Translator: Cinder Translations
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"Lord Grayman, what weapon have you prepared?"
The captain of the guards, Victor, asked curiously.
"Ha ha, let me show you. This is our military department's latest product!"
Paul proudly took down a long-barreled gun from his horse and tossed it to Victor.
Victor caught the gun and inspected it from all angles, looking puzzled. "It seems no different from those I usually handle. Can you tell me what the difference is?"
Paul shook his finger and smiled, "No different? No, no, the difference is not in the appearance but inside."
"Inside?"
"Look closely at the inside of the barrel."
"Is that so?" At Paul's prompting, Victor turned the gun around and brought his eyes close to the muzzle. Thanks to the sunlight shining inside, he finally saw the mystery within.
There were spiral grooves along the inner wall of the barrel. Upon closer inspection, he realized that these grooves were actually carved into the interior of the barrel.
He asked, "Lord Grayman, are these spiral grooves what you call the difference?"
Paul nodded, "Yes, to be precise, those grooves are called rifling—where the raised parts are the lands and the recessed parts are the grooves. So, this gun should be called a rifled gun, while the earlier guns, whether they were the early matchlocks or the later flintlocks, had smooth bores, so they should be referred to as smoothbore guns."
"Smoothbore guns? Rifled guns? You've named them very aptly."
Victor marveled. "But just adding a few grooves, what difference does that make? What advantages does it have over the old smoothbore guns?"
"The advantages are enormous."
Paul said happily, "When the gunpowder burns, it compresses the bullet, forcing it to deform and embed into the grooves. Then the spiral grooves can make the bullet rotate in the barrel, maintaining that orientation as it exits the barrel, spinning towards the target. According to the craftsmen's tests, bullets fired in this rotating manner have a more stable trajectory—meaning their flight path through the air is much better than that of bullets fired from smoothbore guns, flying further and hitting the target more easily. Oh, Victor, you must know how terrible the accuracy of smoothbore guns is at 100 yards?"
"Hmm, is it really that bad? I didn't think so."
Hearing Paul complain about smoothbore guns, Victor scratched his head in confusion.
Paul was speechless; he suddenly remembered that Victor and the others had never seen a rifled gun before. Their point of comparison was the older bows and arrows, and regular bows had an even worse accuracy than smoothbore guns—after all, the structure of the smoothbore gun Paul initially designed was already quite advanced. He certainly couldn't give the craftsmen an inferior primitive firearm to improve upon!
"Ahem! In any case, this rifled gun in your hands can maintain a high accuracy at 200 yards, and in good weather, it can hit targets even at 300 yards. If we were using smoothbore guns, hitting an enemy at 200 yards would be nothing short of divine intervention."
In fact, with the rifled gun, sniping on the battlefield would become a possibility. During the American Revolutionary War, Americans could accurately shoot British commanders 200 yards away using the Kentucky rifle, which had simple rifling, and in the 1777 Battle of Saratoga, American rifleman Murphy even used a rifled gun to kill British commander Simon Fraser from 300 yards away, forcing the disordered British troops to surrender.
"Is it really that powerful?"
Victor examined the gun in disbelief, as if it had some incredible magic.
Even Ladia Setia, who had been silent since they set off, couldn't help but stare curiously at the rifled gun.
"Lord Grayman, if our Alden army were to switch to this rifled gun, wouldn't that make us invincible?"
Victor said excitedly, picturing the Alden army wielding rifled guns as they devastated their enemies—where the opposing forces wouldn't even see what their soldiers looked like before falling in rows.
"Not that simple." Paul dampened his enthusiasm. "Rifling is quite a troublesome task—at least for now. This gun's rifling was painstakingly crafted by the craftsmen; it's the first functional rifled gun. They've barely gotten used to it, and I'm already taking it to the hunting grounds."
"And operating a rifled gun is more complicated than a smoothbore gun. Although it's very accurate, it's slower to load. The projectile for a smoothbore gun is slightly smaller than the bore, so it can be easily stuffed in from the front. But not for the rifled gun; its projectile must be slightly larger than the land diameter, and then it has to be forcibly pushed in, making loading very labor-intensive. The loading efficiency is naturally not ideal."
Hearing Paul explain this, Victor looked at the gun in his hand with some regret and sighed, "It really is true that one must gain something to lose something."
"However, I believe there will eventually come a day when they are widely equipped."
Paul said confidently, "The work of rifling will eventually be replaced by machines. As for loading bullets, what do you think about loading from the back of the barrel?"
"Loading from the back?" Victor was astonished by Paul's brilliant idea, then suddenly realized, "Oh right! Loading from the muzzle requires a rod to push the bullet all the way in. Loading directly from the back of the barrel would be much easier! Oh, my lord Grayman, your great wisdom continually makes me feel so small."
Victor's flattery didn't make Paul blush; he had long since become accustomed to it.
"Ha ha, it's not that simple. If you load from the back, the back of the barrel has to be able to open. The gas from the burning gunpowder would leak out through the gap, resulting in much less gas to propel the projectile forward, and the bullet wouldn't travel far."
Besides leaking gas, there also seems to need to be a cap; in any case, there's still a long way to go.
"Lord Grayman, your comprehensive considerations make me feel ashamed once again."
Victor promptly paid another compliment and then hesitated, saying, "Lord Grayman, once we reach Sir Ferguson's hunting grounds, could you… could you also let me test this so-called rifled gun?"
With a grand gesture, Paul generously replied, "Of course! Who are you? My captain of the guards! Since you've asked, how could I refuse to let you use it?"
Victor was very pleased and thanked him repeatedly.
Paul took the rifled gun back from Victor and hung it back on his horse.
His mind couldn't help but start to envision scenes where he would shoot accurately in the hunting grounds, earning cheers from everyone.
(End of the Chapter)
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Translated 4 Series, 1.65K+ Chapters and 2.01M+ Words.