1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 502 Chapter [-]: Machine Gun

Liang Yao personally played with the Lava Stone Lever Rifle improved by the Lava Stone Repeating Weapons Company.

Although it is just an improvement, the performance and reliability of the sample gun provided to him by Konecranes a few months ago have undergone radical changes.

What caused this change was not the structure of the firearm itself, but the bullet.

With breakthroughs in the fields of precision machining, gunpowder manufacturing, ballistics, metallurgy, and chemical engineering, California already has the theoretical and industrial foundations for the revolutionary ammunition that is the light-up center-fire bomb.

With a little prompting, it is no longer a fantasy to create a mid-range bomb.

The technical talents in California did not disappoint Liang Yao either.

Liang Yao was holding the middle round in his hand. This bullet was so small that a child could easily pick it up and play with it.

But it is such a gadget that will become the most murderous ammunition in human history in the future.

Until the 21st century, the light weapons used by humans are still the ammunition invented in the 19th century.

In the subsequent history of more than 100 years, human beings have only improved the manufacturing process and materials of this bullet, but the basic structure has not changed substantially.

Liang Yao stuffed the bullets in his hand into the barrel of the volcanic stone lever rifle one by one, and did not raise the gun to shoot until seven bullets were filled.

The shooting process was very silky smooth and there were no mechanical failures.

Liang Yao was very happy after lighting up the 7 bullets in the built-in bomb bay. At the beginning, he spent 185000 US dollars to invest in the Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company, and the money was not in vain.

Just the research results of medium-shot bombs, which subverted the entire pattern of light weapons, cannot be measured by how many dollars.

"Under the premise of ensuring reliability, the military is willing to purchase this weapon at a unit price of 50 dollars," Liang Yao said.

Although the Sacramento Armory and the Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company are in competition, Sutter's evaluation of this weapon is still very pertinent.

The two fatal shortcomings of not being able to shoot in a prone position and the high unit price are destined to make this weapon impossible to become the mainstream individual weapon of the army infantry.

Only cheap and reliable firearms can become the standard light weapons of the army's top soldiers.

One of the most critical one is cheap.

The reason why the Springfield m1842 rifle, which has outdated its performance, is still the light weapon with the highest equipment rate of the US infantry until now is not because this gun is cheap.

Although the lever gun of later generations was a successful weapon, and the elite troops equipped with this gun also performed brilliantly in the civil war, this complex gun has not been very popular with the military.Instead, it shined in the civilian market, becoming the standard weapon of the western pioneers and cowboys, and becoming a symbol of the times.

Konecranes did not dare to agree to this request rashly. After the production line is completed and the output increases, the unit price may be reduced to 60 US dollars, but he is really not sure about reducing the unit price to 50 US dollars.

"As long as the general provides us with an order, we can provide the military with a purchase price of 50 dollars."

Winchester, the president of Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company, stood up and said.

"The materials used for these sample guns are very solid, and there is some excess. If they are mass-produced, there is still a lot of room for cost compression under the premise of ensuring reliability."

Hearing that Winchester wanted to reduce the purchase price of the volcanic stone lever rifle to the military to 50 dollars apiece, Connie became anxious. He hurriedly pulled Winchester aside, and said in a low voice: "Wen Chester, are you crazy? According to this purchase price, we will lose money! Others don’t know the production cost of this gun, don’t you? How can you talk nonsense with your eyes open?”

Winchester was not in a hurry, and said confidently: "Chairman, of course I know all this. Didn't Mr. Sutter say that? This gun can be used as a toy for them."

"What does this have to do with the $50 purchase price you promised General Liang?" Kony asked puzzled.

"Of course it does matter. There are many wealthy people in California and many immigrants. They need weapons that are more powerful than pistols and have a longer range. At the same time, they need weapons that are lighter than rifles and are easy to carry for self-defense and hunting.

Although the market prospect of our weapon in the military is very limited, our prospect in the civilian market is immeasurable.

If you think about it again, what is the biggest gap between us and the Sacramento Arsenal? said Winchester.

"The gap between the Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company and the Sacramento Armory is huge. They can still make guns. Do we have the strength?" Kony couldn't help but give Winchester a white look.

"Fame!" said Winchester very seriously.

"We may not make money from orders from the military, or even lose a little money, but we can gain fame. Purchase orders from the military are our best advertisements. The purchase price for the military is low, but we can increase The selling price in the civilian market makes up for the loss of military orders."

"That makes sense."

Kony soon understood, he walked up to Liang Yao again, and promised Liang Yao.

"General, the Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company can provide the military with a purchase price of US$50. I wonder how much the general will place an order for?"

"Place 1500 first." Liang Yao thought for a while and said.

He intends to purchase 1500 to equip the cavalry regiment and his guard company.

