Wild North America 1846

Chang'an City (San Francisco)

In the eight-story headquarters building of Colt Arms Company, employees in suits and ties were busy coming in and out, and more than a dozen armed security guards stood guard at the door, showing the extraordinary style of the world's top large arms company.

In the chairman's office on the top floor of the building

Earl Colt was wearing an elegant tuxedo and holding a glass of French red wine in his hand. He was chatting and laughing with General Manager Doug, Deputy General Manager Luo Zhengtang in charge of sales, Chief Engineer in charge of R&D Mark Pierce and others, looking very proud of himself.

Full of looks.

He was indeed entitled to be proud. The Crimean War, an unprecedentedly brutal war in Europe, provided the best publicity for Colt Arms Company. Orders from Europe came in like a snowflake, making the company a lot of money.

Although the war is over, Colt Arms Company still has orders worth more than 17 million Tang Yuan, enough for production until the second quarter of next year, generating a gross profit of no less than 4.6 million Tang Yuan.

It is said that the arms trade is a huge profit, and this is evident from this.

Over the years, Earl Colt earned tens of millions of dollars, and Colt Arms Company became the world's top artillery and firearms manufacturer, with its products selling well in various European countries.

"Dear Luo, how many orders have the Royal Household Office placed for us?"

"You will definitely be happy, Your Excellency Lord Colt. This year's order includes about 270 field artillery pieces of various calibers, 13,000 Type 1848 extended repeating rifles, plus a huge amount of ammunition storage.

, if we supply it at a preferential price, it will be worth about 1.6 million Tang Yuan, which is about 12% of the gross profit."

"Okay, arrange production as soon as possible ahead of other orders. This is our obligation to the kingdom." Earl Colt's face was rosy and he seemed to be in a good mood. He smiled and revealed a secret; "Gentlemen, according to the information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs

Reliable news is that starting next year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs will further increase the scale of procurement and storage, and we will have a steady stream of orders, allowing the factory to operate at full capacity."

"This is so good, it's worth a toast."

"cheers……"

After taking a sip of red wine, everyone put down their glasses in a happy mood. Earl Colt walked up to Mark Pierce and asked in a friendly tone;

"Oh... Dear Mark, how is the adaptation effect of our newly developed rifle range? This is news that everyone wants to know. There is no need to keep it secret anymore. I want to know how far it has gone?"

"Your Excellency, the newly developed rifle is undergoing durability testing. Judging from the current test data, it can be said to be very good and basically meets the stringent indicators required by the military." When talking about the new rifle, Mark Pierce said

There was a strange look on his face.

He is an engineering man who is obsessed with weapon design. He cherishes new rifles like treasures and rejoices in every defect improvement and technological advancement.

The Colt 1848 lever-action repeating rifle is one of the company's flagship products. Almost every cowboy in Texas has one. It is enthusiastically loved by police, gangsters, farmers and postal clerks. It is the long-lasting weapon of cowboys.

of standard configuration.

This rifle also appeared in the hands of both the North and South sides in the Kansas Civil War. It appeared in the brutal battle of the Ottoman Empire to defend the Kars Fortress, and was famous for its ferocious firepower.

Relying on the intensive firepower of 8,300 Colt repeating rifles, the Ottoman army caused serious damage to the Russian army who carried out a hand-to-hand charge in a dense formation, killing and wounding more than 26,000 Russian soldiers, shocking the world in one fell swoop.

The Expeditionary Force of the Kingdom of Tang Dynasty, which flew over the snow-capped mountains, relied on the intensive firepower of Colt repeating rifles to break through several lines of defense of the Russian Army's Sevastopol Fortress from behind, killing and wounding more than 44,000 Russian soldiers and capturing 23,100 people (

(excluding the results of the British, French and Ottoman armies), they captured the Sevastopol Fortress in one fell swoop, which had been fought for for more than ten months, and established the victory of the Crimean War.

Who could not love such an advanced rifle?

The Colt 1848 lever-action repeating rifle has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that the shooting range is relatively short. The effective range of the extended version is 320~350 yards, and the shooting accuracy is not satisfactory.

The Mini rifle equipped by the British army has a much longer range. The effective killing distance can reach about 650 to 700 yards. It is still quite lethal at 700 yards.

Fortunately, the Russian army is not equipped with advanced Mini rifles. They use old-fashioned smoothbore rifles with warheads weighing 51 grams. They have poor sealing and poor shooting accuracy. The effective killing range is only about 200 yards, and no more than 230 yards at most. The range disadvantage is obvious.

.

these years

Colt Arms Company has never stopped researching and developing. They have been developing a new bolt-action rifle for more than 4 years. After dozens of repeated improvements, the design was finally finalized and entered the rifle performance verification stage.

This bolt-action rifle is a real weapon for infantry, and it is also the painstaking work of Colt Arms Company. His Majesty the King has inspected it several times and put forward valuable suggestions for improvement.

Therefore, the Colt Arms Company unanimously decided to name the gun the 1856 King Rifle.

