"Let me introduce to you, this is Liu, the elder of Shitouqiao Village Arsenal. He is a veteran of our Red Army."
"This is Director Zhu of the steel and chemical plants. I don't think I need to introduce his name."
In the dormitory, Brigadier Chen briefly introduced them, and they were considered acquaintances.
Director Liu is in his forties. He coughs from time to time and is lame. These are all problems left over from climbing snowy mountains.
"What?! Are you Director Zhu?"
If Lao Liu hadn't lame one leg, he might have been able to jump up from where he was.
"Oh, I really didn't expect you to be so young. Compared to you, my life of more than forty years has really been like a dog."
"you know me?"
Zhu Han looked at Lao Liu's reaction and felt baffled. He really couldn't remember any interaction with him.
"Of course!" Lao Liu grabbed Zhu Han's hand.
"The spring production line you built this year has solved an urgent need for gun repair shops like us."
"Not to mention the lever-type stamping machine you made, which not only allows us to produce primers ourselves, but also made shotgun shells last month! Ahem..."
When Lao Liu got excited, he suddenly brought out his old habit of coughing.
Zhu Han understood his mood. Even though the bullet was only a small one, there were really many ways inside.
There are 21 steps in the process of making a cartridge case alone.
What about flushing, annealing and pickling, stretching, annealing and pickling, stretching and concave, alkali cleaning, incision, bottom pressing, burning, pickling, fire hole punching...
Does it sound overwhelming?
That's not even half of it.
Let’s talk about the warhead.
The normal manufacturing process of a warhead jacket is: punching, appearance inspection, annealing and pickling, stretching, punching, extrusion and expansion.
It is simply a fantasy to ask the current Eighth Route Army to do it.
It was made by stuffing lead into a conical barrel made of pressed copper coins.
Don’t be afraid of the uneven texture and it will fly all over the place. This is still limited, and in many cases you have to use hard wood instead.
Not to mention that the Eighth Route Army was simply unable to produce high-quality propellants.
Zhu Han's solution to this problem is very simple and crude.
If it can't be made, then it won't be made.
It's hard to make a small cartridge case, but it's hard to make a big one? There is no need to stretch or roll, and it is still flanged.
Is the pressure of the lever press not enough? Wouldn't it be enough to put a steel pipe on the handle and make it several times longer? Brass is easy to process anyway.
Not strong? Wouldn't it be enough to lower the chamber pressure and thicken the cartridge case?
Is the warhead difficult to handle? Then no need for warheads!
No high-quality propellant? As long as you can kill someone at seventy or eighty meters, it's better than holding a sword or a spear, right?
So taken together, isn't this a typical shotgun?
Anyway, spring and steel pipe production lines have been developed, and the principle of the center-folding double-barreled shotgun is simple, so this gun was built naturally.
"Double-barreled hunting performance is pretty good in actual combat?"
Zhu Han took the opportunity to ask. He was already curious when Brigadier Chen mentioned this matter just now.
After all, let alone making guns, I had never seen a real gun several times before, so I was still not sure whether I could build this thing myself.
"Okay, okay! That's great!" Old Liu patted his leg hard in excitement.
Zhu Han felt pain just looking at it, and even began to wonder if his leg was just so lame.
"You don't even need to aim at a distance of fifty meters. One shot will ensure you bite the meat."
"When I first saw this thing, I was thinking, isn't this thing just a weird old firecracker? How powerful can it be?"
"I never imagined that you could multiply the power several times with just a small piece of wood."
In the old gunpowder, the projectile and gunpowder were in direct contact, and the direction of the impact force on the projectile was not consistent, resulting in a lot of kinetic energy being consumed in the barrel.
For shotguns, a small holder is placed between the steel ball and the propellant, and the pressure of the propellant acts on the holder.
The bullet stock pushes all the steel balls to fly out of the barrel, so that most of the kinetic energy is absorbed by the steel balls.
And because the force of these projectiles is in the same direction, the shotgun's range and power are several times stronger than that of a firecracker.
"Besides, the primer you made was stuffed with something..."
"Berksey style primer." Seeing that Old Liu couldn't remember it, Zhu Han added.
"Ah, yes, that's right. It's this kind of primer. After you use it, you can just poke it with a steel needle. You don't have to hit it with a hammer like other bullets."
