Opening game, American Tycoon

Chapter 129 Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (Second update, please subscribe)
Facts have proved that for men, the body is strong enough, and there is no need to eat leeks to replenish the body.

However, as far as the country is concerned, leeks can still be harvested whenever they can.

Of course, harvesting more leeks is also good for the country!
Why is the United States so strong that the whole world is cutting leeks!
Facts have proved that the way to strengthen the country... cutting Philippine vegetables is the kingly way.

And when one's own skills are not good, it is even more necessary to cut leeks. Of course, some leeks are more stubborn, especially Western leeks, and they may not be willing to be cut.But even so, you have to find a way to cut it.

For example, a "leek" like Storm, even if he knows that that guy is not a good leek, and he looks down on Chinese people in his bones, he can't kick him out. After all, there are too few butchers in Nanhua. If Butcher Zhang is gone, although he won't be able to eat hairy pigs, it will definitely affect Nanhua's technological development.

Sooner or later, all those bastards will be kicked out!

But before that, he has to squeeze out his value!Only in this way can I be sorry that he is not.

However, not all Westerners are bastards. There are always a few good guys. Smith, the chief engineer of the ammunition factory, is a good guy.He was the engineer sent by the manufacturer when Buffett ordered ammunition production equipment from the United States to guide the installation and production of the equipment and train the workers. In this era, when all factories receive orders, they will have similar door-to-door training services.

Among the ammunition production equipment, there are two sets of equipment for producing edge-fired ammunition. This set of equipment includes nearly [-] machines such as rolling machines, extrusion machines, and necking machines. However, these equipment are not suitable for producing new-style center-fired ammunition bullet.

After learning about Zhu Xianhai's design, Smith immediately led his fellow engineers and technicians to renovate one set of equipment, and added a variety of equipment including the primer machine. It took nearly half a year to work in Smith's company. With hard work, Nanhua Arsenal finally produced the world's first batch of center-fired bullets.

"That's it!"

Looking at the thumb-thick bottle with a narrowed bullet in his hand, Zhu Xianhai seemed a little excited.

"With it, we can definitely conquer this grassland."

However, before he got over the excitement, the new bullet was discontinued when it was still in trial production.

The reason why the production was discontinued was not because of the poor performance of the bullets,

In fact, this new type of .56.45 caliber bullet blinded everyone with its excellent performance as soon as it was tested. The 14.22 mm thick and 32 mm long bottleneck shell is enough to hold 2 grams of propellant, although it is not as good as a rifle. But it can make the 15mm caliber bullet weighing 11.43 grams reach the muzzle velocity of 320 meters, and the effective range of the human target is close to 500 meters, which is almost not inferior to the P1853 rifle.

With this kind of ammunition, paired with Spencer rifles, they are definitely weapons that sweep the ages!
The only problem is - the brass is too hard.

Taking out a few new bullets with copper casings, Smith, an engineer at the arsenal, made another suggestion.

"In order to ensure smooth production, my suggestion is still the same as before. We should use copper shells at present. There is no other choice!"

As an engineer, Smith is undoubtedly very responsible, directly pointing out the root cause affecting production.

"Purple copper is too soft, and it is easy to overheat and jam easily. Brass must be used for the cartridge case."

Whether it was dealing with gaucho cavalry or expeditions to Araucania, the rifles had jammed many times due to the overheating of copper cartridges, so Zhu Xianhai insisted on using brass cartridges.

"But sir, when the extruder extrudes the extended brass shell, the steel mold is easily damaged and the accuracy deteriorates. At present, a set of molds can only be used 200 to 300 times, while copper can be used thousands of times. According to the production rate of [-] rounds a day, dozens of molds need to be changed every day.”

Smith's explanation made Zhu Xianhai think for a while, and then he said.

"Since it's a mold problem, find a way to solve it."

It was only when the words were on the verge of his mouth that Zhu Xianhai realized that the knife steel of this era seemed to be ordinary carbon steel, and the mold of the extrusion machine was also made of it, and its performance was slightly better than the steel bars used to build houses.

Well, let's find a way to solve the problem of tool steel first!
Industry is a system engineering.

Jumping development is simply unrealistic.

Not only did workers require training, but even the humblest tool steels limited not only the capabilities of machines but also certain new inventions.

Fortunately, the crucibles for steelmaking are ready-made—machine factories these days often use graphite crucibles to make high-hardness carbon steel for the production of knives, which is convenient for Zhu Xianhai to trial-produce new tool steels.

He chose to trial-produce the most "primitive" high-speed steel, a tool steel with high hardness, high wear resistance and high heat resistance, which was not invented by Americans until 1898. It is also called front steel, commonly known as white steel. steel.Its formula and manufacturing process are very simple.

It was only when he was testing high-speed steel that Zhu Xianhai realized that steel in this era was expensive—up to $167 per ton, and the cost of transporting steel to Nanhua would increase by a few dollars per ton.It is because the "crucible steelmaking method" adopted not only takes a lot of time, but also consumes a lot of raw materials.

"If you build a steel factory and use open hearth furnaces to make steel, wouldn't you make a lot of money!"

Zhu Xianhai's eyes could not help but light up.

"The converter steelmaking method should have been invented by now! However, it seems to have some technical problems..."

Although the converter steelmaking method invented by Bessemer has been put into use as early as 1855, it can only use high-quality low-phosphorus iron as raw material because it cannot be dephosphorized and desulfurized, and the nitrogen in the air has a great influence on the performance of molten steel. The impact is great, which limits the types and applications of converter steelmaking.This is why the open-hearth steelmaking method later became the mainstream steelmaking process.

"Siemens open hearth furnace... It seems that this meeting is only used to melt furnace glass. Well, Nanhua seems to have a glass factory... I just don't know if the glass factory uses Siemens open heart furnace."

The beginning of the industry is sometimes more difficult than imagined, and sometimes it is very simple, just like the Siemens open hearth furnace—that is, a high-temperature flame furnace with a regenerator. It took nearly ten years to melt glass before someone used the Siemens open hearth furnace. steelmaking.

In fact, many times, technological development is always like this. When some new technologies are just invented, it will take a long time to be carried forward in another aspect. Before that, they were only partially applied in some aspects, or even It is possible to get lost in history, only to be re-"salvaged" from old technology many years later.

(End of this chapter)