879: Chapter 869: Unique Weapon 879: Chapter 869: Unique Weapon The blockade line was easily breached—it really couldn’t even be called a blockade line, just eight ships strung out on the water intercepting briefly.
If the ships’ firepower had still been operational, they would’ve posed a significant threat to any small boats trying to pass between them.
But once their firepower was knocked out, it was easy to get through.
Gao Yang’s boat passed through between two timber carrying ships spaced over two hundred meters apart.
At this moment, the happiest person was the captain.
Initially, he was scared, but within a few minutes, he had ten thousand US dollars securely in his pocket—which naturally made him very happy.
Remaining alert and watching the timber ships receding into the distance and not having to worry about them catching up, Gao Yang put away his rifle, blew a whistle, and said, “Job done.”
Big Beard retracted his machine gun and extended his hand to Tommy, who had been his assistant gunner, saying, “Thanks for your help, we worked well together.”
Tommy shook hands with Big Beard and laughed, “You shot well.”
Big Beard glanced at Glolov, then shook his head despondently and said, “Buddy, I believe you’re not mocking me, but if you say I shot well, then I need to redefine ‘well.’ Compared to him, I feel like it was my first time holding a gun.”
Watching Glolov who Big Beard pointed out, Tommy laughed, “Don’t compare yourself to him.
Honestly, your shooting was quite good, both in terms of suppression and lethality.”
Big Beard shook his head and said, “The guy could suppress a heavy machine gun outside of shooting range without a test fire, and I dare not even think about it.
Let’s not talk about it anymore.
From now on, I will never again call myself a good machine gunner.”
Machine gunners focus on fellow machine gunners; marksman or snipers would definitely focus on colleagues as well.
Big Beard was hit hard by Glolov, while Snake-Eating Mongoose was utterly devoted to Gao Yang.
Walking past Cui Bo and Glolov, Snake-Eating Mongoose approached Gao Yang, glanced at the Blade of Satan in Gao’s hand, and asked with a mix of curiosity and puzzlement, “Custom-made?”
“Yes, tailor-made.”
“The bullets as well?
Are they hand-loaded?”
Gao Yang smiled and said, “No, they’re a new kind of bullet — long-range high-speed — unavailable on the market.
Initially developed for the civilian market, they just scored a U.S.
Army contract, which is why civilians can’t buy them anymore.
Besides being expensive, these bullets have no other drawbacks.”
Snake-Eating Mongoose, full of envy, wanted to have a look at Gao Yang’s gun and also wanted to know what kind of bullets Gao used, but these details are typically kept confidential by mercenaries, making it awkward for him to ask.
Gao Yang knew what Snake-Eating Mongoose was thinking, so he smiled, took out a magazine, pushed a bullet out of it, and handed it to Snake-Eating Mongoose, saying, “Here, have a look.”
After thanking him repeatedly, Snake-Eating Mongoose, holding the bullet from Gao Yang, said, “This is a NATO-spec bullet.
I see your rifle barrel is longer.
Does it need to be paired with your gun to fully utilize the potential of this kind of bullet?”
The insider knows the ropes.
Gao Yang’s Blade of Satan had a barrel an inch longer than the typical M14 family of rifles.
This extra inch, though slightly inconvenient to carry, allowed the full potential of this long-range high-speed bullet to be realized.
Cui Bo used the same bullets as Gao Yang, but his rifle barrel was shorter.
Although using the same bullets, his rifle couldn’t reach 1,300 meters, but it increased the accurate range from 600 meters to just over 800 meters.
Of course, for a gun without the major modification of an extended barrel, an increase of over 200 meters in effective and accurate range was already quite impressive.
Upon hearing Snake-Eating Mongoose’s question, Cui Bo laughed, “Good to know.
Don’t think just changing bullets will make you shoot like him.
His gun is one of a kind in this world, unless you start your own steel mill.
But you could try to find these bullets to buy—it might improve your range by a hundred meters.”
Snake-Eating Mongoose hesitated a bit, then said to Gao Yang, “These bullets, really hard to buy?”
Gao Yang shrugged and replied, “Very hard to buy.
When these bullets were first introduced in the civilian market, they were easier to get.
But now, even the military orders aren’t enough, so it’s no longer just a matter of money.”
Not willing to give up, Snake-Eating Mongoose clutched the bullet Gao Yang had given him and said solemnly, “Could you sell me some?
Any price will do.”
Gao Yang shook his head and said, “Buddy, these bullets have gone up to one hundred dollars each, and you can’t even buy them.”
Snake-Eating Mongoose gasped sharply.
Bullets costing one hundred dollars each really weren’t affordable for many people.
In any case, Gao Yang only used them when targeting long distances.
As for closer targets, of course, he used regular bullets.
Ordinary military bullets were dirt cheap, and even the better ones on the civilian market were deadly expensive at just one dollar each.
The same bullets were much cheaper when purchased by the military—a dollar could buy several, and even bullets used for precision shooting were considered very expensive at a few dollars each, and by no means would reach ten dollars.
For bullets, as long as they were mass-produced, except for the raw materials, other parts were not worth much.
Copper bullets were expensive, iron bullets cheap.
During the Soviet era, the steel-cased military surplus bullets had been sold in bulk by Russian arms dealers for as high as ten dollars per box of one thousand.
