Chapter 19 019 Handmade Breech-Loading Rifle Gun

Chapter 19 019 Handcrafted Breech-Loading Rifle

In fact, Solovyov still faced many problems when producing rifles. He himself had little experience in processing operations. He was more focused on translating some reliable content and then improving it. Even whether it could be connected with the things he had considered was a serious problem.

Therefore, he still needs suitable craftsmen to assist him in completing these designs. However, with the current processing level, if he wants to make a gun according to his design ideas, it must be purely handmade, and this gun must also be equipped with exclusive bullets.

Such a rifle was a cross-era or even super-era product in 1797. The Russian-made Russian thread, each Russian thread is equivalent to 0.1 inches, and the caliber of the Russian army's standard rifle is in the range of 7 Russian threads and 8 Russian threads, which is a relatively standard flintlock caliber. What needs to be taken into consideration is the production capacity outside the Tula Arsenal, which is difficult to describe in a few words.

He still considered looking for a professional craftsman, but in St. Petersburg, it was not easy to find a gunsmith who could make rifling. In particular, the rifling had to meet Solovyov's standards. It was not enough to just consider manual production, but also to prepare water-grinding power or steam power. Otherwise, the boring machine would not be able to pass the processing.

The efficiency of rifling is not high, and it also produces a lot of waste. In this era of low quality gun barrels, some gun barrels may even be made of iron, which is scary to think about. In addition, processing rifling is hard work. The scrap rate of simply making a smoothbore gun is not that high, but when it comes to rifled guns, there are too many failures.

Solovyov was always troubled. The processing of the pistol, a boring machine, can quickly get a 7-Russian barrel. After the modification, even if the airtightness is poor, such a black powder revolver can still guarantee relatively reliable performance and can be fired quickly. Accuracy is a secondary issue. The key is to ensure the continuity of firepower. In close-range firefights, many times you have to shoot at a distance that blurs your face. In this era of "line-up shooting" of infantry, it is always like this.

Processing failures are also common, and Solovyov actually knows that his family is not that well-off. The materials for manufacturing the new gun this time were entirely funded by the ironworks of the Yakovlev family, a Russian industrial aristocratic family. If the two major projects cannot be completed before the materials are exhausted, there will be no loss, but since this was introduced through the Dolgorukov brothers, the face of these two young masters will often be used in the future.

Their situations are particularly special. They are close confidants of Crown Prince Alexander when he becomes the Tsar in the future. If they want to move up in Russia, some friends are still very important. If it is simply "my best friend", it only means that the relationship is relatively close. If it is "my best friend is very capable", it can also show his ability.

Fortunately, there were no abacus in St. Petersburg, otherwise the sound of his abacus beads colliding could be heard all over Siberia.

Moreover, the time for the recruitment was limited, so he carried a ready-made pistol with him, ready to go to the woods for target practice.

The Danish gunsmith who was invited was actually somewhat dissatisfied with Solovyov's approach. Given the scrap rate, it would be better to directly copy the French rifles.

If you know the history of the Tula Arsenal, you should know that this is what they did in the end, but Solovyov still wanted to stand out. You know, with his family's little property, just being a landlord, and his father's expenses, if he had a few more sons, he would soon become a pauper. If he had a daughter, it might be difficult to even get a dowry.

Time travel or reincarnation are both metaphysical technical jobs. It seems that his family is well off, but the property of the four Solovyov brothers has been greatly diluted by now. What's more, their family has only inherited some estates in the country. With this little income, if they don't manage it well, they will go bankrupt soon.

In fact, his motivation was not to make a big news and vent his anger on the Corsicans like some people did, but he wanted to make money and accumulate some wealth, at least not to ruin himself.

Speaking of the Corsicans, General Bonaparte has already defeated Austria and become famous. The Austrian army is good at giving away lives, just like the Calabash Brothers saving their grandfather. They sent out a group of old men, but they all failed in the end. However, the Austrian army's combat effectiveness is still good at this time, and they are not vulnerable opponents. Don't be confused by General Napoleon Bonaparte's battle reports. If every battle of his is really the same as his reports, it is unlikely. After all, he can always win on the battlefield.

Now, Solovyov was in the woods, shooting at an iron target. The sound of continuous shooting, accompanied by the white smoke of burning black powder, blocked some of his vision, but the sound of lead bullets hitting the iron plate was still very crisp. He heard it very clearly. Such shooting accuracy was enough in actual combat. As long as the shooter was not too bad, he could always use it well.

If people were allowed to choose their own weapons in a duel, the number of people dying together in duels would probably increase dramatically. However, this would not affect the enthusiasm of gentlemen for duels. Dueling was still very popular around 1800, as it was a matter of honor.

The pistols were fine, but there was so much waste from the processing of the rifles that the hired Danish gunsmith himself began to doubt: "Der m vre noget galt med rvarerne!" (There must be something wrong with the raw materials!)

Although there are some things that should not be said, in 1704 during the reign of Peter the Great, when the Alapayevsk Metallurgical Plant had not yet been owned by the Yakovlev family, their experience in making artillery was very unsuccessful, and later it became a private enterprise. Before Izhevsk was destroyed by Pugachev, it was transformed from private to state-owned.

Sometimes, it just makes people feel abstract.

But there must be no problem with the supply of raw materials, and this involves weapons to be presented to the Tsar. Obviously, the Yakovlev family will not neglect such a prominent job.

In short, with the consumption of raw materials and a lot of them, as Solovyov expected, a 7-caliber rifle was completed, and the Danish gunsmith also struck while the iron was hot and completed the production of the second rifle, which was considered to be the fulfillment of his design. This also made Solovyov firm in his belief that it would be faster to modify a finished rifle than to make a new rifle in such a thankless and laborious way!
However, this approach can also bring a benefit, that is, in the production process, it can abandon the processes that are not needed now, but it is also necessary to make technical reserves. Technologies that are useless today or even hindering progress may not necessarily fail in the future as technology advances.

