Chang'an City (San Francisco)

In the eight-story headquarters building of the Colt Arms Company, staff in suits and leather shoes are busy coming in and out, and more than a dozen security guards with guns are guarding the door, showing the extraordinary style of the world's top large arms company.

Inside the chairman's office on the top floor of the building

Wearing a sophisticated tuxedo and holding a glass of French red wine in his hand, Count Colt was chatting and laughing with General Manager Doug, Deputy General Manager Luo Zhengtang in charge of sales, and Mark Peirce, Chief Engineer in charge of R&D.

He is indeed entitled to be proud, an unprecedented and tragic Crimean War in Europe, which has done the best publicity for the Colt Arms Company, and orders from Europe are flying like snowflakes, making the company make a lot of money.

Although the war is over, the Colt Arms Company still has orders worth more than 17 million Tang Yuan, which is enough to produce until the second quarter of next year and generate a gross profit of no less than 4.6 million Tang Yuan.

It is said that the arms trade is a huge profit, and this can be seen from this.

Over the years, Count Colt has earned a net worth of 10 million, and Colt Arms Company has become the world's top manufacturer of artillery and firearms, and its products sell well in European countries.

"Dear Luo, how many orders have been placed for us by the Royal Household Office?"

"You will be happy, Your Excellency Lord Colt, this year's order contains about 270 field artillery pieces of various calibers, 13,000 Type 1848 extended repeating rifles, plus a huge amount of ammunition storage, we supply at a preferential price worth about 1.6 million Tang Yuan, about 12% of the gross profit."

“

OK, arrange production in front of other orders as soon as possible, this is our obligation to the kingdom. "Count Colt had a ruddy face and seemed to be in a very good mood, and he smiled and revealed a secret;" Ladies and gentlemen, according to reliable information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs will further increase the scale of storage from next year, and we will have a steady stream of orders, so that the factory can produce at full capacity. ”

"It's so good, it's worth a toast to it."

"Cheers ......"

After taking a sip of red wine, everyone put down their glasses in a happy mood, and Count Colt walked up to Mark Pierce and asked in a kind tone;

"Oh...... Dear Mark, how well has our newly developed rifle range been adapted? This is news that everyone wants to know, there is no need to keep it secret, I want to know where it has been? ”

"Your Excellency, the newly developed rifle is undergoing durability tests, and judging from the current test data, it can be said that it is very good, and it has basically met the demanding indicators required by the military." When it comes to the new rifle, Mark Pearce's face has a strange look.

He is an engineering man obsessed with weapon design, cherishing the new rifle like a treasure, rejoicing in every flawed improvement and technological advancement.

The Colt 1848 Lever Repeater is one of the company's flagship products, almost every cowboy in Texas, USA, and is a popular favorite among police, bandits, farmers and post office clerks, and is the standard for cowboys' long weapons.

This rifle also appeared in the hands of both the North and the South in the Kansas Civil War, and appeared in the brutal battle of the Ottoman Empire to hold the fortress of Kars, and became famous for its ferocious firepower.

The Ottoman army, with the intensive firepower of 8,300 Colt repeating rifles, inflicted serious casualties on the Russian troops who carried out the dense formation white-knuckle charge, killing and wounding more than 26,000 Russian troops one after another, shocking the world in one fell swoop.

The expeditionary force of the Tang Kingdom, which flew over the snow-capped mountains, relied on the intensive firepower of Colt repeating rifles to break through several defensive lines of the Russian fortress Sevastopol from behind, killing and wounding more than 44,000 Russian troops and capturing 23,100 people (excluding the results of the British, French and Ottoman armies), occupying the fortress of Sevastopol, which had been fighting hard for more than ten months, and laying the foundation for the victory of the Crimean War.

Who wouldn't love such an advanced rifle?

The Colt 1848 lever-fired repeating rifle has advantages and disadvantages, the disadvantage is that the firing range is relatively short, the effective range of the extended model is 320~350 yards, and the shooting accuracy is not satisfactory.

The British army is equipped with a much longer range of Mini rifles, and the effective killing distance can reach about 650 yards to 700 yards, and it still has considerable lethality at 700 yards away.

Fortunately, the Russian army is not equipped with advanced Mini rifles, they use old smoothbore rifles with a bullet weighing 51 grams, which have poor sealing and poor shooting accuracy, and the effective killing range is only about 200 yards, and the maximum is not more than 230 yards, and the range is obviously inferior.

Over the years

Colt Arms has not stopped the pace of research and development, they have been developing a new bolt-action rifle for more than 4 years, and after dozens of repeated improvements, the design has finally been finalized and entered the stage of rifle performance verification.

This bolt-action rifle is a true weapon of infantry, and it is the work of the Colt Arms Company, which His Majesty has inspected several times and made valuable suggestions for improvement.

Therefore, the Colt Arms Company unanimously decided to designate the gun as the 1856 King Rifle.

