Cutting 1719

Chapter 35 Thunderbolt Flintlock
When Ning Yu came to the Artillery Workshop again, the number of craftsmen inside had increased many times, and now there are about 80 people, a scene in full swing.

When Lei Tuozi saw Ning Yu, he took out a long shotgun from the house with an excited expression on his face, but this shotgun was quite different from the usual ones, the long barrel was integrated into one body, and the whole was shining black.

"Master, we have made the flintlock gun you mentioned, come and see it." Lei Tuozi said excitedly.

Ning Yu took over the flintlock gun. Although his hands were steady, the excitement in his heart was uncontrollable. At the beginning of the 18th century, with this flintlock gun and Napoleon cannon, he was not afraid of anyone.

This flintlock gun is actually a replica proposed by Ning Yu based on the Brown Beth flintlock gun from his previous life. Although it is not as good as the original version, it is already incredible in today's China.

The entire length of the gun is four feet five, and a three-edged bayonet can be added to the front. The total length can reach four feet eight, which is about [-] meters in later generations.

Lei Tuozi excitedly said: "Young Master, this gun can hit a distance of two hundred paces. It is much more useful than those shotguns that are always in your hands."

Ning Yu weighed it in his hand, it wasn't very light but it didn't take much effort, especially since it canceled the matchlock and used flint friction as the ignition device.

Many people mistakenly think that flintlocks are very popular in the west, but they are silent in the east. In fact, flintlock guns appeared in the late Ming Dynasty, but they were not promoted and popularized in time.

As early as the eighth year of Chongzhen, Bi Maokang, a weapon expert at that time, wrote a book called "Illustration of Military Weapons", which recorded a kind of "self-generated firecracker", which was also a relatively primitive percussion-type flintlock gun. Pull the trigger , the faucet is pressed down, and the energy storage effect of the spring causes the flint to rub against the fire door to start a fire, completing the firing of the firecracker.

It's just that the early flintlock device was not stable enough, so it was abandoned later, and still relied on matchlock to launch, but now Ning Yu will naturally not continue to follow the path of matchlock gun, but directly replaced it with flintlock gun.

Ning Yu looked at the musket in his hand happily, and said, "How much silver does this flintlock gun cost now? How many days will it take to make it?"

Speaking of this, Lei Tuozi sighed and said: "It's easy to talk about everything else, the bolt part is not too complicated to make, but the barrel is the only thing that makes people helpless."

Of course, Ning Yu knows that for a gun, whether it can shoot accurately or not is often determined by the manufacturing process of the barrel. The barrel must be very straight and smooth to keep the ballistic trajectory from deviation. The barrel material has a unified name - seamless steel pipe.All in all, in this era, seamless steel pipes are simply artifacts.

"When making shotguns, the iron sheet was rolled on the pillar to form a long pipe, and then the two sides were welded together, and then the iron pipe was burned in the furnace until it turned white, and a steel core was also prepared. The thickness is the same as above, and the length should be longer than the length of the gun. Then put the iron pipe that has been burned until it is bright red on the steel core, and smash the joint of the iron pipe vigorously into one piece."

"When welding later, we need to sprinkle cupronickel powder, and when the steel core cools down, we need to return the iron pipe to the furnace to heat it, so that it can be used as a gun barrel."

Lei Tuozi introduced his past experience little by little, with a helpless expression on his face: "But in this way, most of the cost of making a shotgun is in the barrel, and a shotgun can cost three, two or four dollars in silver. My wages are just this flintlock gun, which costs five taels of silver per shot."

Ning Yu gasped, the price is really expensive.

You must know that shotguns these days are not durable goods, and ordinary shotguns can be used for two years, which is not bad.

If you want to reduce the cost, you need to solve the cost of the barrel.

But as far as Ning Yu knows, the problem of gun barrel manufacturing is almost unsolvable in this era. It was not until the second half of the 19th century, when new steelmaking methods and new special alloy steel knives came out, that the production cost of gun barrels began to be reduced. and time is greatly reduced.

Because if you want to make a barrel, you have to go the old way of forging.Therefore, Ning Yu had no choice but to let Lei Tuozi accumulate a little bit. When the ironmaking technology develops to a higher level, he can consider using a hydraulic forging hammer to make it, and the speed will be much faster.

Although the Ning family has a potential crisis at present, it is not very urgent. Whether it is flintlock guns or artillery, they can be slowly prepared and stored.

But looking at the messy workshop, Ning Yu still had some headaches, and said: "This method is too messy, and it is also very inefficient."

Lei Tuozi was very surprised, and said: "My Paofang is not messy, everything is neatly placed. I, Lei Tuozi, are a bit sloppy, but my Paofang is my heart, and it is cleaned every day. , besides, it doesn’t affect the cannon making.”

Ning Yu said helplessly: "I'm not talking about the chaos of things, but the chaos of people. Take a look, everyone makes a gun alone. Isn't this slow? You divide all the registered craftsmen into different groups. For example, those who make bolts will make bolts, and those who make barrels will specialize in barrels, and then assemble them for special assembly, and then set up a quality inspector. , this income is linked to one's own craftsmanship, and the more you do, the more you will get."

Lei Tuozi stared at Ning Yu dumbfounded: "Why do you have such a brain? This is too clever, but it is a good way. I will start to implement it in the past few days. If it is as useful as you said, then It is not a big problem to make a hundred flintlock guns in a month."

Although Ning Yu is not very satisfied with one hundred flintlock guns, it is enough for now, and he can only slowly expand the production scale to increase production.After all, the productivity of this era is only so great. If we want to improve efficiency, we need to cross too many technical thresholds.

After the gun matter was over, Ning Yu explained the concept of the Napoleon cannon and some technical details to Lei Tuozi.In fact, in this era, the technical content of Napoleon guns is not so high. Compared with guns, the development of guns tends to be faster.

However, the historical Napoleon guns were made of bronze instead of iron, so they were extremely strong and could withstand the explosive force of heavy charges or double charges without breaking.But for Ning Yu, the cost of the bronze material is really unbearable, so it can only be made of refined iron, which is relatively poor in performance and has a much shorter lifespan.

After listening to Ning Yu's introduction, Lei Tuozi's eyes were shining, but he looked at Ning Yu as if he was looking at a monster, but he thought of one thing, and then said: "This gun is made, and it's still a monster. Please give me a name, sir."

Ning Yu said with a smile, "Since it was made by your thunder hunchback, then this gun should be called a thunder-type flintlock gun."

(End of this chapter)