"beep……"
The sound of the train whistle is the most common sound in the train station.
The dormitory for single workers at Jizhou Railway Station is near the locomotive depot. Although it is some distance from the station, you can still hear the roar of the train, especially its whistle.
The workers living in the dormitories have long been accustomed to this. There are small sheds close to the dormitory along the edge of the small courtyard. Since those sheds are bicycle sheds, they are also used by employees to store furniture and miscellaneous items that are not needed.
A place where you can buy things or do odd jobs.
Some workers will go outside to solicit odd jobs. Most of those odd jobs are related to metal processing and are trivial jobs. For the workers, this is extra income.
Xu Andong, who works as a lathe and miller in the locomotive depot, is still single, but he has just opened a pretty good workshop in a small shed next to his dormitory. On one side of the wall is an authentic fitter's workbench with fasteners on it.
There is a vise, and below it is a set of drawers; in the corner is a small drill press painted with green paint, which is also very good, and next to it is a large circular grinder. There are files placed in a special groove on the wall.
Punch, hand saw, scraper, hammer. All kinds of simple tools are available.
These tools include both second-hand goods he picked up from the locomotive depot, and some he purchased in the market. The railway company does not object to employees using their spare time to take on odd jobs.
As usual, Xu Andong got into his small shed right after get off work. After taking out a bunch of parts from the cabinet, he played with those parts as usual, and then studied the drawings.
Three years ago, Xu Andong joined the maintenance department after retiring from the army. Unlike others who worked odd jobs in small sheds to make money, he has been engaged in his research - developing a new type of weapon!
He served in the army seven years ago. On the day he became a machine gunner, he became fascinated by the exquisite machinery. Like all machine gunners, he would break the six-year-old machine gun into pieces and then assemble it again.
When he saw those parts being combined into a whole, he couldn't help but marvel at how exquisitely designed these weapons were.
When he was shooting, he was stunned when he saw the machine gun spitting out flames.
From then on, while training as a machine gunner, he studied the weapon in his hand, its structure, and its principles. He even graduated from a mechanical school and drew some sketches of his own using the 6-year-old machine gun.
In the sketch, there are both machine guns and rifles.
After retiring from the army, his idea became more intense. His idea came from a sudden idea - a new type of automatic gun.
"A light automatic gun that can fire continuously like the Type 6 machine gun."
Anyone who has witnessed the intense machine gun fire will have some unique thoughts - no soldier can resist fire.
According to their words, "I wish my rifle could be turned into a fire hose."
But how could a rifle become a weapon that fires continuously and automatically like a fire hose?
While chatting with his comrades, Xu Andong's thoughts got out of hand.
Although the Type 6 machine gun is good, it is too heavy and cannot be moved by one person. During exercises, they need to carry a heavy machine gun body, a tripod, and a water tank. In short, it is tiring.
"An automatic gun should be as heavy as a rifle, or even lighter than a rifle, because it fires faster and needs to fire more bullets."
In order to satisfy this point, Xu Andong gave up the step gun directly and chose hand gun.
At the same time, he gave up the bullet chain and chose the magazine. He learned from the 10-round magazine of the Yuan-style rifle and designed a 20-round magazine. Because the revolver ammunition has a rim and is not suitable for use in the magazine, he even
The rifle cartridges are also cut into short 23mm cartridges.
After the bullet power is reduced, the weight of the gun will naturally be reduced.
But what is the core issue?
Of course it's still the structure of the gun.
In the past year, Xu Andong has been perfecting his structural design. After repeated attempts, he developed a new structure based on the semi-free bolt action of the 6-year-old machine gun.
「
After the bullet is fired, driven by the gunpowder gas, the warhead migrates forward, the cartridge case moves backward, the impact column bolt moves backward, compresses the spring, and then retracts..."
Holding the simple structure hand-made with a vise and steel file in his hand, Xu Andong once again demonstrated the principles of the gun body.
"That's almost it!"
He said to himself.
"In principle, there should be no problem. The weight of the bolt and the force of the recoil spring should be able to meet the basic needs..."
At this time, even Xu Andong himself did not know that the automatic principle he developed would become the famous "free-style gun action" in later generations.
Accompanied by the whistle of Yanqi locomotives coming from the railway and the roar of machine tools in the nearby shed, Xu Andong, sitting on a chair, assembled parts one by one, which he made in his spare time.
"Dongzi, is this the automatic gun you're talking about?"
Li Jiawang, who was drinking tea in the shed next door, glanced at the strange-looking guy in Xu Andong's hand.
It is not as long as a rifle, nor as short as a pistol. It has a thin barrel in front of the steel body and is wrapped by a heat sink, and a wooden butt behind the steel body.
"Well, that's about right."
"Are you... loading bullets?"
Li Jiawang watched Xu Andong load short, thick bullets into the magazine.
"Are you going to try the gun?"
Carrying the tea cup to Xu Andong's side, Li Jiawang warned.
"Be careful when testing the gun, so as not to blow up the barrel!"
"Master Li, don't worry, it won't explode..."
While he was talking, he packed his gun in his overalls and walked towards the nearby railway line. When the other workers saw this, most of them just made fun of him. No one thought he could succeed, and of course no one said anything.
What.
As for inventions... everyone always has their own ideas.
The railway branch line was quiet in the evening. Looking at the oil drum in front of him, Xu Andong took a deep breath and loaded the gun with a click. The moment the gun was pulled by the trigger, he could even feel that the trigger suddenly became a little tighter.
heavy.
Then he just stared at the waste oil barrel in front of the wall, held his breath, and pulled the trigger.
Gunshots suddenly rang out.
"boom!"
The sound of gunfire is a bit dull!
It is completely different from the crisp gunfire of the first-year rifle.
Ringed!
But Xu Andong was not excited, this was just the first shot.
He pulled the trigger again, and gunshots rang out on the railway again.
Different from ordinary gunfire, it was continuous and rapid gunfire, which made Xu Andong a little excited.
"Succeeded..."
Before this thought came to his mind, the gunfire suddenly stopped. Xu Andong pulled the trigger with some confusion, but the gun did not go off.
"Maybe the bullet casing got stuck..."
After removing the magazine and pulling back the bolt, Xu Andong saw that it was indeed good, there was a cartridge case stuck in the chamber.
I tried hard to pull it out with a screwdriver, but why is it stuck?
There are various possibilities for this problem, but now is obviously not the time to deal with this problem.
All right!
We’ll talk about this later…
Pulling the bolt again and pulling the trigger, the gunshot sounded again...
This chapter has been completed!