Wu Wenhua said to the third rifle: "This is a bolt action designed by our research institute. Although the principle is the same as the previous ones, they all use an impact type bolt action, but we have designed an additional impact type bolt action. mechanism."
"The new design adds a safety device and a cocking device, which can better prevent accidental fire."
"The second main feature is to add an iron blocking mechanism to reduce the consumption of flint and increase the ignition rate, because we found that when the bolt is fired, there is no blockage when the flint collides with the flint to produce sparks. Not only does it make the flint more susceptible to breakage, but it can also lead to ignition failure."
"So we specially added a blocking mechanism to avoid excessive impact of the flint, prevent premature breakage of the flint, and at the same time increase the ignition rate!"
Having said this, Wu Wenhua picked up the flintlock gun, pointed at the iron blocking mechanism and said: "Your Majesty, by adding this gadget, the firing rate of this flintlock gun has been increased to 95%, and at the same time, the use of flint has been improved. Lifespan is more than three times longer.”
"At the same time, we have also improved the windproof and rainproof mechanisms for use on rainy days to ensure that it can be used in windy, rainy and other weather conditions."
At this time, Luo Zhixue said: "So, the ignition rate is equivalent to that of the first flintlock gun, and the other safety and rainproof structures are also similar. Why do you bother?"
Wu Wenhua immediately said: "Your Majesty, this is because the third model of flintlock gun seems to have more parts than the first model, but the overall processing requirements are not as high as the first model!"
"We have tested and found that although some of its core parts still need to be made manually, the requirements for craftsmen are not too high, and the processing accuracy is also controlled within an acceptable range. We are fully able to allow workers to work through division of labor and cooperation. To create standard parts, as long as the tolerances are strictly controlled, assembly line production can be achieved."
"Once this happens, the production cost of this rifle, with an annual output of 10,000 units, can be reduced to less than fifteen taels. If the subsequent production volume continues to increase and the processing technology is further improved, then this cost can continue Reduce! The specific cost depends on the output."
After Wu Wenhua introduced these three types of flintlock muskets, Luo Zhixue did not make a choice right away. After all, the one he chose now was the main musket that would be used by the military in the future. Unless something unexpected happened, he would have to equip it for many years... It's impossible to mess around.
Luo Zhixue immediately called people from the Ministry of Ordnance and the Ministry of Industry. Each of the three types of flintlock guns has its own advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, many of the things Wu Wenhua said were paper data from preliminary tests. Whether this gun is good or not depends on large-scale This can only be determined after live-fire testing.
At the same time, whether the gun is good or not is not the only factor. Mass production, cost and other issues must also be considered.
What Luo Zhixue wants is a gun that can be mass-produced, while keeping costs within a certain range and having the best possible performance.
Rather than talking about the best-performing musket.
After many discussions, intensive live-fire tests were conducted on these three flintlock guns.
The testing work is carried out by the temporary fifth mixed battalion. Although this mixed battalion does not yet have all the personnel in place, it already has more than 100 people, so it is just right to undertake the early live-fire testing work.
Coupled with the fifth mixed battalion, they would have been the first batch of users of flintlock guns in the Chu Empire. First, they were tested, which could be considered as allowing them to conduct live ammunition training in advance.
After all, live-fire training is still very expensive these days.
Because ammunition is expensive, even the musketeers of the Chu army cannot conduct live ammunition training all day long without having anything to do.
At present, the Chu army's musketeers can only fire a total of fifteen rounds of live ammunition during the three-month recruit training period, and there will be no more.
In the daily training after the recruit training, there is not much live ammunition training. After all, ammunition is precious and must be reserved for combat.
However, this has also led to many army commanders often finding various excuses to suppress bandits and fight against landlords in order to increase the live-fire training of their musketeers...
They say it's to suppress bandits, but most of the time it's just to find an excuse to get ammunition for live-fire training.
When the ammunition supply is not so tight, the superiors often turn a blind eye to this kind of behavior. After all, this kind of thing can be regarded as live-fire training and bandit suppression.
As for such Chu army musketeers, the number of rounds they trained was already amazing for this era.
The gunners on the Ming army's side couldn't fire a few rounds of live ammunition throughout the year when there was no fighting.
Now allowing the Fifth Mixed Battalion to conduct this live-fire test can be regarded as giving them more live-fire training opportunities and laying the foundation for subsequent training.
For this live ammunition test, the Firearms Research Institute cooperated with Hantian Factory and mobilized a group of craftsmen to build 20 prototype guns of each type of flintlock gun for testing.
The test items include environmental tests in cold, high temperature, sand, dust, humidity, high salt and other climate environments.
This was followed by live-fire testing to test reloading speed, power, accuracy, firing rate, failure rate, etc.
