There is a saying that goes like this - if you want to write poetry, you must first learn to write.
The same goes for making guns. If you want to make a gun, you must first have some basic understanding of firearms. Otherwise, the thing you make cannot even be called a fire stick.
A gun is a kinetic energy weapon that uses gunpowder gas energy as power to fire bullets and strike targets at long range.
In ancient times, this extremely lethal weapon had its own exclusive noun, such as: gun, fire gun, musket, iron cannon, etc.
In the history of human weapons, the first gun that used gunpowder as power to launch bullets to hit targets at a long distance was the burst gun invented in the Southern Song Dynasty of China.
The gun is a tubular firearm. The gun uses a bamboo tube as the gun body. The inside of the bamboo tube is filled with gunpowder and subshells (black powder, porcelain shards, broken iron, stones and other sundries). It is actually reverse-loading ammunition. To put it bluntly, the gun is reloaded.
A musket is the ancient version of a shotgun).
The front part of the gun is a strong thick bamboo tube, the expanded part (bamboo joint) in the middle part is the gunpowder chamber, there is a small hole for ignition on the outer wall, and the back part is a hand-held wooden stick.
When this kind of firearm is fired, a wooden stick is placed on the ground. The shooter holds the barrel with one hand and ignites it with the other hand. With a loud "bang" sound, the expanding gas of the black powder is used to push out the gravel and projectiles in the barrel.
Due to the backward production technology in ancient times, the thrust of black powder was very limited. As a result, the range of this firearm was only a pitiful 50-80 meters, and its power and distance were not even as good as the bows and crossbows equipped at that time.
In addition, since this kind of firearm is made of natural bamboo tubes, the bamboo barrel will be charred, brittle, or even directly exploded by the burning of gunpowder after several shots! The actual combat effect is not ideal.
In the Yuan Dynasty, later generations further improved the gun and created a "fire gun" with a metal gun body.
Fire gun is also called "fire tube". Like the musket of the Southern Song Dynasty, this improved version of the firearm is also powered by gunpowder to fire stone bullets, lead bullets and iron bullets. However, both the software and hardware have been comprehensively upgraded.
and transformation.
For example, in order to increase the distance and power of projectiles, craftsmen of the Yuan Dynasty improved the formula of black powder to make the gunpowder thrust stronger.
For another example, in order to increase the hardness of the barrel and extend the number of shots of the gun, the gun body is no longer made of bamboo, but is cast from harder metals such as copper or pig iron.
In China, whether in ancient times or modern times, copper has always been a relatively scarce resource. Otherwise, China would not have been using steel to replace copper to produce bullets and cannonballs.
In ancient times more than 700 years ago, China lacked copper resources. Considering the importance of firecrackers for military operations, the authorities in the Yuan Dynasty ordered that pig iron be used instead of copper to cast firecrackers needed by the army.
Fireguns made of pig iron are more durable than those made of bamboo and almost never explode. Therefore, they soon became an important equipment of the Yuan and Ming armies. They followed the Yuan army in battles, conquering cities and territories, and were invincible.
In the 13th century AD, with the Mongol Empire's successive wars, Chinese gunpowder technology and firearms began to flow into the European continent. Against this background, after long-term research and improvement, the Spanish created the world's earliest match rope in the early 15th century.
gun.
As the name suggests, a matchlock is a firearm that relies on a match rope to ignite gunpowder and fire bullets.
Due to the delay of the matchlock, the rate of fire of the matchlock gun is very slow. Even for a well-trained professional shooter, it takes two minutes to fire a bullet, which is very inefficient.
In addition, the range and power of the matchlock gun are also embarrassing.
It is said that if you are lucky, the matchlock gun can only shoot a distance of 100-200 meters. At this distance, if you stand a little further away, the bullet will hit the body, at most it will break the skin, but it will not be fatal.
In fact, it is indeed difficult for a matchlock gun to hit the target at a certain distance, because humans at that time did not understand the concept of "rifling" and did not know how to keep bullets flying stably in the air. The bullets fired were easy to
Affected by wind and other factors, it deviates from the direction.
Food is eaten in bites, and the road is walked step by step. After the demise of the Yuan Dynasty, a more powerful, more accurate, and farther-range firearm appeared in the Ming Dynasty - the gun!