"It's just that you have to add more aluminum foil and a fire anvil to the primer. These things can be cut out with a lever press."
"Not only that, this kind of gun also greatly eases the logistical pressure." Seeing that Lao Liu always talked from the perspective of production, Brigadier Chen couldn't help but interrupt.
"Reloading shotgun is very easy. Anyone who is not too stupid can learn it after watching the demonstration."
"Now we only need to send primers and gunpowder, and the other units can basically provide for themselves."
"And it can fire two shots in a row. If the marksmanship is good, two enemies will be taken away directly. If the marksmanship is bad, the two shots will basically destroy an enemy."
"So all the troops who tried the double-barreled hunter praised it."
"Is the copper still enough?"
Zhu Han was not flattered by the two people's praise. He knew very well where the weakness of the Eighth Route Army was.
It takes two and a half to three rifle shells of brass to make one shotshell.
At the same time, no matter how good the shotgun is, its effective range is still too short and it is impossible to replace the rifle.
With the current shortage of copper everywhere, how much can be spared to make shotgun shells?
Sure enough, when it came to supplies, Lao Liu's eyes obviously lost their original brightness, and even his tone became depressed.
"Oh, I came here just to ask for copper from the brigade commander..."
"Didn't you say before that you could make grenades when there was no copper?" Brigadier Chen frowned, feeling that something was not quite right.
"We have tried many times during this period, but the grenades we created are not powerful enough, and the comrades are not in a high mood..."
Lao Liu also hesitated for a while, and finally spoke out after making a lot of determination.
"So we decided not to make grenades at all, but to make bombs specifically..."
"Old Liu, what is your behavior now? It's surrender! When you encounter some difficulties, you beg for mercy. Are you still like an old soldier who came from the Red Army?!"
"If you want copper or not, if you want a life, you, Old Liu, see how many kilograms of copper my head is worth, just chop it off and exchange it for copper!"
After hearing what Lao Liu said, Brigadier Chen was furious.
But what I said...
Okay, very Brigadier Chen.
Regardless of the red-faced Old Liu, Zhu Han picked up some clues and raised his hand to interrupt Brigadier Chen: "What kind of explosives did you use?"
Lao Liu was stunned for a moment, then became ecstatic.
He didn't want to feel so aggrieved, but he was completely clueless.
If it were the famous Zhu Han, he might really be able to solve his own problems.
"Black powder, this is the only gunpowder we can obtain in large quantities."
"What about the ratio?"
"75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, 15% charcoal."
"I see, it seems you are overlooking one thing, and that is that bullets and grenades work differently."
As soon as these words came out, the two people present were stunned. It would be nonsense to say that the working environment was different, but they had never heard of the same gunpowder working in different ways.
"The launch of projectiles mainly relies on the thrust provided by the large amount of gas generated in a confined space at the moment when gunpowder burns, which is called deflagration."
"Hand grenades rely on the shock wave generated by the instant and violent explosion of gunpowder to kill the enemy, which is called detonation."
"In black gunpowder, nitrate is responsible for providing oxygen to help complete combustion to produce gas, sulfur is responsible for violent combustion, and charcoal makes the combustion gentle."
"So the classic ratio is fine as a propellant, but it's really not good enough as an explosive. You can try increasing the sulfur ratio to 70%."
"Yes! I'll go back and try!"
Lao Liu, who had the direction, ran away regardless.
Looking at the scene in front of him, Brigadier Chen also sighed: "Xiao Zhu, you have helped me solve another problem."
"Is this considered a solution? It can only be said to be a perfunctory approach, treating the symptoms but not the root cause."
In fact, the lack of copper has always troubled the Eighth Route Army. When the steelmaking plant was first built, Brigadier Chen came over to discuss copper smelting.
But Zhu Han’s answer was: impossible.
Copper smelting requires a lot of electricity, and the pitifully small power plant in the Soviet District of Shanxi Province simply cannot handle it.
"I don't want this either, but even you can't solve it, what can I do?"
Zhu Han lit a cigarette, took a deep breath, and said one word as if he had made up his mind:
"steel!"
Behind this word represents a crazy plan.
"What's the meaning?"
"Make up your mind..."
Zhu Han looked at Brigadier Chen seriously and spoke word by word.
"Make new bullets!"
