The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 131 Rifle Bullets
Zhu Jianxuan continued to remind us of some details and principles, and then announced the end of today's meeting.

The next morning, Zhu Jianxuan got up, washed, and had his meal, then took his seat in Chengyun Hall.

All the craftsmen and disciples under Zhu Jianxuan gathered in the middle of the auditorium and first paid homage to Zhu Jianxuan as their king and teacher.

Then everyone stood up and stood on both sides of the ceremony.

The 248 apprentices who will stay in North America in the future walked into Chengyun Hall, and together with the eight young craftsmen who will stay in North America, they once again performed a formal ceremony of apprenticeship to Zhu Jianxuan.

Zhu Jianxuan was going to return to Australia. This was confirmed before coming to North America, so when he was preparing for the coronation ceremony, he had already started preparing for the return voyage.

Craftsmen and Zhu Jianxuan's students began dismantling and relocating experimental equipment and results a month ago.

Everything had been almost packed up before the coronation ceremony.

Zhu Jianxuan came here specifically to gather all the craftsmen, disciples, and apprentices to say goodbye to his companions who would stay in North America in the future.

A total of thirty-two master craftsmen, one thousand and twenty-four disciples and apprentices all hope to continue following Zhu Jianxuan.

But laboratories and schools in North America need teachers to continue teaching.

In the end, Zhu Jianxuan decided to adopt a rotation system, selecting one-quarter of the craftsmen and apprentices to stay, and replacing one-quarter every three years.

If they continue to teach in North America for three years, they will be able to become Zhu Jianxuan's official disciples and no longer be ordinary apprentices.

It will take twelve years for all the apprentices to rotate out. By then, the children of the original North American immigrants, the new generation of local craftsmen, will have grown up.

So after the rotation is over, all the apprentices who have become Zhu Jianxuan's direct disciples can choose where to work long-term.

After the new apprenticeship ceremony was completed, Zhu Jianxuan announced that a banquet would be given inside and outside Chengyun Hall at noon, and boarding would begin in three days.

After another five days, all preparations for the voyage were completed.

On October 1783th of the 10th year of Xianning, October 25th of the Western calendar, , Zhu Jianxuan officially set out on his return journey.

American civil and military officials and nobles came to the dock to see them off.

Ten battleships and twenty frigates were drawn from the current North American fleet to escort it.

A third-class battleship commanded by Nelson and a steam paddle-wheel exploration ship commanded by Cook were also in the fleet.

There are also twenty armed merchant ships carrying supplies and personnel needed for long voyages, and they also serve as emergency rescue replacement ships in the event of maritime accidents.

During ocean voyages, one or two ships are always damaged. By transferring personnel and supplies to idle ships, the final losses can be minimized.

But the prerequisite is that the fleet is large enough and there is enough space and supplies.

On the morning of the second day after the fleet officially left Meiping Prefecture, Zhu Jianxuan once again summoned all the craftsmen and disciples on the Changfeng battleship that he had taken when he came.

We started to review the research results of the past two years and discuss the research direction for the next stage.

The first thing to be explained was several scientific research products that were not on display at the scene - gunpowder.

On his way to North America, Zhu Jianxuan explained the basic chemical principles to his craftsmen and disciples, and pointed out the characteristics of nitrates - which made them suitable as explosives.

So over the past year or so, the craftsmen and disciples have made many attempts under the reminder of Zhu Jianxuan.

The two most typical propellant raw materials, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin, were produced.

At the same time, using the chemical principles he had mastered, he rediscovered and extracted trinitrocresol, commonly known as picric acid.

In particular, it was confirmed that picric acid can explode, which is relatively safe and extremely powerful.

Song Wendao, the oldest craftsman on the scene, handed a gunpowder-related experimental report to Zhu Jianxuan and said with great emotion:
"It's really amazing. The explosive power of trinitrocresol can reach more than ten times that of the same weight of black powder. The destructive power is terrifying.

"If nitrocellulose is used as a propellant, the energy it can release is at least three times that of the same weight of black powder.

