#87 - Chapter 87 Difficulties in Bullet Production

Qin Jin left the gym.

Before long, he arrived at a warehouse in the base.

It was filled with various machines, from large, unidentifiable machine tools to small screwdrivers and wrenches.

It was clearly a place dedicated to processing and manufacturing things.

As soon as he entered.

Qin Jin saw a man standing at a steel table, tinkering with something.

"Leader Li, you said you had something to show me yesterday. I'm here now."

The man at the table was none other than Li Xu, whom he had rescued before.

Hearing the voice behind him, he turned around. Upon seeing who it was, he quickly greeted him and said:

"It's Director Qin! You're finally here. Come and take a look. This is something I just designed."

As he spoke, he led the curious Qin Jin inside.

He stopped in front of the iron table, picked up a large piece of paper, and pointed to some patterns on it, introducing them:

"These are some ideas I came up with after looking at the base's perimeter walls and the terrain."

"Look, this is the wall. I think our current wall is too simple! There are no buildings around our base. We can install this kind of thing on the ground below the wall."

As he said that, he moved the drawing closer so that Qin Jin could see it more clearly.

"On the ground, we can set up a lot of these wire + fixed pillar things. These pillars can be very firmly embedded deep into the ground. Steel wires or iron wires can be tied to them, and zombies will be intercepted immediately when they rush over!"

"One such wire rope fixed to two pillars is enough to withstand the impact of dozens of zombies in a short time!"

"This way, when a large number of zombies surround us, we can divert them instead of having them all gather under our base's walls."

"And you told me that you want to expand the base in the future, so when our people go out for construction, they can also use this method to establish a defensive circle."

"It can effectively block a wave of zombies before they rush over, because zombies have no intelligence. Setting the height of the wire can completely intercept them! At the very least, it can reduce their speed, giving our people time to react and escape."

Qin Jin nodded as he looked at the drawing in his hand and listened to his introduction.

It was indeed a good method.

This method basically has no cost or difficulty. It can be made with simple materials.

Even the existing materials in the base can be used to find the required materials.

Even if it is destroyed by zombies, it doesn't matter much. It can be replaced and used again.

It is a low-cost, high-return idea.

Qin Jin nodded in satisfaction and gently patted Li Xu's arm, expressing his approval of his method.

"Not bad, your method is good. When the materials are ready, surround our base a few times, and it can indeed strengthen our base's defense."

"But you need to refine some details, such as the height of the wire, which should be able to intercept zombies and make it convenient for our people to crawl through. It is also best to design it in a way that allows us to remotely control it on the wall, so that we can open and raise it when needed, and put the wire away when not needed to increase concealment."

"Overall, this idea is good and can be explored further."

"I'll give you more contribution points later. Work hard, haha."

He was in a great mood.

He didn't expect that the words he sent in the survival group would actually attract talent to come in.

It was not a waste of effort.

Sure enough, the role of talent can top N people.

He hoped that Li Xu could continue to create more good ideas in the future.

It was a pity that only one person came to the survival group at that time. I don't know how the others are now.

After looking at this.

Qin Jin chatted with Li Xu for a while before turning around and leaving.

In a factory building on the edge of the base.

This was originally a large warehouse. Only the framework was built before the apocalypse, and people were recently arranged to renovate it and bring in a lot of things.

Qin Jin said goodbye to Li Xu and came here.

At this time, the machines in the factory were roaring constantly, and it seemed that something was already being produced.

Several men inside were discussing intensely, and because of the noise, they did not notice Qin Jin's arrival.

It wasn't until he walked next to them and said loudly:

"Engineer Dong, how is it going on your side?"

Only then did these people realize that Director Qin of the base had arrived.

They quickly greeted him, "Oh, it's Director Qin. Sorry, we were just discussing something. It's too noisy here and we didn't notice you coming."

Yes, the people in this factory are Dong Hui, Wang Bin, and several assistants assigned to them earlier.

