot rod against the solid rod, and in a few moments the sheet was rolled into a barrel.

This is not the end of the case, this barrel has to be molded into shapes, through a series of turning, boring inner walls, drilling and other processes to become a qualified barrel.

However, William did not pay attention to this, he noticed that Richard was full of people approaching the hot stove, and immediately ran over and grabbed Richard and said, "Richard, this is very dangerous, do you know, don't run around, follow me well." ”

When Richard was told by William, he didn't make a fuss and cry like other children, but nodded sensibly and said, "Got my father." ”

"Good boy, listen to your father, and I will reward you when I go back." William touched Richard's little head and said.

In order to prevent him from running around and encountering danger, William specially instructed the knights of the guard beside him to take good care of Richard.

Led by Claude, they went to the section where the trigger faucet was made, and he took a finished trigger and presented it to William, saying, "Your Majesty, this is the arquebus bolt we have built, you see. ”

William picked up the arquebus bolt and looked at it, the structure was indeed delicate and complex, to which William nodded slightly and said, "Tell me what these are." ”

Claude looked at the position of the dragon head and trigger pointed by William and said: "Your Majesty, this is the trigger and the dragon head, and the trigger is the device for firing the arquebus, and the dragon head is also called the snake rod, which is the device used to fix the fire rope."

As long as the trigger is pressed up when firing, the rear end of the lever will move up, and the front end will fall, driving the fixing pin to pull the snake rod back so that it will touch the ignition hole; When the trigger is released, a spring blade under the lever pushes the tip of the lever back into its original position, and the snake lever automatically returns to its original position. ”

William looked at Claude's introduction, and indeed there was indeed a U-shaped bronze reed connecting the snake rod and the trigger on the bolt.

"I installed the whole bolt structure on the right side of the barrel, and I also used a whole copper plate to protect the fragile bolt structure, and the corresponding ignition hole was also moved to the right side of the barrel.

Because after testing, it was often difficult for the fire rope to reach the gunpowder inside the barrel through the ignition holes on the side.

Therefore, in order to be able to reliably ignite, I installed a pot or powder pool at the ignition hole to hold a small amount of ignition powder so that it can be successfully ignited.

This arquebus machine, which has been improved several times, has three major advantages, one is that both hands can be used to support the musket, the second is that the action of pressing the snake rod when firing is small, which helps to aim, and the third is that due to the relationship between the spring and the lever, the snake rod will not move, and the snake rod with shortened length is not as easy to damage as before. Claude introduced William to the somewhat complicated bolt.

"Yes, the bolt of this arquebus is really good, but it needs to be improved." William nodded in appreciation, but offered a different opinion.

"First of all, you have an ignition device here, although there is a pot that can hold the primer to make it easier to ignite, but these ignition powder can still be easily blown away by the wind or damp.

You can install a lid on and off the powder pool, and you can close the lid after installing the primer to prevent the primer from spilling or being spilled, and when firing, just unscrew the lid of the powder pool.

And here the snake rod and the reed, don't you think it makes more sense to change it a little?

You can shoot a similar bolt structure also, the difference between the two is in the use of spring plates.

The spring blade is first attached to the snake rod, and its function is not to push the snake rod back into place, but to bounce the snake rod towards the powder pool.

When the time comes, before firing, when my soldier shoots, he only needs to press the trigger lightly, and the spring will be released, and the elastic force will push the snake rod to press the winding fire rope into the powder pool, and then ignite the primer to fire.

Don't you think it's more sensitive and convenient when you pull the trigger? Returning the snake rod to its original position does not require the force of the spring, only manual resetting. ”

The bolt mentioned by William was different from the Spanish "Mushquet" musket, which was only popular for a short time, disappearing from most of Europe after 1550 AD, and was still used only in Japan.

Compared to the arquebus bolt in William's hand, the bolt he said fired less and ignited faster, helping to improve accuracy and firing speed.

"Your Majesty, this improvement is very good, and it is indeed much easier to fire it, but in this way, it is easy to touch the trigger by mistake, resulting in a misfire, which is very dangerous." Claude only thought about it and understood the advantages and disadvantages of the arquebus bolt as described by William.

It is true that it is not without its drawbacks, because there is no safety device, it is easy to cause accidents due to accidental contact with the bolt.

To this end, William made another suggestion: "Claude, you can try to add a protective device to the bolt I am talking about, lock the trigger with a safety device to prevent accidental fire in peacetime, and open the safety device before the battle."

But you start by using this ready-made bolt to produce arquebuses, and the improvements can be made slowly, without rushing. ”

"Yes, Your Majesty." Claude touched the sweat on his forehead, if William insisted on asking him to hurry up and improve the bolt, then the mass production of 500 arquebuses would not be completed.