The 1856 King's rifle is a revolutionary standard rifle. Its technical level is approximately equal to the Mannlicher rifle that appeared more than ten years later in the original historical process and the later Mauser 1888 Committee rifle. Due to Richard's

With the golden finger enabled, I am more advanced in some parts.

For example;

What was initially developed was the Patrone 88 type 8.08mm diameter rimless bottleneck-shaped round-nose bullet using black propellant. This was also a very advanced rifle bullet.

During the inspection, His Majesty the King suddenly had a whim. He thought that pointed bullets would fly faster and have a longer range, which would also be more beneficial to shooting accuracy.

Experimental proof

The effective killing range of round-nosed bullets is about 650 meters to 700 meters, and the effective killing range of pointed bullets is 760 meters to 800 meters. After exiting the chamber, the flight is more stable and the shooting accuracy is higher.

A slight change in the shape of the bullet brought about a huge improvement in ballistic performance. The 1856 King's rifle benefited greatly from this, and the pointed rifle bullet program was finalized. This was the originator of ammunition design and would be used for the next century and a half.

No change.

The 1856 King bolt-action rifle uses a magazine and a five-round leakage clip design. Pull the bolt to eject the cartridge case, press the bullet in, and pull the bolt to fire out a bullet.

This kind of leaky clip is directly inserted into the magazine. The magazine does not have a bullet-holding port, but the bullet is fixed by the leaky clip.

During the shooting process, scattered bullets cannot be replenished into the magazine at any time. After five rounds of bullets are fired, the missing clip will fall out of the opening at the bottom of the magazine. At this time, a new magazine can be pressed in.

in the original design

The barrel of the 1856 King bolt-action rifle is wrapped with a sleeve. Its original design is to protect the barrel from external collisions to improve shooting accuracy.

In actual use, water vapor will accumulate in the gap between the sleeve and the barrel, causing the barrel to rust and the sleeve to become a burden.

This not only increases the difficulty of the manufacturing process, but also increases the burden on soldiers, and does not improve design accuracy.

During an inspection, His Majesty the King questioned this design: "How much strength do soldiers need to bend the barrel of a gun?"

After comparative experiments of two barrel designs, being buried in the soil, placed in muddy water, undergoing long-term durability shooting in severe cold and hot weather, and shooting after being dropped, the sleeve design was proved to be purely redundant.

.

Therefore, the sleeve was canceled in the final design, which simplified the production process and reduced the weight, and the actual use effect was better.

Herman Elwart, the chief designer of the 1856 King's bolt-action rifle, claimed: "I designed the prototype of a new rifle, and His Majesty the King made it a work of art, which is admirable and 50 years ahead of the times.

…”

Of course, this statement is full of praise.

"Hahaha... Mark Pierce, what is the best news you have brought us, preferably about a new rifle. We can sell this advanced King-style rifle for 50 years or even longer, which is very good."

We hope to produce 1 million. Gentlemen, we will make a fortune." Earl Colt couldn't help but laugh.

He can't contain his excitement now, but the number of 1 million is still estimated to be too small.

in the original history

The German-made Mauser 1888 Commission rifle, similar to the König rifle, produced and sold more than 2.6 million units. It could be seen in turmoil around the world and was used until the First World War.

"I am very honored to be a part of this great company and witness history with my own eyes." Mark Pierce also said with a smile on his face full of joy; "Currently, various rigorous tests have come to an end. After passing the military acceptance,

We will soon get a big order from the Kingdom."

"Production scheduling and equipment debugging also take a certain amount of time. We may not be able to export this advanced rifle for the time being before the Kingdom's military allows it, but it doesn't matter. The Kingdom's reserve order may reach 80,000 to 100,000 units, which is enough for us to

It has been in production for two years." Deputy manager Luo Zhengtang was also in high spirits.

These senior executives are all small shareholders of Colt Arms Company, with equity shares below 1%, and most of them are a few tenths of a percent.

Even though the shareholding is small, Colt Arms' huge profits allow their dividends to exceed 10,000 yuan every year.

Maintaining a decent upper-class life is not a problem, and with a high salary, he is a rich man with a generous income.

As the company's production scale expanded and its reputation grew, Colt Arms Company's employees reached 11,000, and it also had large-scale production plants in Europe, supplying weapons and equipment to European countries nearby.

According to the regulations of the Tang Kingdom, the new 1856 King-style bolt-action rifle cannot be exported for the time being, nor can it be produced in European branch factories. Priority is given to supplying the Kingdom's army.

This situation also appeared in the production process of the Storm heavy machine gun, but now the restriction has been lifted because the Maxim hand-cranked heavy machine gun also appeared in the United States.

in today's world

As long as a field weapon appears and is equipped with troops, other industrial countries in Europe will soon follow and imitate it, launching their own improved rifles.

If you don't sell or occupy this market, you are giving up the market. Some European countries are willing to sell abroad to fill this gap.

Therefore, as long as the new 1856 King-style bolt-action rifle appears on the battlefield, it will not be far from being lifted.

There is no difficulty that cannot be replicated at the industrial level of today's world.

The 1856 King's rifles imitated by European and American countries may be of inferior quality and smaller in quantity, but they are by no means impossible to produce.