Since the completion of the production of explosives some time ago.

Dong Hui was asked by Qin Jin to temporarily switch to more important things.

As for more important things.

That is, of course, the manufacture of bullets.

It is also helpless to say.

Don't look at bullets as small things, but the technical content is very high.

Although Dong Hui is also a technical expert, he is in the field of chemistry.

The field across the two disciplines is too far.

After being transferred by Qin Jin to lead the production of bullets, he has not achieved very good results temporarily.

There is no shortage of materials.

There are many materials for bullets such as brass, various alloys, and gunpowder.

However, after Dong Hui led a group of people to debug and produce for several days, the bullets produced were still not ideal.

Before the apocalypse, Qin Jin had already bought the detailed production process of bullets through special channels, as well as various details and precautions, and even the ratio of gunpowder.

Bullets seem simple, but the technology and knowledge involved in the manufacturing process are very extensive.

The ratio of gunpowder must be very precise to ensure the explosive power and stability of the gunpowder.

The manufacturing process is very complicated.

Generally, it has to go through the following processes: bullet core pressing → tail cone pre-pressing → bottom crimping → tail cone forming → over diameter → rolling groove → size calibration → weighing → appearance inspection.

Finally, after all the processes are inspected and qualified, it is considered a finished bullet.

Qin Jin had purchased various small machine tools necessary for manufacturing before the apocalypse, and prepared two lines.

After the apocalypse, he asked the combat team to focus on searching for related things according to the material list.

After finding Dong Hui, he received expert-like guidance on gunpowder, and directly overcame many difficulties.

These days, they referred to the information given by Qin Jin, and bullets have been produced, but there is a problem with the yield rate.

"Director Qin, how can we debug the machine these days, and compare those defective bullets with good bullets, but we still can't improve the yield rate. I'm very sorry."

Dong Hui took the initiative to plead guilty to Director Qin.

Of course, he knew what bullets meant in the apocalypse.

So no matter what difficulties are encountered with this kind of thing, we must find a way to solve it.

Qin Jin has been following up on the production of bullets these days.

But he didn't expect that Dong Hui led a group of people who could operate machine tools to study for a few days, but still didn't find the reason for the high defect rate.

"What is the current yield rate? And is there a general direction for the problem?"

He asked the people in the factory. This matter is very important and he has been staring at it for several days.

"The current yield rate is only about 5%! Very low! That is, out of 1,000 bullets produced, only about 50 are good and can be used. The rest have more or less problems and are not recommended for use. Forcing them to be used may result in failure to fire or even a burst chamber!"

"As for the direction of the problem, we now suspect that the production accuracy of these machine tools is insufficient. It is not the problem of the machine tools themselves, but the problem of our people. We do not have enough operating procedures and operating experience for the machine tools, which leads to the failure rate not being reduced."

"The bullet is composed of four parts: cartridge case, primer, propellant, and bullet. The main thing that is stuck with us now is the bullet part. There is no problem with the assembly of the produced bullets, but the finished bullets always have errors that exceed the standard when tested. We are still trying to find out the reason!"

Qin Jin frowned slightly after hearing this.

Before the apocalypse, he had specially prepared a lot of relevant information on bullets. He thought production would not be difficult, but he didn't expect to be stuck on the defect rate.

This problem can be big or small.

Based on the two production lines specially prepared in the base for producing bullets, due to previous funding problems and other factors, only small ones were purchased.

Dong Hui and others have counted these two days.

With sufficient materials, the two lines can produce about 30 bullets per minute, 1,800 per hour, and about 43,200 per day if production is continuous for 24 hours.

But according to the current yield rate.

Only 2,160 are usable!

This is very embarrassing.

Don't look at this number as if it seems a lot, but you must know that this is the most ideal state. People always have to rest and eat, and even occasionally encounter problems such as feeding and downtime for debugging during production.

In the end, only about a thousand usable bullets can actually be produced in a day.

This is far from the imagined goal.

(End of this chapter)