Chapter 65 Not Easy

  Sir! We've made a left-handed pistol, please check it out? Deng Qiang and Deng Shan appeared in front of Deng Zixuan with excitement. Have you tested the gun? Sir, we want to give this surprise to you, said Deng Shan. The three entered the underground shooting range, which was about 50 meters long and had an underground target range set up for testing bullets without being detected by outsiders. Two testers were waiting quietly in the underground room, they were specially selected from the students and both possessed accurate shooting skills.

  Deng Zixuan handed the left-handed revolver to a gun tester and said, "Fire all 6 rounds and see how it goes?" The gun tester skillfully loaded the bullets, then raised the gun and aimed at the wall target in front of him. The six rounds were fired one after another, seemingly smoothly without any jamming phenomenon. Deng Zixuan asked, "How does it feel? Is there a difference compared to foreign guns?" Master, the difference is not big, only the recoil is slightly larger.

  Deng Qiang and Deng Shan walked back with their heads hung low in dejection. As soon as they arrived, Deng Zixuan guessed that there was a problem with the shooting. "Sir, all 6 bullets hit to the left by 10 centimeters, which is unqualified." Deng Zixuan smiled and said: "It's actually not bad, being able to shoot without exploding the cartridge case is already quite impressive. You two shouldn't be discouraged, let's find out the reason together. This afternoon I'll study with the ammunition team, and tonight we'll get together again to find the cause."

  In the workshop, Deng Bing and Deng Wu were wearing greasy work clothes, their faces dirty as they worked together in person. There were several technicians assisting them on the side. When Deng Zixuan walked into the workshop, he couldn't help but sigh at the sight of everyone's busy figures. At present, in the Qing dynasty, everything had to start from scratch, there were no professional technical personnel, no skilled workers, and even if they copied others' work, seemingly simple things were actually not easy to do.

  Mr. Deng has arrived! Deng Bing and Deng Wu greeted him, and the technicians nearby also paid their respects. Mr. Deng gestured for them to continue working, and soon the two of them took down the finished bullet shells from the machine. "Sir, these are the bullet shells we made for the revolver!" "Sir, we made these bullet shells ourselves!" Seeing the proud look on their faces, Mr. Deng suddenly realized that they might be out of sync, and if each of them did their own thing, it would affect the quality.

  Have you two communicated with Deng Qiang about the bullet? We processed it according to the drawing, there won't be any mistake. Deng Bing was full of confidence. You re-measure the caliber of the shell carefully and give me the data. At night, Deng Zixuan came to Deng Qiang and Deng Shan's room, the table was filled with parts of the revolver, after an afternoon of searching for the cause, they still couldn't find where the problem was. Seeing Deng Zixuan coming in, the two quickly stood up, their faces showing a depressed expression.

  Deng Zixuan said: I went to the bullet-making group this afternoon, and I saw that the problem lies in the head of the bullet. This is the data on the caliber of the bullet head that I took, you two measure it again. The two of them hurriedly got to work. A few minutes later, Deng Qiang said nervously: Sir, the problem indeed lies in the caliber of the bullet head, it's off by a little bit. How much is a little bit? Deng Zixuan frowned.

  Seeing the two tense, Deng Zixuan said calmly: Even a small gap can lead to failure and a decrease in accuracy. I often remind you that science cannot tolerate even half a bit of falsehood and laziness. Next step, each group needs to communicate closely and cooperate with each other, don't think that just following the blueprint will be fine. Especially gun manufacturing is a precise thing. We remember your words, sir.

  In fact, processing according to drawings is not a big deal, but the current technical level is far from it. Standardized operations are easy to talk about, but in reality, they differ by a hair and deviate by a thousand miles. Deng Zixuan stared at the steel ruler made by foreigners on the table and suddenly thought of calipers. What does caliper mean? It means that the precision of manufacturing will bring revolutionary changes. Thinking of this, Deng Zixuan excitedly said: Get me paper and pen! Deng Bing and Deng Wu found paper and pen with confusion.

  Not long after, Deng Zixuan drew the outline of a caliper from memory on the drawing paper. What is this thing? Deng Qiang asked. It looks like a clip! Deng Shan said in confusion. This is a vernier caliper, it has scales on it, and the bottom can slide, which can measure both outer diameter and inner diameter, especially the inner diameter of pipes. Sir, I know that using this caliper can greatly improve the accuracy! Deng Qiang reacted quickly.

  You two, put down your work and go find Wang Tiechui to help him make a batch of calipers. From now on, all our processes must be standardized and strictly enforced. Deng Zixuan said decisively. 5 days later, 10 calipers were made, and Deng Zixuan carefully examined the calipers. Although they were a bit rough, after all, it was a caliper, and for now, it was undoubtedly a boost to manufacturing accuracy.

  A few days later, another revolver was produced and after testing, its performance even exceeded that of American-made revolvers. Due to the use of tungsten steel for the barrel, the service life is twice as long as that of American-made ones. After a month of continuous firing, Deng Zixuan finally decided to mass-produce the standard model. The first batch of produced revolvers was equipped with the Rose Manor Guard. The guard had been carrying long guns too obviously, and equipping them with revolvers could conceal their presence.

  Time quickly arrived in August, Deng Qiang and Deng Shan began to turn their attention to the development of rifles. With the experience of imitating revolvers, Deng Qiang and Deng Shan accumulated rich experience. Although Deng Zixuan was an outsider, his theoretical knowledge and vision were rich, which made them take fewer detours. However, a new rifle, from imitation, new design to manufacturing, is more difficult, so the two can only grope little by little.

