"Overseer, hit!" Li Xiaohu shouted excitedly, and hurriedly ordered someone to lift the target to Liu Fan's eyes, and said loudly, "Overseer, you see that the accuracy of this new flintlock pistol within fifty steps is still very high!" ”

Liu Fan glanced at the bullet hole on the target, and was a little happy in his heart, and couldn't wait to ask Sun Yuanhua, "Senior brother, is the range and accuracy of the flintlock pistol much more than the arquebus?" What are the specific figures on the range and accuracy of this flintlock pistol? ”

Sun Yuanhua smiled and said, "Want to know? Why don't you just try it? What the old man said is good, but it is not as convincing as what you have seen with your own eyes! Someone, move the target back! ”

Sixty steps, seventy steps, eighty steps... One hundred paces, when the firing range exceeded a hundred paces, the accuracy of the flintlock pistol began to decline significantly, and the hit rate of several experienced shooters in a row was still miserable. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 When the target is 120 paces away, it is basically difficult to hit the target, and the gun almost misses the target.

Seeing this, Sun Yuanhua smiled and explained, "There is actually no essential difference between a flintlock pistol and an arquebus, both are front-loading smoothbore guns loaded with sub-caliber lead bullets, mainly because the ignition method is different, because the flintlock pistol has a large amount of instantaneous flame in the medicine pool, so the power is slightly larger than that of the arquebus, and the firing range is slightly farther than the arquebus." But overall, the difference isn't too big. After many of our experiments, we found that this new gun can hit the human form at a distance of about 80 steps, 100 steps to 150 steps away, and has a good hit rate on large targets such as infantry phalanx or cavalry, more than 150 steps, which is basically equivalent to an empty gun, of course, the inaccurate hit does not mean that there is no lethality, this gun can still kill the enemy at a distance of 200 steps, but the enemy's luck has to be very poor! ”

"A hundred steps?" Liu Fan was still a little dissatisfied in his heart, a distance of one hundred steps was only a few breaths for a cavalryman. This meant that if the flintlock pistols were used, they could only fire a maximum of three or four shots before the cavalry could attack the musketeers, which was the result of a three-stage shot. It's still not enough to deal with cavalry!

After thinking about it, Liu Fan asked, "Is there a way to increase the range of the flintlock pistol?" How's the rifling study? ”

Sun Yuanhua shook his head with a wry smile and said, "The main range of the musket depends on factors such as the manufacturing process, the caliber and length of the barrel, and the charge. We have adopted the latest technology for this gun, but the effect has not improved much. As for the rifling, it's okay to build some in small quantities, but it's too time-consuming and labor-intensive to produce in large quantities. The arsenal now has only a small number of skilled craftsmen from Weixian who can polish and carve the rifles in the barrel. Other ordinary craftsmen will not be able to master this skill in a short period of time! ”

Liu Fan also knew that what Sun Yuanhua said was the truth, if the rifled barrel was really easy to control, the Europeans would not be equipped with a large number of rifled guns after a hundred years. Although this flintlock pistol was far inferior to the various breech-loading flintlock pistols of later generations, it has surpassed most of the arquebuses owned by the Ming Dynasty today. Liu Fan is already very content with this.

After a pause, Liu Fan comforted: "Senior brother, don't be discouraged, I believe that with your talent, you can solve the rifling problem sooner or later." Now this flintlock pistol is enough. By the way, how is this gun produced? Is there any difference compared to arquebus? ”

Sun Yuanhua's mood suddenly improved when he heard this, and when he heard Liu Fan's inquiry, his face suddenly appeared proud, and he replied proudly, "This flintlock pistol has been improved by us and has abandoned many drawbacks of the arquebus. Except for the barrel and bolt, which need to use a small amount of steel and brass, the rest of the gun body, throughbars and other parts are all replaced by wooden structures such as fir or jujube wood. Not only is it easy and fast to manufacture, but the cost is also greatly reduced. The only difficulty is that the bolt for ignition is a little more cumbersome, and the rest of the parts are actually very easy to manufacture. Recently we are working on the standardization of flintlock pistol parts, which, if successful, will greatly improve production efficiency. With the current strength of the arsenal, it is not a problem to produce three to five thousand rods per month! ”

"Three to five thousand?" Liu Fan said in surprise: "Is it more than twice as high as an arquebus?" Why is this so? ”

Sun Yuanhua smiled and explained, "In fact, it is very simple, arquebuses are not only cumbersome to use, but also have a lot of manufacturing processes. In the case of flintlock pistols, many unnecessary processes can be saved, and the arsenal only needs to be responsible for the production of important core components such as barrels and bolts, and the rest can be completely outsourced to merchants or ordinary people. This frees up a large number of craftsmen to focus on the production of important parts, and the output naturally increases! ”

"That's great!" Liu Fan said excitedly, "In that case, then the arsenal will go all out to produce flintlock pistols!" Brother, how long does it take to transform the production line of arquebuses into flintlock guns? ”

Sun Yuanhua pondered for a while and replied, "It will take about half a month, and changing the arquebus to a flintlock pistol actually only needs to improve the production of the barrel." The difficulty lies in the manufacture of the bolt, and it takes more than half a month for skilled craftsmen to initially master this skill! ”

"Hmmm! You just have to watch these things all the time. The flintlock ignition device is the core technology of this and must be strictly controlled to prevent it from being stolen by others. Starting tomorrow, I will send 3,000 people from the army to take charge of the defense of the arsenal, and the craftsmen and their families will also be centrally managed. It's a lot of work for you here."

"No problem, don't you feel at ease when the old man does something!" Sun Yuanhua smiled and said to Liu Fan, "The craftsmen who developed the new gun this time have contributed a lot, as the overseer of the Broken Army, shouldn't Jimin say something?" ”

"Uh" Liu Fan scratched his head and said a little embarrassed, "I forgot this, since the senior brother has spoken, then how can I express it, so I will send someone to send 50,000 taels of silver over in the morning, and the senior brother himself will look at the reward!" ”

"Well, that's pretty much it!" Fifty thousand taels is actually not too much for an arsenal with tens of thousands of craftsmen, and the average score is only five taels of silver per person. It was really not worth mentioning the value of the flintlock pistol, so Sun Yuanhua was not too surprised.

The successful development of the flintlock pistol is too important for Liu Fan, with which Liu Fan not only has a sharp weapon to deal with the Houjin cavalry, but also with the flintlock pistol installed in large numbers, the strength of the broken army will be doubled. Therefore, Liu Fan, who was only 50,000 taels of silver, did not feel distressed at all. (To be continued.) )