Chapter Forty-Three: Reloading Bullets

  From the beginning of uploading this book, there has been no end to the discussion about reloading bullets. Now, finally uploading this chapter, to be honest, Fifteen is really nervous. Limited by the lack of knowledge in this aspect, if everyone sees any bugs, please point them out, and Fifteen will make corrections with discretion, feeling extremely grateful.

  Di Lie was sitting under the shade of a tree, holding a sniper rifle, with his thumb and index finger pinching a bullet head, against the sunlight filtering through the gaps between the branches, narrowing his eyes to examine it carefully.

  This is not the bullet head he disassembled from the original cartridge, nor is it the bullet head that he fired and then retrieved for reuse - let alone a considerable number of bullet heads that can't be picked up at all, even if some can be picked up, most are severely deformed, except for being remelted, there is no other use.

  This raises a very mind-boggling question, coming to this time and space, he only has fifty-five rounds of ammunition (including standard bullets and incendiary armor-piercing bullets), so far, twelve rounds have been used, leaving forty-three rounds. When all the bullets are gone, will this world's most lethal weapon become scrap iron?

  Of course not!

  Di Lie's professional instincts told him that there was at least one more chance to revive his sniper rifle, and that was - reloading the bullet.

  In another time and space, during the Anti-Japanese War period, the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army had a peculiar regulation in their logistics equipment department due to the extreme scarcity of ammunition: exchanging bullet casings for bullets. In other words, every time a shot was fired, the casing had to be retrieved and then exchanged for new bullets (wow! Is this not the earliest form of "exchanging old for new"?). The retrieved casings were precisely what the ordnance factories used to reload bullets, which were then reused.

  In modern times, in some countries where it is legal to own guns, some gun owners also reload their own ammunition using spent cartridge cases to save on the cost of bullets. Of course, this is a far cry from the desperate measures taken during wartime.

  The process of reloading ammunition is not complicated and can even be done by hand, which involves collecting spent cartridge cases, recharging them with propellant, fitting a new primer and adding a projectile.

  For this process, Di Lie theoretically knew it, but had no actual operation. It was also because he had such an idea in his mind that since the first shot was fired in this space-time, Di Lie had been subconsciously picking up the shell casings. Currently, he already has about ten standard shell casings on hand, which means he can reload ten bullets and reuse them repeatedly until the shell casings are completely scrapped or the stored gunpowder is exhausted.

  The four things needed to reload a bullet: cartridge case, propellant, primer, and projectile.

  The cartridge case has been recovered and solved, and the propellant must be smokeless powder. If black powder is used, not to mention that the residue of the medicine will greatly damage the service life of the sniper rifle, the power is also a world of difference - more than ten grams of black powder can produce how much impact? It's possible that a sniper rifle shoots out bullets, but it's equivalent to the distance fired by a handgun.

  Fortunately, Di Lie had a large quantity of smokeless gunpowder on hand - the same culprit that had unexpectedly dropped him into the sea, two packages of explosives weighing a total of six kilograms. All were smokeless powder, although it was unclear whether they met the standard for rifle cartridges, but they were indeed the shiny black smokeless powder - this was evident. In modern society, even pirates with very simple weapon equipment would not use black powder to make explosives. Of course, TNT or C4 would be best, but Somali pirates... it was already good enough that they could get smokeless gunpowder to make their own explosive packages, and anything more advanced was out of the question.

  Fortunately, it's smokeless gunpowder that is used; if it were TNT, this sniper rifle would really only be able to use black powder to shoot birds.

  The standard cartridge of the Barrett M82A1 anti-materiel rifle has a propellant charge of about 15 grams. Six kilograms of double-base smokeless powder can make nearly four hundred cartridges.

  Four hundred rounds of ammunition, for a machine gunner, is enough to last about half a minute. But for a sniper, perhaps in his entire lifetime, he may not fire that many rounds in actual combat.

  Next is the primer. The vast majority of US military firearms use Boxer primers, which have a single hole in the center at the bottom. To reload, simply remove the old primer and install a new one (integral).

  Of course, in the case of pure manual operation, how to perfectly remove the bottom fire from the shell also made Di Lie think for a while. The final method was to heat the tail of the shell to red hot and then put it into cold water for rapid cooling, using the principle of different expansion coefficients of different materials to easily separate the bottom fire from the shell body. After inspection, I was surprised to find that the bottom fire cap was intact, and I didn't know if it was because the material of the military product was particularly good or if the metal material had changed during the space-time shuttle, resulting in strengthening like myself.

