Chapter 293: The Birth of Tungsten
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Inside the machinery department, Song Changping sat with his artillery production team.
After reorganizing the teams, Song Changping had kept only his original artillery crew.
Standing before the blackboard, Xiao Ming began sketching the structure of the flintlock musket.
Both matchlocks and flintlocks were smoothbore firearms—the only difference was how the gunpowder was ignited.
Matchlocks were simple, operating similarly to cannons. Once you had a barrel, it wasn’t difficult for Song Changping and the others to replicate the design.
But for Xiao Ming, producing matchlocks was pointless. In the field, matchlocks were unreliable against cavalry. With a firing rate of two shots every three minutes, just like the “three-barreled bird guns” of the late Ming, soldiers would barely fire twice before being forced into melee. Worse, if the match cord went out, a matchlock was no better than a stick.
Flintlocks, however, avoided the problem of extinguished matches. They were far more stable. That’s why flintlocks quickly replaced matchlocks historically.
“Overall, the external structure of a flintlock mechanism includes the hammer, main spring, frizzen spring, and pan,” Xiao Ming explained.
“The hammer holds the flint. The main spring powers the hammer. The frizzen spring supports the steel frizzen that the flint strikes. The pan holds a small amount of priming powder.”
“Internally, you have the trigger, sear, tumbler, bridle, and sear spring. The trigger activates the mechanism. The tumbler controls the main spring’s energy. The sear locks and releases the tumbler. The bridle fixes the parts in place, and the sear spring keeps the sear pressed into position.”
“Basically, when you pull the trigger, the sear releases the tumbler, allowing the hammer to strike the frizzen and produce sparks, igniting the powder.”