Opening game, American Tycoon

Chapter 1019 The Era of Automatic Guns ([-]rd update, please subscribe)
"beep……"

The sound of the train whistle is the most common sound in the railway station.

The dormitory for single workers at Jizhou Railway Station is near the locomotive depot. Although there is a distance from the station, you can still hear the roar of the train, especially its whistle.

The workers living in the dormitory have long been used to it. Near the dormitory, there are small sheds clinging to each other along the edge of the small courtyard.Since those sheds are bicycle sheds, they are also places for employees to store unnecessary furniture and sundries or do odd jobs.

Some workers will go outside to recruit some odd jobs. Most of those odd jobs are related to metal processing, and they are all trivial jobs. For the workers, this is extra income.

Xu Andong, who works as a lathe and miller in the locomotive depot, is still single, but he just opened a pretty good workshop in a small shed next to the dormitory.On one side of the wall is an authentic fitter's bench, with vises fastened to it, and a set of drawers below; circular grinder.Files, punches, hand saws, scrapers, and hammers are placed in dedicated recesses on the wall.All kinds of simple tools can be described as everything.

These tools include second-hand goods he bought from the locomotive depot, and some he bought in the market. The railway company does not object to employees taking up odd jobs in their spare time.
As usual, as soon as he got off work, Xu Andong got into his small shed.After taking out a bunch of parts from the cabinet, he fiddled with those parts as usual, and then studied the drawings.

Three years ago, after retiring from the army, Xu Andong entered the locomotive depot. Unlike other people doing odd jobs in a small shed to earn money, he has been engaged in his research - developing a new type of weapon!
He served in the army seven years ago. The day he became a machine gun, he was fascinated by that delicate mechanism. Like all machine gunners, he would break the six-year-old machine gun into pieces and then assemble it It, watching those parts being combined into a whole, he couldn't help but marvel at how exquisite the design of these weapons was.

He was stunned when he saw the machine gun constantly spouting flames while shooting.

Since then, while training as a machine gunner, he studied the weapon in his hand, its structure, and its principles. Even after graduating from a mechanical school, he drew some sketches by himself with reference to the six-year machine gun. In the sketch, there are both machine guns and rifles.

After retiring from the army, his ideas became stronger, and his idea came out of a whim—a new type of automatic gun.

"A lightweight automatic gun that can fire continuously, like the Six-year machine gun."

Anyone who has witnessed the barrage of machine gun fire will have some unique thoughts -- no soldier will reject the fire.

According to them, it is "I can't wait for the rifle to become a fire hose".

But how could a rifle become a weapon that fires continuously and automatically like a fire hose?
When chatting with his comrades, Xu Andong's thoughts were out of control.

Although the six-year machine gun is good, it is too heavy for one person to carry it.During the exercise, they need to carry heavy machine gun barrels, tripods, and water tanks. In short, it is tiring.

"An automatic gun should be as heavy as a rifle, or even lighter, because it fires faster and needs to fire more bullets."

In order to meet this point, Xu Andong directly gave up the rifle bullets and chose the pistol bullets,
At the same time, he gave up the ammunition belt and chose the magazine. He borrowed from the 10-round magazine of the Yuanshi rifle to design a 20-round magazine. Because the revolver bullet has a bottom edge, it is not suitable for use in the magazine. He even The rifle shells were also trimmed into short 23mm shells.

After the power of the bullet is reduced, the weight of the gun is naturally reduced.

But what is the core question?
Of course, it's still the structure of the gun.

In the past year, Xu Andong has been perfecting his structural design. After repeated attempts, he developed a new structure based on the semi-free action of the six-year machine gun.

"After the bullet is fired, under the impetus of the gunpowder gas, the bullet head migrates forward, the shell casing acts backward, the impact cylinder bolt moves backward, compresses the spring, and then re-enters..."

Holding the simple structure made by hand with a vise and a steel file, Xu Andong once again gestured at the principle of the gun body.

"Almost!"

he muttered to himself.

"In principle, there should be no problem. The weight of the bolt and the force of the return spring should be able to meet the basic needs..."

At this time, even Xu Andong himself didn't know that the automatic principle he had researched was the famous "free-style bolt action" in later generations.

Accompanied by the whistle of the Yanqi locomotive from the railway and the roar of the machine tools in the nearby shed, Xu Andong, sitting on a chair, assembled the parts together, which he made in his spare time.

"Dongzi, is this the automatic gun you mentioned?"

Li Jiawang, who was drinking tea in the shed next door, glanced at the strange looking guy in Xu Andong's hand.

It is not as long as a rifle, and it is not as short as a pistol. A thin barrel in front of the steel gun body is wrapped by a heat sink, and there is a wooden butt behind the steel gun body.

"Well, almost."

"Are you... reloading?"

Li Jiawang watched Xu Andong put the stubby bullets into the magazine.

"Are you going to test the gun?"

Holding the teacup to Xu Andong's side, Li Jiawang urged.

"Be careful when testing the gun, don't explode the chamber!"

"Master Li, don't worry, it won't explode..."

When he was talking, he packed the gun in his overalls and walked towards the nearby railway line. When the other workers saw this, most of them just made fun of him. No one thought he could succeed, and of course no one would say what.

Inventions... Everyone has their own ideas.

The branch line of the railway in the evening was quiet. Looking at the oil barrel ahead, Xu Andong took a deep breath and loaded the gun with a "wow". heavy.

Then he just stared at the waste oil drum in front of the wall, held his breath, and pulled the trigger.

Gunshots rang out suddenly.

"boom!"

The sound of gunfire was a bit dull!
It is completely different from the crisp gunshot of the first-year rifle.

Ring!

But Xu Andong was not excited, this was just the first shot.

He pulled the trigger again, and the gunshots rang out on the railroad again.

Different from ordinary gunshots, it was continuous and hasty gunshots, which made Xu Andong a little excited.

"Success..."

Before this thought came to his mind, the gunfire stopped abruptly again. Xu Andong pulled the trigger with some doubts, but the gun didn't go off.

"Probably the bullet case got stuck..."

Taking off the magazine and pulling the trigger back, Xu Andong saw that it was indeed good, there was a bullet casing stuck in the chamber.

I tried to pull it out with a screwdriver, but why did it get stuck?

There are various possibilities for this problem, but now is obviously not the time to deal with it.

Ok!

I'll talk about this later...

Pull the bolt again, pull the trigger, and the gunfire rang out again...

(End of this chapter)