After the guards left, Luo Chong returned to the weapons rack in the study, picked up a rifle, and began playing with it in his hands.
This rifle had been custom-made for him by the Comprehensive Research Institute. All its metal components were silver-gray, and it was made of white oak. The entire rifle was very light in color, yet extremely heavy. Even without a bayonet or bullets, the unloaded rifle weighed more than eight jin.
Luo Chong skillfully pulled back the bolt and chambered it again, then aimed at the window and fired once with the empty rifle. Although it had no bullet loaded, he had to admit that working the bolt with the iron sights felt truly excellent.
The Gew98 produced by the Han Tribe was absolutely superb in appearance alone. It combined many advantages of the Gew98 and the 98K, along with improvements specifically made for the era of the Han Tribe. The problem was that the quality of the steel simply could not be guaranteed. That was the fault of their weak basic chemical industry. The Han Tribe's Comprehensive Research Institute still could not distinguish between various metallic elements, much less use them to produce high-performance alloys.
Rifles made of carbon steel could be declared scrap after firing three or four thousand rounds. Even if they could still fire, they had no accuracy at all. After pulling the trigger, one would not even know where the bullet had flown. Therefore, if the Han Tribe wanted to equip rifles on a large scale, it could only win through quantity, replacing the weapons frequently.
Fortunately, the army they needed to form was not very large. If it consisted of only two thousand men, the tribe could still afford to support it.
Clang, clang, clang—
Just then, a knock