I wasn’t a
complete stranger to gunpowder. I had watched as officers at the department gun
range had loaded their own shells, some of them using the old black powder for
recreational purposes. But the powder the king’s alchemist had sold me was
nowhere near as refined. There were
clumps in the mixture, and I thought the proportions might even be off.
I loaded
the musket with powder, wadding, and shot, tightly packed in. I loaded the flash
pan, cocked it, then fired. It exploded, billowed smoke, and shot the round
into the trees. It veered about thirty degrees to the right, making it a most
deadly firearm to other people, but not the intended target.
I looked at
the lead balls. They were straightforwardly round, ultimately unsuitable for
any kind of accuracy, but I might be able to design something more closely
resembling a modern bullet.
It’s just lead. If I can design the right
mold for it, I’m sure a blacksmith can cast the mold in iron.
But the
round was only one problem. A more stabilized round design was pretty easy. I
examined the barrel. It was a smooth bore.
“Okay, so I
need to figure out a way to rifle a barrel. Not like I can go down to the gun
shop and have them re-rifle it for me." And even if I could get the rifling
figured out, I was a couple of hundred years away from percussion caps, and
cartridges were completely out of the question. My maximum fire rate would be
one or two shots a minute.
I went back
into my cabin with the musket, sitting down with a piece of paper and a
charcoal stick. I had no current cases, so why not work on the most powerful
weapon in the Fairy Tale Realms?