  Anyway, this is good news. So Di Lie directly repaired the original bottom fire cap: the used bottom fire cap was flipped over, and the inner concave left by the firing was flattened with a suitable tool, and finally a small amount of red phosphorus and a small amount of nitrate and clay were made into filling bottom fire medicine. In this way, a new bottom fire cap was made.

  Then put the used cartridge case into a bowl of wheat grains and stir to polish, shrink the mouth, and finally use mechanical pressure to re-install the repaired base fire cap on the tail of the cartridge case. In this way, a new cartridge that meets the firing requirements is completed.

  The final step: popping the head.

  If Di Lie was still as lonely and isolated as when he first arrived in this time and space, the problem of making bullets would be difficult to solve. However, it's different now: he has a large number of skilled workers at his disposal, abundant manpower, technical expertise, and tools; even if something is not available, it can be made according to requirements. He also has ample materials, including gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead... almost all known metals in the world are at his fingertips. With sufficient human resources, material resources, and technical expertise, as long as it's not beyond the productive capacity of this era, what can't be made?

  The production of the bullet head is not difficult, Lu Lao Er and other craftsmen took an original bullet head as a model and made a cast iron mold. Then cut the bullet head in half to understand its internal structure. Basically figured out that this golden cone-shaped small thing is made with brass as the outer shell, steel plate as the inner layer, and pure steel as the core, it's a delicate piece of work with a relatively simple structure. But this seemingly simple thing is actually a military industrial masterpiece from the 21st century, cast by precision machinery, how can handmade products compare to it?

  The result was that the workers struggled for half a day, but they couldn't produce a single finished product. The key problem was that it was very difficult to cast the steel skin and steel core together. There was no shortage of steel, as some of the spoils of war included a portion of high-quality steel materials, which the craftsmen identified as "Gangtie", a premium steel reserved in the east and west workshops of the capital city. With this fine steel, they could forge blades that could cut through iron like mud. Unfortunately, having the materials didn't necessarily mean they could produce the real thing.

  Di Lie had no choice but to retreat and settle for second best, having the craftsmen recast solid-core bullets. These were copper-jacketed projectiles with lead cores.

  This time it went smoothly, and the workers spent three days making molds, casting, grinding, polishing... After dozens of processes, and rework for unknown times, finally formed, a total of 103 projectile heads were made. Among them, 46 failed during casting; another 38 were eliminated due to lead block center of gravity position or uneven thickness; Finally, 12 more were scrapped after grinding and polishing, due to small cracks and deviations in arc, weight, shape from the original bullet.

  In the end, there were only seven qualified warheads! The defect rate was over 90%.

  Dili is now inspecting one of the seven bullet heads, with its smooth and perfect lines and arcs representing the high level of craftsmanship in this era. Unfortunately, such pure handmade craftsmanship has a very low efficiency, not to mention the success rate... However, although it's impossible to mass-produce, but just for his own sniper rifle's bullets, it's more than enough.

  After admiring the finest handmade craftsmanship of this era, Di Lie's final task was to press the bullet head into the cartridge case, which would truly complete the reloading of a single bullet.

  Di Lie had seen such a reloading press abroad when he was on a mission, it was as tall as half a person and not light in weight, but the principle was simple. He couldn't possibly make one like that, nor could he make one at all. He could only simplify it and have the craftsmen make an iron tube base for the cartridge case, which was an iron pipe with one end connected to an iron clip that gripped the bullet head like a plate hand. The top had an iron handle and several pull-up spring pieces. Using the lever principle, without using too much force, the bullet head could be pressed into the shell, making a crisp sound, stably holding the bullet head in place. Of course, the primer cap could also be pressed into the cartridge case like this.

  This crude and outrageous hand-operated machine weighs only about 10 kilograms and is less than a meter high, which can be easily operated by one person with both hands.

  Di Lie Zheng was busy when a voice came from behind him: "Your Highness, I've been summoned, what are your orders?"

  Di Lie didn't even turn his head back and waved his hand: "Little Yang brother, do you still remember the promise I made?"

  "What was promised?" Yang Zhe's expression changed, and he seemed to remember something. His eyes gradually lit up, "Your Highness is referring to..."

  Di Lie nodded: "That's right, that day the river crossing battle, you performed very well. Now is the time for me to fulfill my promise - see that target over there? It's about 500 meters away from us... hmm, about 300 steps or so. You come and try shooting one shot."