At the beginning of the year, Liang Yao had purchased 120 volcanic stone lever rifles for trial use by the cavalry battalion.

The soldiers of the cavalry battalion who have used it before have mixed reviews on this gun, and they love it and hate it.

He likes his cavalry because the gun has better range and power than the Colt revolver. The reason he hates it is that the failure rate of the volcanic stone lever gun that uses side needle bullets is too high.

Now that these problems have been resolved, Liang Yao can purchase this weapon as the standard weapon of the cavalry regiment instead of just trying it out in a small area.

For the first time, the Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company received a large-scale order from the military, which annoyed Sartre, the director of the Sacramento Armory.

Sacramento Armory had been monopolizing the arms orders of the Western Brigade before, and the birth of the Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company gave Sutter a sense of crisis.

Liang Yao has another attitude. Firstly, he is the major shareholder of Sacramento Armory and the major shareholder of Volcanic Stone Burst Weapons Company.The second reason is that he likes that there are more arms companies in California competing with each other to develop better and cheaper weapons.

Spring is not a single flower, but spring is when a hundred flowers bloom together.

"The gunsmiths from the Sacramento Armory and Volcanic Repeating Weapons Company are called to Sacramento to attend a meeting. The military wants a new type of weapon and would like to invite your two companies to participate in the bidding.

Both of your companies are the pride of the military community in California. I hope you can come up with products that satisfy the military. "

In Liang Yao's hand, he was holding a medium-range bullet made by the Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company. This kind of bullet with a copper casing and lead core filled with black powder, although this bullet has just come out, has the advantages of simple structure and easy manufacture.

The price of this kind of bullet is only 6 cents a piece, which is cheaper than the side needle bullet used by the Walter M1851 rifle currently in service in the Western Brigade.

In the western brigade, due to the expensive bullets, the cost of guns is not the big one, but the consumption of ammunition is the big one.

What's more, medium-range ammunition is not only cheaper, but also has a simpler structure and is more reliable. It is convenient for soldiers to carry and can also reduce the pressure on logistics.

Any one of the above is enough to be a reason for the center round to replace the side needle.

Of course, the most important reason is that the emergence of medium-shot ammunition made it possible to develop real continuous-fire weapons, that is, machine guns.

The appearance of medium-shot ammunition can be said to provide an important technical basis for the invention of machine guns.

Compared with the primer located on the edge of the bullet, the primer is raised like a condyloma acuminata on the penis, and the primer of the medium round is located in the center of the shell, which can automatically complete the ignition of the primer and gunpowder.This structure makes the rate of fire and stability of the medium rounds relatively high, which can better meet the needs of continuous shooting.

In the middle of the 19th century, precision machining was quite developed, and it had the ability to manufacture automatic weapons. The reason for the lack of automatic weapons was not the mechanical processing itself, but the relatively backward chemical industry that had just started. To put it bluntly, the bullets were too backward. Unable to meet the needs of automatic weapons.

The first human machine gun in history was invented by American Richard Gatling in 1861.This machine gun uses a hand-cranked rotary drum to feed ammunition and can shoot continuously, reaching a rate of fire of 200-400 rounds per minute.

However, at this time the medium round was not yet available, and the earliest Gatling machine guns still used the .

Therefore, there were endless Gatling problems in the early days. It was not until the advent of the medium-range bomb that the reliability problem of the Gatling machine gun was solved, and the Gatling machine gun was able to shine and become one of the most efficient killing machines in human history.

In addition to burst weapons, Liang Yao also wanted to equip the western brigade with medium-fire rifles as individual weapons in the future.

Perhaps with California's current industrial capabilities, it is impossible to develop a Lebel 1886 rifle that uses smokeless gunpowder ammunition, can shoot bullets that can reach supersonic speed, and a bolt-action rifle with a magazine capacity that can reach 5 rounds.

However, the German Mauser 1871 rifle and the British Martini-Henry rifle, which entered service in 1871 and use medium-shot ammunition for single-shot loading rifles, can still be developed with the current industrial capabilities of California.

After all, California has now taken the lead in developing medium-range ammunition, and is at the forefront of the times.

Gunsmiths from the Sacramento Armory and Lava Stone Repeating Weapons gathered for a meeting at the Sacramento Armory.

In addition, Liang Yao also specially invited Walter and Nobile, the inventors of the medium-fired ammunition, to participate in this meeting to discuss the possibility of developing new rifles and machine guns using the medium-fired ammunition.

After all the top technicians in the California arms industry arrived, Liang Yao first gave everyone a medium-range ammunition made by the Volcanic Stone Repeating Weapons Company, and took them to the shooting range to watch the test firing of the Volcanic Stone Lever Rifle.

(End of this chapter)