The 1856 King Rifle was a revolutionary standard rifle with a technical level equal to the Manlisa rifle that appeared more than a decade later in the course of history and the Mauser 1888 Commission rifle, which was more advanced in some parts due to Richard's gold finger.

For example;

The first development was the Patrone, which uses a black propellant

The Type 88 is a round-nosed bullet with a bottomless bottleneck with a diameter of 8.08mm, which is also a very advanced rifle bullet.

His Majesty the King, during his inspection, had a whim, wondering if the pointed bullets would fly faster, have a longer range, and be more effective for firing accuracy.

Experimentally proven

The effective killing range of round-nosed bullets is about 650 meters to 700 meters, and the effective killing range of pointed-nosed bullets is 760 meters to 800 meters.

A slight change in the shape of the bullet led to a huge improvement in ballistic performance, and the 1856 King Rifle benefited greatly from it, and the pointed rifle cartridge scheme was finalized, which was the originator of ammunition design and remained unchanged for the next century and a half.

The 1856 King bolt-action rifle is designed with a magazine and a five-round clip, pull the bolt to exit the cartridge case, press the bullet, pull the bolt to shoot a bullet,

This clip is inserted directly into the magazine, which does not hold the bullet port, but holds the bullet in place through the clip.

During the firing, the magazine cannot be replenished with scattered bullets at any time. Once the five rounds have been fired, the clip falls out of the opening at the bottom of the magazine, at which point a new magazine can be pressed in.

In the original design

The barrel of the 1856 King bolt-action rifle was wrapped around a sleeve and was designed to protect the barrel from external collisions to improve shooting accuracy.

In actual use, water vapor will accumulate in the gap between the sleeve and the barrel, making the barrel rusty, and the sleeve will be cumbersome.

It not only increases the difficulty of the manufacturing process, but also increases the burden on the soldiers, and does not play a role in improving the accuracy of the design.

His Majesty the King, during an inspection, questioned such a design; "How much force does a soldier have to bend the barrel?"

After comparative experiments of two barrel designs, buried in soil, placed in muddy water, subjected to severe cold and hot climates for long-term durability shooting, shooting after falling, and other extreme conditions, it was proved that the sleeve design was purely redundant.

Therefore, the sleeve is eliminated in the final finalization, the production process is simplified, the weight is reduced, and the actual use effect is better.

Hermann Aylwater, chief designer of the 1856 King's bolt-action rifle, claimed; "I designed the prototype of a new rifle, and His Majesty the King made it a work of art, a mountain that would be admired and 50 years ahead of its time......"

Of course, there is no shortage of praise for this statement.

"Hahaha...... Mark Pearce, you have brought us the best news we would like to hear, preferably about the new rifle. We can sell this advanced King's rifle for 50 years or more, and there is a good chance that it will be able to produce 1 million units, gentlemen, we have made a fortune. Earl Colt burst out laughing.

His excitement is hard to suppress now, but the number of 1 million is still estimated to be less.

In the original history

More than 2.6 million German-made Mauser 1888 Commission rifles, similar to the King's rifle, were produced and sold in various parts of the world, and were used until World War I.

"It's an honor to be a part of this great company and to see history firsthand." Mark Pierce also said with a smile on his face; "At present, the rigorous tests are coming to an end, and after passing the military acceptance, we will soon be able to get a large order from the kingdom."

"It also takes a certain amount of time to schedule production and equipment commissioning, and we may not be able to export this advanced rifle for the time being before the kingdom's military allows it, but it doesn't matter, the kingdom's reserve order may reach 8~100,000 units, which is enough for us to produce well for two years." Deputy manager Luo Zhengtang was also in high spirits.

These high-level executives are all minority shareholders of the Colt Arms Company, with a stake of less than 1 percent, and most of them are a few tenths of a percent.

Even if the proportion of shares is small, the huge profits of Colt Arms Company can make their dividends exceed 10,000 yuan per year.

Maintaining a decent upper-class life is not a problem, coupled with a high salary, a well-paid rich man.

With the expansion of the company's production scale and growing prestige, Colt Arms Company has 11,000 employees, and also has a large production plant in Europe, supplying weapons and equipment to European countries nearby.

According to the regulations of the Tang Kingdom, the new 1856 King's bolt-action rifle cannot be exported for the time being, nor can it be produced in the European branch, and priority is given to supplying the kingdom's army.

This was also the case during the production of the Storm heavy machine gun, but now the restrictions have been lifted, as the Maxim hand-cranked heavy machine gun has also appeared in the United States.

In today's world

As soon as a field weapon appeared and equipped with troops, the rest of Europe's industrial countries would soon follow suit and copy it, introducing an improved rifle that was unique to them.

If you don't sell and don't occupy this market, it is equivalent to actively giving up the market, and some European countries are willing to sell to fill this gap.

Therefore, as long as the new 1856 King bolt-action rifle has been shown on the battlefield, it will not be far from lifting the ban.

At the level of industry in today's world, there is no difficulty that cannot be replicated.

The imitation of the 1856 King's rifle in Europe and the United States may be of poor quality and quantity, but it will never fail to be produced.

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