As long as there were raw materials, ordinary bullets could be produced in hundreds of thousands within a day on an assembly line, but high-quality bullets used for precision shooting were a different story.
The processing difficulty was immense, and if mass production was attempted on an assembly line, just the equipment and precision requirements would be at least two grades higher than those of regular bullet production lines.
To make a simple comparison, a production line for ordinary bullets could be secured for one million US dollars, whereas a production line for high-precision bullets would cost ten million dollars.
This was akin to the difference between a conventional lathe and a CNC lathe in mechanical machining.
If even higher precision was required, one had to rely on manual labor.
Even the most precise machines had errors, so most skilled marksmen had to resort to hand-loading in the end.
The bullets that Gao Yang used were still in too small demand because there were too few marksmen who could utilize their performance.
Ordinary soldiers in the military market didn’t need, nor encounter them.
Snipers, who reached maximum distances of seven to eight hundred meters, were already at their limits, and the precision of ordinary bullets was adequate.
For super-snipers shooting over a thousand meters with medium-caliber rifles, there were only a handful worldwide.
Moreover, beyond a thousand meters, it was entirely feasible to use large-caliber rifles.
In the civilian market, only a very small number of people were willing to spend a lot of money on such bullets.
Production of hundreds of thousands of these bullets could saturate that market for many years.
Many developments ultimately do not go into mass production because their cost-effectiveness is too low; it isn’t worth pouring substantial capital into a very niche top-end market.
An example is the Blade of Satan gun barrel steel used by Gao Yang; building and maintaining a costly production line for just hundreds or thousands of barrels isn’t worth it.
Thus, the bullets used by Gao Yang were produced with high-precision machined bullet heads and casings along with demanding gunpowder specifications.
They were hand-loaded by experienced factory workers with a very high rejection rate of defective products, which allowed maintaining a production line for these super bullets.
All these processes and materials had to be kept confidential, preventing other factories from subcontracting to increase production capacity; hence, it was not surprising that output was low.
Especially since the U.S.
Army had decided to procure these bullets, all productive capacities were insufficient for even the U.S.
Army’s needs, naturally sidelining the civilian market.
Taking advantage of Jack’s timely information, Gao Yang managed to get his hands on a batch of these bullets early.
With each shot diminishing his inventory, he would certainly not contemplate selling them, hence he simply smiled and remained silent, not engaging in discussion with Snake-Eating Mongoose.
Seeing Gao Yang’s expression, Snake-Eating Mongoose sighed and said with resignation, “Alright, I should give up.
I don’t really need them anyway.
My rifle doesn’t much help with targets beyond eight hundred meters, especially since I can use a large-caliber rifle.”
Cui Bo laughed and said, “Smart move.
Why bother with 7.62 Mi bullets for targets a thousand meters away when we can just use 12.7 Mi?”
Snake-Eating Mongoose shrugged and said, “I can’t manage it.”
Cui Bo shook his head and replied, “Why even say it?
I, of course, knew you couldn’t do it.
Neither can I.”
Looking at the bullet in his hand, Snake-Eating Mongoose shook his head and sighed, “I’d better give this back to you.
I was thinking of firing a few just to get a feel for them, but I’d better not.
It’s too precious.
I should return it to you.”
Gao Yang didn’t mind giving Snake-Eating Mongoose several dozen bullets, having just made thirty million from him.
Giving away a few thousand was trivial.
However, without knowing the ballistic tables, dozens of bullets would be meaningless.
Firing them all wouldn’t be enough to sort out a complete ballistic table.
Warfare was all about burning money, and this saying was utterly true.
Together, Gao Yang and Jack had fired nearly two thousand bullets just to figure out a detailed and accurate ballistic table.
And since Gao Yang’s rifle was unique, switching to a gun with different barrel length meant the data he compiled would be useless.
Therefore, Cui Bo’s gun still lacked a full-range ballistic table.
To obtain a ballistic table, he would either find one for long-range high-speed bullets shot with SCAR-H, use a gun with the same specifications as Gao Yang’s, or compile the data himself.
National development of military bullets starts with the argumentation phase requiring many people to experiment together.
A few hundred thousand bullets for testing is just the starting number; once finalized, they would need to be used for at least several decades.
Therefore, bullets are more important than guns; bullets aren’t made for a particular gun, but guns are tailored around mass-produced bullets.
The military of a major power might frequently change its guns, but not its bullets, because changing bullets would be a major undertaking.
And for a niche bullet developed by civilian ammunition manufacturers, the factory will provide basic ballistic data, but the problem is Gao Yang was using an extremely personalized rifle, meaning he had to conduct his experiments.
He used two thousand bullets to compile a ballistic chart that only he could use, costing two hundred thousand US dollars.
This is the price to pay as a pioneer starting from scratch to familiarize oneself with a new type of bullet.
Sniping isn’t just about having a sniper rifle; if one can’t memorize the ballistic table, a sniper rifle is far less effective than an assault rifle.
Hence, someone who’s never handled a sniper rifle might manage fine within the bullet’s flat trajectory range and the correct zero distance for their scope.
However, claims of hitting every target at longer ranges with one shot are utterly ridiculous.
(To be continued.
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