"With this new propellant, the range of rifled guns can be increased to more than one thousand meters.

“The effective range can be increased to at least 300 meters or even more than 500 meters.

"This is truly... a shocking discovery..."

Zhu Jianxuan flipped through the report in his hand and looked at the simple data written on the paper, feeling quite emotional.

Now I have technical reserves in two major types of modern chemical gunpowder.

A revolution in military equipment is about to begin.

Modern military gunpowder can be divided into two categories: explosives and propellants according to their uses and corresponding characteristics.

Explosives are used for attack and destruction.

Therefore, the combustion must be as violent as possible and as much energy as possible must be released instantly, that is, the explosion must be as powerful as possible.

The most typical representatives of explosives are trinitrocresol (picric acid) and trinitrotoluene (TNT).

Propellant is used for firing.

It is necessary to burn in the gun barrel and cannon bore, so that the air in the gun barrel can continue to expand to the limit and push the bullets and shells out.

Therefore, continuous combustion is required to release as much energy as possible in a slightly longer period of time.

At the same time, violent explosions should be avoided as much as possible to reduce damage to the barrel.

This will extend the life of the barrel and cannon.

The main components of modern propellants are basically nitrocellulose (nitrocellulose, guncotton) and nitroglycerin.

The properties of propellant and explosive are completely different and cannot be used interchangeably.

So both are necessary.

The powerful picric acid is relatively safe, and TNT can be said to be very safe. It will not explode even if it is hit directly by a bullet.

However, both nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin are relatively sensitive, and knocking, falling and high temperature may cause explosions.

Therefore, additional passivation and moderation processes are needed to reduce the sensitivity of the propellant.

Before the advent of mature stabilizers, bullets and artillery shells using nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin were dangerous.

So even though the craftsmen had made it, they did not put it directly in front of Zhu Jianxuan.

The first thing Zhu Jianxuan saw was a few new rifles and their corresponding bullets, as well as the design parameters and performance of these rifles and bullets. Zhu Jianxuan knew that in the era of metal fixed ammunition, the shape and size of the bullet head and bullet shell basically determined the upper limit of the performance of the firearm.

Unless there are major improvements to the propellant, the case capacity will determine the maximum energy that the bullet can deliver.

The design of the gun itself determines the lower limit of its performance.

No matter how good the bullet is, if it jams or even explodes when fired, then this rifle is useless.

After the era of bolt-action rifles, countries often designed guns around bullets, rather than designing bullets based on guns.

After Zhu Jianxuan briefly glanced through the report on chemical gunpowder, his attention immediately turned to the several boxes of bullets on the table. After all, propellant is also used to be loaded into bullets.

They all looked very familiar, not much different from the various bullets he had seen in various books and on the Internet in his previous life.

The whole thing is bright yellow in color.

The pointed cylindrical bullet is wrapped in brass, with a thicker cylindrical brass shell attached to the back. At the bottom of the shell is a disc-shaped firing primer.

However, some bullets have round cylindrical warheads.

Zhu Jianxuan had originally directly proposed the typical shape of a modern bullet, and asked craftsmen to try to make a modern rifle bullet in the shape of a boat with a pointed nose and a shrunken tail.

But at the same time, it was also reminded that if the current technology makes it difficult to mass-produce pointed bullets, round-headed cylindrical bullets should be used first, so samples must be made.

And let the craftsmen conduct repeated tests to determine the impact of different bullet shapes and bullet structures on the final performance of the firearm.

The bullet head materials tried three forms: copper shell wrapped in lead, copper shell wrapped in steel, and copper shell steel core sandwiched with lead, to test which one has the best effect and which one is more convenient to produce.

The bullets Zhu Jianxuan saw now were all unloaded and had no primers, so there was no need to worry about explosion.

That’s why Zhu Jianxuan dared to pick it up and compare it, while casually flipping through the detailed parameter introduction next to it:

"That's a total of three types of bullets... two calibers?"

