Chapter Three Hundred and Seventy: Shooting Training

Bai Yu’s plan was to use a 9mm caliber. The reason for adopting this caliber was first, that it did not require the use of the inch system, and the caliber was determined by simply taking an integer. Second, at this stage, 9mm could balance power and manufacturing difficulty. Finally, it was to consider future modification potential.

“Although we can’t make metal casings yet, I suggest that the pistol’s chamber be designed according to the dimensions of the 9mm Parabellum pistol cartridge, so that we can directly switch to this type of bullet in the future.”

Another idea to simplify the process was to cancel the rifling—some people held this view. Since the new pistol was just a simple self-defense weapon for the natives and the performance requirements were not high, they could simply save the process of drawing rifling by canceling it.

“This won’t do,” Li Yi’ao strongly objected. “Canceling the rifling will have too great an impact on the gun’s performance!”

Without rifling, the range and accuracy of the pistol would decrease too much. Most people opposed this simplification—processing rifling was not a very difficult matter for the Transmigrator Group, and they had already manufactured special equipment for drawing rifling. It was just a matter of changing the cutter head.

“This is not a good continuation!” Bai Yu firmly objected. If a smoothbore was used, there would be no need for the 9mm Para cartridge dimensions.

The final plan retained the rifling. The cylinder was a fixed type that could not be swung out, and the cylinder capacity was six rounds. The barrel length was 105mm, which was roughly equivalent to a 4-inch barrel. If needed, a 50mm or 155mm barrel could also be used to meet different needs. For the ammunition, Li Yi’ao tried a simple fixed-charge cartridge. He combined a Minie bullet, black powder, and a percussion cap, and put them into a standard hard paper cartridge. After assembly, it was sealed with paraffin wax to become a complete cartridge, which could be fully loaded into the magazine.

Such ammunition was difficult for the natives to imitate in this time and space. The reason why Li Yi’ao strongly opposed the smoothbore structure was that a smoothbore could use the simplest black powder + round lead ball, which was easy to imitate, but the natives could not manufacture the percussion cap.

The disadvantage, of course, was the same as all weapons with paper cartridges. After a few shots, the magazine and barrel would become very dirty and must be cleaned at all times, which required a high level of maintenance awareness from the owner.

The first pistol was handmade by Li Yi’ao. He blued the pistol to extend its service life, and then tested it. It was proved that the power of this makeshift version of the revolver was satisfactory: the bullet could penetrate iron armor from 20 meters away, and still had a certain lethality at 50 meters away, and the accuracy was also passable.

This pistol was quickly finalized, with the official model being the 1630 model, or “30 model” for short. The Planning院 (Yuan) then approved the pistol for small-scale mass production. The first batch of 30 models was distributed to the National Police and the General Political Security Bureau, and the students would also be practicing with this pistol.

When the box containing the pistols was brought before the students and opened, it immediately caused a commotion—the dark blue gun body shimmered in the sunlight.

“This is a six-star repeating handgun!” someone shouted.

“You guys are such amateurs, it’s called a revolver!” someone who knew better immediately corrected the traditional name with “Newspeak.”

“I heard that this gun can fire continuously, how amazing!”

Most of a student knew that this was a weapon exclusive to the Australians. Some Australian chiefs always had this “revolver” hanging on them.

“From today on, you will learn how to use this weapon,” Xue Ziliang announced. Then he introduced the red-haired woman next to him, “This is Salina.”

There were many professional and amateur experts in weapons shooting in the Transmigrator Group, but Zhao Manxiong did not need shooting competition contestants. He wanted people who could correctly use pistols in law enforcement or covert operations, and in this respect, no one was more professional than the two ATF agents.

“The three rules of using a gun,” Xue Ziliang said to the students word by word, “Never point the muzzle at people! Do not use a gun to joke! When holding a gun, do not put your finger on the trigger! Whoever violates any of these rules will be kicked out immediately!”

This was what Xue Ziliang hated the most. When he was teaching the transmigrator members, many people pointed their pistols at each other, which gave Xue Ziliang a cold sweat—because many people were also habitually “golden fingers.”

There were not many pistols, so the student teams took turns practicing. The weapons design group and the Planning院 (Yuan) were eager to know the performance of the guns, so they generously provided a large number of paper-cased cartridges. For a time, the shooting range was filled with the sound of gunfire and smoke. The students were full of curiosity about this new toy in their hands. This thing was really easy to use. A single shot could kill someone, and it could fire continuously. It should be known that even the famous long guns used by the brothers in the army could not do this!

But it was not easy to use it accurately. The recoil of the revolver was very large, which required the shooter to have arm strength and shooting skills. Xue Ziliang knew from the shooting training class he had opened for the elders in the previous stage that even most of the so-called “elders” from the 21st century knew nothing about pistol shooting, not even the correct posture for holding a gun, let alone this group of natives.

