Chapter 525： rifled gun

"Master Graman, what kind of weapons have you prepared?"

The head of the guard, Victor, asked very curiously.

"Haha, let me show you, this is the latest product of our military industry department."

Paul took a long-barreled musket from the horse and threw it to Victor proudly.

Victor took the gun and looked at it back and forth. He asked very puzzled: "It seems to be no different from the ones I usually come into contact with. Can you tell me the difference?"

Paul shook his fingers and said with a smile, "No difference? No, no, what distinguishes this gun from other guns is not the appearance, but the inside."

"in?"

"Inside the barrel, take a closer look."

"Really?" At Paul's suggestion, Victor held the musket upside down, put his eyes close to the muzzle of the gun, and with the help of the sunlight, he finally understood the mystery inside.

There are spiral lines on the inner wall of the barrel, and if you look closely, those lines are actually grooves engraved on the inner wall of the barrel.

He asked: "Master Graham, are these spiral grooves what you call different?"

Paul nodded, "Yes, to be precise, those grooves are called rifling—or in other words, the convex part is the positive line, and the concave part is the negative line. So this gun should be called a rifled gun, and the previous ones For muskets, whether they are early matchlock guns or later flintlock guns, the inner walls of their barrels are smooth, so they should be called muskets.”

"Shotgun? Rifled gun? How aptly named you are."

Victor exclaimed. "It's just that just adding a few rounds of rifling, what effect can it have? What advantages does it have over the so-called smoothbore guns before?"

"The advantage is huge."

Paul said happily, "When the gunpowder burns, it will squeeze the bullet and deform it and embed it in the rifling, and then the spiral rifling can force the bullet to rotate in the barrel, and keep this posture to shoot out of the barrel, spinning and flying all the way to the Target. According to the tests of the craftsmen, when the bullet moves in such a rotating posture, the trajectory—that is, its trajectory in the air—is more stable than the bullet fired by the smoothbore gun, flies farther, and is easier to hit the target. Oh , Victor, I suppose you know how bad a shotgun is at 100 yards?"

"Well, is it bad? I don't think so."

Hearing Paul complain about the musket like this, Victor touched his head inexplicably.

Paul was speechless for a while, and then he remembered that Victor and the others didn’t know rifled guns before, and their comparison was with bows and arrows used earlier, and the hit rate of ordinary bows and arrows was worse than that of muskets—after all, Paul first The structure of the drawn musket is already a relatively mature design. He can't draw a primitive musket that is inferior to bows and arrows, and leave it to the craftsmen for them to slowly improve, right?

"Ahem! In short, the rifled gun in your hand can maintain a high hit rate at 200 yards. If the weather is good, it can be used at a distance of 300 yards. If you change to a smoothbore gun, it can hit at 200 yards. The enemy is simply a manifestation of the Father."

In fact, with a rifled gun, sniper operations can be carried out on the battlefield. During the American War of Independence, the old American could accurately blow the head of a British commander 200 yards away with a Kentucky rifle that was pulled out with a simple tool. During the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, American rifleman Murphy even killed the British commander Simon Fraser at a distance of 300 yards with a rifled gun, so that the chaotic British army had to surrender.

"so smart?"

Victor touched the musket in his hand up and down in disbelief, as if there was some incredible magical power on it.

Even Radi Setia, who hadn't said a word since setting off, couldn't hold back his curiosity and stared at the rifled gun.

"Lord Graman, if our Arda army is equipped with this type of rifled gun, wouldn't it be invincible all over the world?"

Victor was very excited, and the scene of Arda's army beating the enemy with rifled guns appeared in his mind-the soldiers on the opposite side fell to the ground row after row before they could see what the soldiers on their side looked like.

"It's not that simple." Paul poured cold water on him. "Putting rifling is a troublesome job—at least it is like this now. The craftsmen took great pains to pull out the rifling of this gun. As soon as they used the rifle, I grabbed it and went to the hunting ground to have a good time before they warmed it up."

"Besides, rifled guns are more troublesome to operate than smoothbore guns. Although this thing is very accurate, it is very slow to load bullets. The bullets of smoothbore guns are slightly smaller than the barrel, so it is easy to insert them from the front. But rifled guns can't do it. Its projectile must be slightly larger than the diameter of the positive line of the rifling, and then the projectile must be squeezed in, and it takes a lot of effort to load, so the loading efficiency can be imagined.”

Hearing Paul's introduction, Victor looked at the musket in his hand with some regret, and said with emotion: "It's true that there are gains and losses."

"But I believe that sooner or later there will be a day of large-scale equipment."

Paul said confidently, "Rifling will eventually be replaced by machines. As for loading bullets, what do you think about loading them from the back of the barrel?"

"Load from the back?" Paul's whimsy surprised Victor, and then suddenly realized, "Yes, to load from the muzzle, you have to poke it into the innermost part with a pole, can't you just load it from the back of the barrel? Oh, my lord Greyman, your great wisdom makes me feel very small as always."

Victor's flattery didn't make Paul blush, he was used to it.

"Haha, it's also not that simple. If you load from the rear, the rear of the barrel must be open, and the gas after the gunpowder burns will leak out from the gap to push the projectile forward There will be much less gas, and the bullet will not go far.”

In addition to air leakage, it seems that there must be a flash cap, and there is still a long way to go.

"Master Graham, your thoughtfulness once again makes me feel ashamed."

Victor's second flattery was delivered in time, and then he spoke with some hesitation.

"Master Graham, when you arrive at the Ferguson Cavalier's hunting grounds, you can see if...can you... also let me test this so-called rifled gun for you."

Paul waved his hand, and said very generously: "Of course, who are you? My captain of the guards, since I have opened my mouth, how can I have a reason not to use it from you?"

Victor was very happy and thanked him repeatedly.

Paul took the rifle back from Victor and rehung it to the horse.

He couldn't help thinking about it in his heart, and such a picture appeared in his mind - using this gun to hit a single target in the hunting ground, and everyone cheered.