These tests are often extreme tests, simulating fierce battles when firing, continuous firing, or intensive firing at intervals.
The entire test lasted for three days, and Luo Zhixue finally got the test report.
In various test reports, the first flintlock rifle, which was improved from the Suifa pistol and further improved the processing technology and simplified the parts, ranked first, especially in firing rate and failure rate. In these two key data, it ranks first. In live ammunition combat, the firing rate can reach 96%.
The failure rate is also very low and it can be used in various extreme environments.
Ranked second is the flintlock gun with a bolt mechanism designed by the institute. The firing rate is only 93% compared to the expected 95%. The failure rate is a little bit, but it is not counted. High, everything else is just average, nothing too eye-catching, nothing too bad.
Ranking third is the Suifa rifle, which is a simplified version of the first Suifa rifle. It has the lowest firing rate and the lowest failure rate...
In the end, after feedback from the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Ordnance, it was decided to choose the flintlock gun with a bolt mechanism independently developed by the Firearms Research Institute as the subsequent main rifle.
Although the performance of this thing is not the best, it is the best that can be achieved if it can be mass-produced.
After finalizing the detailed design, Luo Zhixue also officially gave this flintlock the name Chengshun 2-year-old flintlock gun, or 2-year-old rifle for short.
Giving formal orders to weapons and specifying them by year is a measure that was taken last year, but it has never been mandatory before.
In addition, soldiers and other people are accustomed to directly calling it a musket, and even the people continue to call it a blunderbuss.
This time Luo Zhixue directly gave the name through an imperial edict, which can be regarded as promoting the regularization of the names of weapons and equipment, instead of always calling them randomly.
The Ministry of Ordnance also sensed Luo Zhixue's intention to promote the formalization of weapons names, and soon issued an express document to all ministries, requiring that in official documents, weapons and equipment should be called by official numbers, and simple muskets, artillery, etc. were not allowed to be used as names. replace.
Also included is a copy of the latest weapons and equipment numbers.
The matchlocks that are widely equipped today are called Yuan Nian style rifles. Several other field guns and mortars also have year numbers, and they are basically Yuan Nian type.
After all, most of these guns were mass-produced and put into service last year.
In this way, there are official names such as "Yuan Nian style two and a half kilogram field cannon", "Yuan Nian style five kilogram field cannon", "Yu Nian style 18 kilogram mortar cannon", "Year 1 year style forty-eight kilogram mortar cannon".
Of course, even though the Ministry of Military and Political Affairs has done this, the soldiers below still don't say this in daily life. They basically just say it as two and a half kilograms of cannon, five kilograms of cannon, nine kilograms of cannon, eighteen kilograms of mortar cannon, etc.
However, the name of this 2-year-old rifle is very simple. In addition, in order to distinguish it from the first matchlock gun, when people call it, it is directly called the 2-year-old rifle, or the 2-year-old rifle.
The 2-year-old rifle uses a bolt action designed by the Wuchang Firearms Research Institute and has a complete iron blocker, safety, windproof and rainproof structure.
The design of the barrel and butt is slightly improved on the basis of the first-year matchlock gun. The caliber is 18 mm. The gun weighs 4.2 kg. The barrel is 1.2 meters long and the total length is 1.6 meters (two meters with spear). one).
In previous intensive live-fire tests, musketeers familiar with the rifle were able to fire at a rate of two to three rounds per minute.
Maximum range...well, that doesn't make sense.
The maximum effective range is 130 meters, but even then the hit rate will be very low. It is not recommended to shoot like this in actual combat.
After live ammunition tests at different distances, it was finally determined that the optimal effective range is sixty meters to one hundred meters. Within this range, the lethality can be ensured and the accuracy can also be guaranteed.
The optimal killing distance is thirty meters. At this distance, the accuracy can be improved to a very high level, and the power is also quite amazing.
At this distance, the bullet fired by this gun can penetrate about 120 millimeters of hardwood or about 10 millimeters of iron.
It may not be intuitive enough to say this. To put it simply: a heavy armored infantry wears a layer of chain mail on the inside, a layer of cloth armor in the middle, and a layer of fish scale armor on the outside. This kind of protection is already considered extreme protection on the battlefield. Many soldiers could no longer support themselves.
But facing the Chu army's muskets, he still couldn't withstand it... Every shot made a hole in it!
Well, not only are the current two-year-old flintlock guns so powerful, but the matchlock guns in the past were also so powerful. Otherwise, how did the Ming army come to comment that the Chu army's guns were sharp... That's how it came about.
In addition to performance, there are two data that Luo Zhixue is most concerned about, namely cost and production capacity.
And these two items are often closely related.
After detailed demonstration, the Ministry of Industry reported the production capacity and cost to Luo Zhixue.