Bird gun, also called beak gun, is the name people gave to the improved matchlock gun during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Compared with the European matchlock guns of the same period, the bird gun has a rear sight, a star, a gun holder, and a gun machine. It can be held with both hands at the same time and fired, and the shooting accuracy has been improved by more than one level.
Regarding this kind of weapon, "Shi Lv" written by Fan Jingwen of the Ming Dynasty mentioned: "Bird gun: You don't have to throw away the handle to light the fire with the back hand, and it will not shake. Therefore, ten shots will hit the target, even if it is a flying bird in the forest.
Shoot down, that’s why it got its name.”
Compared with the hand-held fire blunderbuss in the early Yuan Dynasty, the bird blunderbuss has a longer barrel and smaller caliber. It fires round lead bullets of the same caliber. It has a long range, strong projectile penetration and high shooting accuracy. The basic structure and appearance have been
It is close to a modern rifle and is the prototype of a modern rifle.
In the mid-17th century, the French craftsman Mahan made many improvements based on the original gun and invented a flintlock gun with more advanced performance and convenience.
After the flintlock gun, after more than a hundred years of development, a brand-new firearm appeared on the European continent-the breech-loading gun.
This is a modern firearm that is different from front-loading ammunition. Its appearance eliminates the cumbersome process of loading gunpowder and ammunition from the barrel, and directly changes to loading ammunition from the rear, which greatly improves the speed and convenience of shooting.
.
In addition, the bullets and gunpowder of the breech-loading gun have also been comprehensively improved. In the previous guns, the gunpowder and bullets were separated, but in this gun, the bullets and gunpowder are all combined.
The invention of the breech-loading gun can be said to be a major change in the history of human firearms development in the 19th century. It ended the 500-year history of using bougie to load projectiles into the gun chamber from the muzzle of the rifle. It is called by weapons scholars
"Opening up a new era of small arms and infantry tactics".
After that, there are all kinds of more advanced firearms, such as semi-automatic firearms, fully automatic firearms, pistols, rifles, machine guns, submachine guns, assault guns, sniper rifles, shotguns, explosion-proof guns, laser guns, flamethrowers, etc.
A dazzling array of items.
Anyone with a little knowledge of military knowledge knows that the factor that determines how far a bullet can fly is not only the amount of powder in the bullet, but also the quality and design of the barrel.
A reasonably designed and high-quality gun barrel is also an important factor affecting the bullet's flight distance.
In order to ensure that these bamboos could normally fire the jujube cores of exploding jujubes, before officially starting the shooting test, Lin Shuhang used a stick wrapped in leaves to carefully polish the inside of the bamboo tube.
Of course, there is a reason for this, because the bullets fire quickly, and if the barrel is not polished smooth, the rough barrel will easily cause "jamming" accidents during the process of firing bullets. Once "jamming" occurs, the worst result will be
It also exploded.
Lin Shuhang didn't want to encounter this kind of thing. All tests must be done without fail.
After polishing all the bamboo tubes, it was already evening and the rain forest became darker.
Considering that explosions require special conditions (strong acid environment) to cause explosions, Lin Shuhang and Crazy General dug a puddle on the ground regardless of their hard work, intending to collect some acid rain to conduct normal tests tomorrow.
Collecting acid rain is not a simple task. As time goes by, most of the acid rain that previously collected on the ground has penetrated into the ground, and only a small amount of accumulated water remains on the surface.
The Exploding Jujube is a magical fruit. Its internal structure is very special. Its date core is harder than steel. Without the corrosion of strong acid, the Exploding Jujube cannot burst. In order for tomorrow's test to proceed normally, Lin Shuhang and Crazy General want to
After trying various methods, the puddle was finally filled with the acid rain needed for the experiment before dark.
After doing all this, Lin Shuhang and Crazy General went out to retrieve hundreds of mature exploding dates. These exploding dates will be used as the first batch of bullets to participate in the shooting test of the "Giant's Gun".
The shooting test was chosen the next morning.
After working hard all day, Lin Shuhang and Crazy General were already exhausted. In addition, the Fuhe Rainforest was extremely dark at night and their sight was severely obstructed, so they could only conduct shooting training during the day.
"Tomorrow will be the time to witness a miracle!" Lin Shuhang said.