Song Wendao stood beside Zhu Jianxuan and subconsciously introduced the key information of these bullets:

“是的大王，在子弹直径上，大家最初测试了6毫米、8毫米、10毫米、12毫米、15毫米的效果。

“Finally we chose 8mm and 12mm calibers and made three different types of bullets.

“Class A bullets are elongated cylindrical with rounded ends, with a maximum diameter of 8 mm and a maximum length of 35 mm. The maximum diameter of the shell is 12 mm and the length is 60 mm.

“It is suitable for smokeless propellants, and the warhead is relatively easy to produce.

"With the newly designed rear-loading bolt-action rifle, the maximum rate of fire can reach 20 rounds per minute.

“Class B bullets are short, thick, round-headed cylindrical bullets with a maximum diameter of 12 mm and a maximum length of 20 mm. The maximum diameter of the shell is 20 mm and the length is 100 mm.

“It is suitable for strengthening black powder and is the simplest and most convenient to produce.

“The rate of fire is more than twice that of a traditional muzzle-loader, reaching 20 rounds per minute.

“But black powder leaves a lot of residue in the cartridge case, which severely limits the number of times brass cartridge cases can be recycled and reloaded.

"Class C bullets are of the slender, pointed, and boat-bottom type, with a maximum diameter of 8 mm and a maximum length of 40 mm. The shell is the same as that of Class A bullets.

“For smokeless propellants, the bullets are not easy to produce.

“The maximum range of all three types of bullets is over one thousand meters, but the Class C pointed bullet has the highest accuracy, with an effective range of over five hundred meters.

“As for the structure of the bullet itself, everyone thought that copper-clad lead was the most suitable.

"The copper-clad steel bullet is relatively light, but the copper-clad steel core with lead sandwich structure is too complicated to be easily produced quickly.

“We also tested pure lead bullets, and the bullets left noticeable residue on the rifling of the barrel, and sometimes the entire bullet was torn apart when fired.

“The strength of pure lead bullets is no longer enough to withstand the tremendous force of smokeless gunpowder.

“Pure copper bullets can be used. Although they are prone to deformation after hitting the target, it will not affect the accuracy and power too much.

"The problem is that the price of pure copper material is too high..."

(The typical appearance of the two types of bullets, a round-nosed cylindrical bullet and a pointed-nosed boat-shaped bullet.)
After listening to this, Zhu Jianxuan asked directly:
“Since copper shell wrapped with lead is the most suitable, let’s temporarily set copper shell wrapped with lead as the mass production target, and consider the copper shell steel core sandwiched with lead process in the future.

“The key issue is the production of Class C bullets.

"With the current technological level in Daming or Australia, can we produce in large quantities while ensuring the required precision?

"At the same time, can the 12mm bullet be replaced with smokeless powder and an enlarged Class C bullet?"

Song Wendao already knew about this matter:
“The production of Class C bullets, as well as 12mm smokeless charge bullets, requires improvements in the stamping process.

"We have already made some designs, and when we arrive in Australia or return to Yingtianfu, we can try to start practical tests in this area.

"On this basis, the power of the 12mm copper-cased fixed bullet is too great.

"Nowadays, using black powder as a loading gun is enough to directly destroy many traditional bulletproof facilities. After using smokeless gunpowder, the power can be greatly improved.

"If we continue to use the traditional rolling and boring process, we can only significantly thicken the barrel to ensure that the barrel is strong enough to prevent it from exploding.

“But that would make the gun itself very heavy and not at all suitable for use as an infantry weapon.

“Unless the method of making gun barrels is improved, using a solid forged steel tube.

“I have discussed this with my colleagues and have designed a plan that is theoretically feasible.

“It should also be able to solve the barrel strength and weight issues of breech-loading artillery using smokeless propellant.”

Zhu Jianxuan became interested after hearing the latter part:

"What method? Tell me about it."

Song Wendao immediately took out a design idea description:

"Your Majesty, please look..."

Zhu Jianxuan took it and flipped through it, then subconsciously said:
"Is this... a seamless steel pipe?"

(End of this chapter)