As for the second option, it is actually what we have considered before, which is to modify the existing rifled rifles. However, this is limited by the quality of the original rifles. If you really want to make it, you have to take into account the catastrophic tolerances. Especially in Russia during the Tsarist period, this standard is indeed difficult to determine. Even the flintlocks and rifled rifles used by the Russian army themselves have extremely complicated sources.

During the reign of Empress Catherine II, she was quite indulgent towards the nobles, so that although the Russian Empire won victory after victory and its territory continued to expand, the increase in territory and wealth seemed to be often used for squandering or building magnificent churches, just like Spain, which was far away and had huge wealth. You have to know that the Slavs converted to Orthodoxy because they disliked the other religions that were not as shocking and luxurious. The Orthodox Church relied on Constantinople at the time, and the ceremonies of the Eastern Roman Empire were still very solemn.

In terms of industrial investment, more investment is made in mining. Count Bobulinsky has a coal mine near his estate. In today's Russia, it is "heavy industry" and agriculture, and these serf owners cannot handle it well. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, they had already fallen behind by a large margin. The current processing level is also quite difficult.

If Tsar Paul wanted to implement a new policy, it would be quite difficult. On the contrary, the resistance to reform in the military was not so great. The old men from the era of Catherine II, headed by Suvorov, said that the emperor was not good, but when they were asked to go home and retire, they actually had no complaints. The ones who were looking for trouble were some young officers, and the rapid promotion of some people actually weakened this kind of influence, and the process was relatively smooth.

The deadline for submitting the proposal that Solovyov was waiting for was actually still some distance away. Since the two rifles had been completed, compared with those Russian rifles with quite large tolerances, the deviation was relatively small. The Danish gunsmith he invited, at least when Peter Dolgorukov told him, said that if the matter was successful, he could be hired to the arsenal in Izhevsk or Tula. This was quite tempting for craftsmen from some small European countries.

Solovyov stayed at a farm in the suburbs of Petersburg all summer. He was not interested in social activities. Mrs. Lebrun and her daughter were promoting the established brand of cosmetic pencils. Julie was actually one year older than Solovyov, but the French girl was very lively and would automatically reduce her age. She looked young and energetic. Her mother was a great painter and often had to take on various portrait and theme painting orders. She did not have much time to communicate with clients outside Petersburg or even nearby. As for business matters, she often asked her daughter to write for her.

However, when this girl wrote letters, she always included some of her recent experiences in St. Petersburg. After all, she always regarded Solovyov as a friend, and even talked about some of her personal opinions, asking him to keep it secret from her mother.

Madame Le Brun had always wanted to arrange a good marriage for her daughter. She was a court painter, and this status actually meant that she was a servant of the monarch. No matter how charming and radiant Julie was, she was only the daughter of a painter after all, and it would be more appropriate for her to marry a young man from a commoner family of equal status.

Madame Le Brun wanted her to marry a promising young painter, although he was a few years older. Solovyov had heard from her before that the painter, Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, was not in St. Petersburg, and judging from his future achievements, he was actually a good match.

Here, Solovyov received a letter from Julie, which mentioned that Gatan Bertrand Nigris, secretary of the director of the Petersburg Theater, was very knowledgeable about art and encouraged her to create.
Solovyov was not good at anything else. From what she read, it was clear that Julie did not realize what kind of person he was. She had heard about the chaotic relationships in the theater in the peasant theater in the countryside.

He thought he should find out more about this man. After all, when he was in Moscow and the country estate, his superior and benefactor, Prince Dmitri Volkonsky, had told the young adjutant some of the rules of the upper class in Petersburg and Moscow.

The prince gave him advice in his spare time because he was down-to-earth, not a "traditional adjutant" who flattered others, was good at business, and was quite smart. The old man still sneered at things in the theater, especially the young officers in Petersburg, who were sometimes outrageous and always harassed the actresses. Fortunately, his beloved nephew was not one of them.

However, he was not in a position to tell Julie, perhaps because of the lack of fatherly love. Mr. Le Brun was in Paris and was even imprisoned in 1793. Being from an artistic family serving the French court did not bring him any benefits. Instead, it brought him disasters repeatedly before 1795 and made him lose his place in the family.

Solovyov also knew that as an adjutant and staff officer, it was important to collect and organize intelligence.

He soon began to investigate the secretary of the director of the Imperial Theater and learned that Mr. Gatan Bertrand Nigris was a Venetian and his father had served as the secretary of the Venetian ambassador. He did not know much about the specific situation, but an Italian in his thirties facing a 17-year-old French girl who was just beginning to fall in love, this matter did not sound right.

Solovyov probably still thinks in terms of his former self before being hit by a brick or a flower pot. Although Julie treats him as a brother, his mental state is like that of Julie's uncle.
Julie would continue to write to him, talking about not only correspondence with Solovyov on behalf of her mother, but also some of her personal plans for the future.

Under such circumstances, Solovyov also roughly figured out the context. The secretary of the Imperial Director seemed to be pursuing her, but he had no chance of succeeding yet. From the cause, it was probably something that happened when the ladies of the Saltykov family took Mrs. Lebrun and Julie to the theater. The more troublesome part was that Julie asked the "Michael brothers" to keep the secret for her and not let outsiders know.

The rifle will be completed and when the time is right, it will be taken to St. Petersburg and presented to Tsar Paul. Then Solovyov will go and talk to Julie.

(End of this chapter)