Xue Ziliang started by teaching how to hold the gun correctly, and then taught them the correct way to hold the gun.

After the pistols had been used continuously for a week, Li Yi’ao personally came to measure this batch of pistols that had fired about a hundred rounds. Except for a slight expansion of the barrel, everything was normal, and the wear of the rifling was far less than expected—probably because of the use of pure lead bullets.

The guns were wiped clean and well-maintained, which was of course the result of Xue Ziliang’s constant roaring and fisticuffs.

“This bunch of kids don’t even have the habit of cleaning their guns,” Xue Ziliang said. “They just want to drop them and run after shooting. I taught them how to disassemble and clean the guns for nothing.”

“If the quality of the steel were better, the life of the barrel could be even better,” Li Yi’ao said with some regret as he put down the vernier caliper. “We could use forging to make the barrels instead of making do with seamless steel pipes.”

“I think it’s enough. What’s the life of the barrel?”

“The original plan was 100 rounds. Now it seems that 200 rounds is not a big problem, but the accuracy will continue to decline.”

“Actually, accuracy doesn’t matter. It’s just to make a sound and give them some courage.” When Xue Ziliang was teaching them basic pistol tactics, he found that the native students often fired meaninglessly during “running” shooting training, for the purpose of boosting their courage or demonstrating their power, rather than for shooting at the target—this was quite similar to the random shooting on the streets of war-torn areas in Africa. Xue Ziliang realized that he first had to break this habit before he could talk about modern shooting techniques.

It was the fifth day before the girls’ team got their turn for the shooting course. The used pistols had been carefully wiped clean.

“This is a precious weapon, made with the most advanced technology by the chiefs. You must practice hard and make yourselves worthy of this weapon!” He Chun shouted loudly.

The women looked at this dark blue killing machine, and their hands and feet were trembling a little. They had already heard the gunshots from the other student teams’ shooting. Some of them didn’t even dare to set off firecrackers during festivals, and now they had to use a pistol! Not to mention that the person teaching them how to use a gun was a red-haired woman.

Salina was in charge of the explanation. She had recently been fully nourished by Xue Ziliang, not only was she radiant, but her mood was also much happier. She was very enthusiastic about teaching the students—Americans essentially like to interact with people. And the more primitive the people they interact with, the more willing they are. Salina was no exception.

Someone submitted a piece of material to Zhao Manxiong, reporting that Salina had once said to Xue Ziliang that training the natives was like “training the police for a third-world country in black Africa.”

After repeating Xue Ziliang’s three basic rules, Salina began to demonstrate how to disassemble the pistol. The revolver had few parts, and it was relatively quick to disassemble and assemble, which was very suitable for the natives who were completely ignorant of machinery.

After they could completely master the disassembly and assembly of the pistol, Salina first gave a demonstration shooting. The roar and white smoke that erupted when the pistol was fired made the female students a little scared.

“Okay, you can go and look at the target.”

A hole had been shot through the iron armor that served as a target 20 meters away. Not only that, but the hardwood table used to support the iron armor was also shot with a hole.

This demonstration was mainly to give the students confidence in the weapons in their hands, and to inspire the law enforcement officers carrying weapons to have contempt and a sense of superiority over hostile elements.

“So powerful!” the female students were amazed. They knew very well that with this thing, no matter how strong a man was, he could not withstand this shot.

“Now let’s learn how to hold a gun.” She nimbly drew her pistol from her waist, pointed it at the target, and fired once. Then she returned the pistol to its position, then drew it again, fired, and returned it again. She did this three times in a row, at an unparalleled speed.

The three shots, as fast as lightning, were so shocking that the girls’ screams were interrupted. What surprised them even more was that all the bullets had penetrated the chest of the iron armor.

“As long as you practice hard, you can shoot like me,” Salina began to teach how to hold a gun:

Hold the barrel with your left hand, push the grip into the center of the tiger’s mouth of your right hand holding the gun, find a comfortable position with your palm, and then grip it tightly. The grip of this 30-revolver was of high quality. Not only was the shape completely in line with the size of a Chinese person’s palm, but it also had special anti-slip patterns.

“You must grip it very hard, but it must feel comfortable!” Salina looked at the female students who were holding the guns with all their might. “Grip it until your hand trembles a little, then loosen it a little! The wrist must be tense.”

Salina checked each person’s grip one by one. For those who held the gun loosely, she would unceremoniously help them grip it tightly. No one expected this red-haired woman to be so strong. Lu Cheng felt that her hand was about to be crushed between her iron palm and the gun grip, and she couldn’t help but cry out.