  Deng Zixuan arrived at the fireworks workshop, and Hui Shan said as he entered: Boss, according to your requirements, after repeated experimentation with friction sparks, we ignited the fuse, controlling the time to 7 seconds before igniting the gunpowder. Please inspect it, boss. As he spoke, Zhao Ming secured the fuse, preventing the gunpowder from going off prematurely, and then pulled the rope. Suddenly, a spark flashed and the fuse was lit. Deng Zixuan looked at his pocket watch, and exactly 7 seconds later, the fuse burned out, followed by a burst of smoke.

  The two masters did a great job, you have accomplished an extraordinary feat. What feat? The two looked at each other and showed a puzzled expression. Let's not talk about this for now, I'd like to ask if you two are willing to settle down here for the long term? As long as there is work to do, we are willing!

  Starting from today, your wages will be doubled. I'll send someone to bring your families here and provide you with a house in the estate. Since I'm going to employ you for a long time, I want you to have no worries about your family. Thank you, master, for your kindness. We two will definitely work hard like horses. Deng Zixuan helped them up and said: If you need more manpower, just let me know. For now, your experiment needs stability, so you'll need to repeat the experiment multiple times. As for what exactly you're doing, I'll tell you later.

  From then on, Deng Zixuan's figure appeared in every corner of the factory. He spent many days and nights with his disciples, researching and experimenting tirelessly. During this period, smokeless gunpowder made a major breakthrough, but it had to undergo repeated testing. The hand grenade was first introduced, but after trial explosions, Deng Zixuan was not satisfied and demanded continuous improvement. Especially the development of artillery, from imitation to redesign to initial trials, although bumpy, was not too difficult after all, it was just imitation. However, the development of explosive shells was the top priority.

  However, the rifle encountered another problem during the trial production process. The new rifle's magazine part took a lot of time to solve the problem of jamming after repeated simulation tests. However, the barrel did not pass the inspection in the process of pulling the rifling, and it was found that the inner wall of the barrel was very rough after the rifling was pulled, which would greatly affect the accuracy and service life of the rifle.

  Sir, the left wheel handgun barrel is short, and there's no problem with drawing the rifling line once. However, the long gun barrel is long, and the drawn rifling line is always rough, I don't know what the reason is. Deng Qiang was very depressed. Deng Zixuan observed the barrel and found that the initial rifling line was very smooth, but it became rough afterwards. Why did the second half become rough? Deng Zixuan was also at a loss for a while.

  Pull out another barrel and let me take a look? Deng Qiang personally co-created, the knife head rotated into the barrel. When eating half of the knife, Deng Zixuan touched it with his hand and was scalded to quickly withdraw his hand. Deng Zixuan immediately realized that the temperature was too high during processing and physical cooling was necessary. The roughness in the second half of the barrel was caused by excessive temperature.

  Deng Zixuan pondered for a moment, then ordered the physical cooling of vegetable oil to be brought over. After a flurry of activity, a simple oil tank was made and the gun barrel and knife head were both soaked in vegetable oil for processing. Deng Qiang worked again, this time with much better results, and the sound seemed pleasant too. However, when the processing reached two-thirds completion, the vegetable oil suddenly caught fire due to excessive temperature, forcing the processing to be stopped.

  At night, Deng Zixuan was at a loss, frankly saying that he didn't understand processing and manufacturing. It seemed that the physical cooling approach was correct, but how to effectively solve the problem had him puzzled. The next day, Deng Qiang walked into the room, his eyes were obviously red, and he hadn't rested well last night. Sir, I carefully examined the gun barrel soaked in vegetable oil yesterday evening, although it caught fire, but the effect is very good, so I have a bold idea?

  What's the idea? Sir, now the difficulty is the problem of excessive temperature. I think we can use two knives, one with a shallow blade and one with a deep blade for secondary processing, which may solve the problem of excessive temperature, and if the temperature drops, the sesame oil will not catch fire. Deng Zixuan's eyes lit up, and he immediately realized that it would definitely work. Good idea, let's make two knife heads according to your method right away.

  Two days later, the experiment started anew. Two lathes were arranged in a row, with oil grooves installed for mounting the cutting tools. Deng Qiang began working again, and when everyone was on tenterhooks, the processing was completed. Deng Zixuan didn't even bother to wipe off the oil stains, picked up the gun barrel to inspect it, and saw that the four rifling lines were smooth as a knot, clear and visible. He knew they had succeeded. The gun barrel was then placed on the second lathe for further processing, which went very smoothly. A precision-made gun barrel was born, marking the birth of a new type of rifle. Everyone hugged each other in excitement, especially Deng Qiang and Deng Shan, who were hugging and sobbing together.

  In fact, the current production of rifle barrels is done using two knives. This advanced processing technique was decades ahead of its time, meaning that Deng Zi Xuan had surpassed Western countries in terms of firearms manufacturing technology. Needless to say, the rifle was manufactured and its performance completely exceeded that of British-made Enfield rifles. However, a new rifle must undergo repeated testing. Deng Zi Xuan had Deng Qiang and Deng Shan repeatedly test and improve it, striving for mass production next year.

  Autumn went and winter came, the days passed quickly, and soon it was the end of the year. The left-handed pistol, Type 81 rifle, hand grenade, and infantry gun were born one after another. Due to the failure of the explosive bullet to meet the requirements, Deng Zixuan ordered the continuation of research on the explosive bullet, which must be put into practical use by the end of next year. From then on, the arms industry created by Deng Zixuan began to rise and flourish, dominating the world.