Firearms carry dreams of the future, even the simplest front-loading smoothbore guns, so Duke didn't want to wait any time, so he just put away the papers and rushed in the direction of the hydroelectric factory, wanting to see the power of Stormcastle's homemade musket for the first time.

When you come to the hydroelectric factory, it is still a hot and busy scene, and with the increase in the number of cement firing, various towering chimneys have begun to appear in the hydroelectric factory, which has a feeling of industrial production in the steam age.

But then came an increase in dust, and the hydroelectric plant had a gray feel. It's just that Duke doesn't care about this dirty thing at all, this is the symbol of industry, representing the industrial sprout of the whole world!

In the musket laboratory of the stove, there are at least dozens of finished barrels. This is according to Duke's previous suggestion, in the case that the precision of the hydraulic boring machine does not meet the standard, only the most basic boring is carried out by the hydraulic boring machine, and then the dwarf craftsman is bored by hand, so that the final combination of semi-industrial and semi-manual can also be much more efficient than the original.

The stove and Bluro were also very surprised by Duke's sudden arrival, because no one had greeted them before, and Duke would come. And before the military parade, they, the "scientific researchers", did not participate. Because Duke emphasized a long time ago that Stormcastle does not engage in any false "welcome leadership" and the like, scientists are placed in the first place in Stormcastle, and their brains represent the future direction of mankind, so Stormcastle's scientific researchers enjoy the highest status.

Only by respecting science can we have the opportunity to take control of the future.

"See Your Lord. ”

Bruro and the stove immediately saluted when they saw Duke coming, and at the same time there was an excited expression on their faces, after all, they finally saw Duke come back, and today was also the day of musket assembly.

"No need to be polite, I saw the report you submitted, the boring barrel was successfully assembled, right?"

Duke couldn't wait to ask, because he had been waiting for this day for too long, and it could be said that since he built the Storm Army, he had never thought of building a cold weapon army, just waiting for the appearance of hot weapons.

In the face of Duke's inquiry, Bruno nodded and replied: "That's right, Lord Lord, our first batch of mass-produced barrels came out three days ago, and then they were assembled in the past two days. Today we are going to test the range and power of the musket, as well as to verify the strength of the barrel from the hydraulic boring machine. ”

"Alright, I'll test it with you. ”

After Duke said this, he walked over to the table and picked up a front-loading smoothbore gun that had just been equipped. The dark and smooth barrel, the shiny handguard, and to Duke's great surprise, this gun was not the arquebus that Duke had seen the dwarven musket back then, but a flintlock pistol with a percussive flintlock machine!

Compared to the original version of the arquebus, the flintlock pistol greatly simplified the firing process, improved the firing rate and shooting accuracy, and was easy to use and less expensive. And there is another point, that is, it is more practical in extreme weather, which is equivalent to an evolution of the musket.

When the stove saw that Duke had been staring at the flint, he immediately understood that Duke was very concerned about this thing. He also thought that Duke didn't understand the function of this thing, so he quickly explained to Duke: "Lord Lord, this thing is called flint, and when the trigger is pulled, the firing pin hits a spark, which can achieve the same effect as a fire rope, and it is far more convenient than a fire rope. ”

"I know. ”

Duke nodded, but his gaze did not move at all, still on the flintlock pistol in his hand, and the uncontrollable excitement in his heart.

The front-loading flintlock smoothbore gun, although placed in the modern social world, is not even an antique, and can be called a cultural relic in a museum. But in fact, this kind of front-loading smoothbore gun almost dominated the second half of the Middle Ages and the first half of modern society. From the first two hundred years of the 18th century to the last hundred years, for more than 300 years, the main force of the world's rifles was such a structure.

There was even a period of time when smoothbore guns coexisted with rifled guns, which did not overwhelm the advantages of front-loading smoothbore guns. Because in the same case of front-loading, there was no rifling but faster loading, and it was not until the appearance of Mini bullets that the rifling played a crushing advantage, so that the smoothbore gun completely withdrew from the historical stage.

"Stove, find someone to try the gun, see the range and power. ”

Duke handed the musket to the nearby stove and prepared to test it out. Duke didn't plan to do this kind of thing himself, because he didn't have much experience in operating firearms, at most, he had just shot a few live targets during military training in college. And modern rifles are very different from this primitive musket, and it is better to let the professionals play.

The stove didn't talk nonsense, and directly called a dwarf next to him to take out the gunpowder and gun, and began to prepare for loading.

Taking advantage of this time, the furnace began to confidently introduce to Duke: "Lord Lord, although this is not a completely hand-boring barrel, it is no different from handmade in terms of strength, and even because of the high quality of the steel, it is better than our dwarven previous muskets. ”

"As for the chambers of old-fashioned coiled steel of human beings, they are completely incomparable to ours. I just asked Tieshi to put the usual gunpowder to test the pressure resistance of our gun barrel. ”

Although Duke had never touched this kind of musket before, he had never eaten pork and never seen a pig run? Therefore, he also knew something about the shooting powder measured in one unit, and if the quality of the barrel was not good, forcibly adding more gunpowder could easily lead to explosion.

Moreover, the general test gun, not to mention adding one and a half parts of gunpowder, will not even add the usual amount of gunpowder, but half a portion, and then test the extreme performance of the musket little by little. The reason why the stove did this, it seems that he did have absolute confidence in the barrel, otherwise he would not have been so aggressive.

With the gunpowder loaded, Duke and his party also went to the shooting range behind the laboratory, which was a special area for musket experiments.

I saw that this dwarf called Ironstone put the butt of the gun against his shoulder, and then put his face directly on the body of the gun, aiming at the scarecrow target about a hundred paces away.

The fact that Iron Stone's face was pressed against the body of the gun also showed that he had absolute confidence in the musket and would not explode. Otherwise, if something really happens, it is very likely that Tie Shi will lose half of his face.

Duke remembered those muskets in the late Ming Dynasty in history, because they were too shoddy, and the soldiers even turned their heads back because they were afraid of exploding when they fired. With this kind of shooting method of turning the head, the hit rate can be imagined, so it is said that the Ming of the firearms army is not unjustly dead......