At the shooting range at the gate of the gun factory, Wang Xinyu couldn't help but stop, because as the officer said just now, the larger-caliber army rifled gun was pulled out and tested on the shooting range!

Why did Wang Xinyu stop when he saw this cannon? Because this cannon is different from any previous gun, this is the latest gun of this era, it is a breech-loading rifled gun! Although in appearance, this is still a rack of guns, not a more advanced tube guns, but after all, it is a real breech-loading rifled gun. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

"This is a six-pounder breech-loading rifled gun." A worker in charge of the test said, "The total weight of the artillery is 2,800 catties, and theoretically it can shoot shells ten miles away, and the accuracy is very high within five miles." It's just that the bolt is not very tight, and there is still a certain air leakage. ”

Wang Xinyu stood behind this cannon, this cannon was the same as the cannon back then, it still had no shield, in fact, it didn't need a shield at all, and no musket could threaten the safety of the gunner with such a long range.

The structure of this gun is still relatively simple, it is a barrel that is thinner in the front and gradually thicker in the back, but there is a wedge bolt that can be opened at the rear of the barrel. Looking at the shells placed on the ground, they are long cylindrical shells, the head of the shell is a fuse with a hood, and the propellant is packed in a wooden box on the side of the shell, which is a fixed medicine bag.

"Try the cannon and see." Wang Xinyu said.

A worker first twisted a lever at the end of the gun to unlock the bolt, then pulled the grip on the tail of the gun and pulled it hard, and the door split was pulled open from the side, revealing the tail breech. Then the worker stuffed the shell into the gun chamber, then picked up a fixed charge pack, stuffed the lei tube into the hole at the end of the pill bag, and then connected the bottom lei mercury dii fire to the thunder guan, and then stuffed the fixed charge charge bag into the gun chamber, pushed the grip, closed the door split, turned the lever, and locked the gun latch.

"This completes the loading, as long as you pull the rope, there is a firing pin in the barrel that will hit the bottom huo, trigger the lei tube, and then ignite the propellant pack, and the shell will be fired." The worker said.

Wang Xinyu nodded: "Aim at the target and try to shoot a shot!" ”

The worker adjusted the muzzle and direction of the gun, and then a worker walked behind the gun and pulled the rope from a distance.

The "boom" artillery let out a deafening roar, the cannon bounced violently, the entire gun carriage withdrew, and a faint white smoke rose from the tail of the gun. At the same time, orange flames erupted from the muzzle of the gun, followed by white smoke rising from the muzzle.

The cannonball flew out with a piercing whistling sound and landed on the ground near the target, only to hear a loud bang, a fireball rising from the target, and then a puff of white smoke gradually dispersed.

Seeing the white smoke from the explosion of the shell, Wang Xinyu understood that this shell was not filled with new explosives, but ordinary black gunpowder. After all, it is a test shell, and the sulfur acid plant has not yet been completed, and the production of new explosives is completely manual production, which is extremely inefficient and very expensive, so the shells are still filled with black fire.

Since the propellant is still made of black Huo, not nitrate fiber gunpowder, and the powder bag is not made of xiaohua cotton that can be burned by itself, the residue left in the gun chamber after the launch is still very serious, and the gun chamber needs to be cleaned every time it is fired, which also affects the loading speed.

The target was three miles away, and the error of the first shell did not exceed one meter, which shows that the accuracy of this gun is very high. It's just that the fly in the ointment is that the bolt leaks more seriously.

To completely solve the problem of air leakage in the bolt, unless the screw bolt is used, or a closed air ring is added to the wedge bolt, the leakage problem can be solved.

The structure of the screw bolt is quite complex, and it is difficult to manufacture it with current technology. For closed air rings, rubber is needed. Although Eucommia ulmoides glue can be used to produce hot air balloons, it is easy to be damaged if it is used as a closed air ring and has poor reliability, so it can only wait until the rubber comes out.

Although this is still a very immature breeched gun, after all, it is the first breeched rifled gun, and the successful creation of this gun is a great progress.

Of course, there are many disadvantages of this cannon, the biggest disadvantage is that the cost is too high, the construction period is long, it cannot be mass-produced, and the price of the shell is very expensive, just the price of a fuse, it costs 150 taels of silver.

The fuse is not a simple thing, in addition to the use of expensive mines, but also to prevent the sound barrier formed by the flight of the shell beyond the speed of sound, the air in front of the shell is a very hard object relative to the shell, and the fuse will be detonated in advance when the cannon is discharged, or even before the discharge. In order to prevent this phenomenon, a hood is added in front of the fuse to prevent the fuse from being triggered in advance.

Previously, on the Singapore battery, as well as on the hexagonal gun fast battleship, flowering shells with fuses were used, although the price of the shells was expensive, but the weight of a shell was extremely large, dozens of pounds to more than a hundred pounds, and the power of the shells was also great, as long as two to three shells hit, a cruiser could sink to the bottom of the sea, so the fuse was more expensive and worth it.

But this kind of shell, which weighs only six pounds, is not worth it to install such an expensive fuse for army artillery shells.

In order to reduce the cost of the fuze, in addition to the industrial production of the fuze, the sulfur acid plant must be completed as soon as possible, and after entering the industrial assembly line to produce sulfur acid and nitric acid, the cost of the shell fuse will be greatly reduced.

"The cost of this shell is too high, and I don't know how the sulfur [acid plant] is progressing?" Wang Xinyu asked.

A technician on the side replied: "We are already starting to make molds for lead containers, and as long as the molds are made, we can start casting lead containers." ”

The lead chamber of the sulfur acid plant is also a high-tech thing, which needs to be used to manufacture lead reaction towers, lead pipes, condensing equipment, etc., all of which are made of lead, and there is no way to use the welding method, it must be cast at one time, and the manufacturing of a complete set of lead equipment requires technical force to support.

Therefore, Wang Xinyu set up the sulfur acid plant on the edge of the reservoir, which is to use water conservancy equipment to build a lead room.

"This cannon is very expensive, can you build two in two months?" Wang Xinyu asked Chen Shuijie, who had just walked out of the factory to greet him.

"Dashuai, it's no problem to build two doors in two months, we can rush to work, but the problem of air leakage in the gun bolt cannot be solved for the time being." Chen Shuijie replied.

"That's fine, just leak a little! Just pay attention to the same as operating a Franc machine. Wang Xinyu replied. The Franc cannon leaked so much that the gunner had to be careful not to be sprayed with gas when firing. (To be continued.) )