Chapter 13
After sending the drawings to Mauser, the wait felt even longer than before.
The first test rifle had been made after Mauser interpreted my scribbles as they saw fit. This time was different. I had specified everything, from the dimensions to the position of the grooves. If the finished rifle turned out strange, I could no longer blame Mauser.
When I heard the improved rifle had arrived, I got up from my seat before class had even ended.
“Your Highness, you still have an assignment to finish.”
“Something more important than my assignment came up. I’ll do the rest tomorrow!”
Dr. Schneider let out a deep sigh, but didn’t stop me.
A long wooden crate sat on the table in the small conference room, while Father, Oskar, Paul Mauser, and several Imperial Guard officers were seated around it.
“You’re late.”
“I was in class.”
“Was it French?”
“No, geometry.”
Father nodded with satisfaction. Apparently, if it had been an important French lesson, he’d intended to send me back.
“Then let’s begin.”
At Father’s words, Mauser unfastened the crate’s latches, revealing black metal and dark wood beneath the lid.
The Gewehr 98 was still the same length. The barrel, magazine, and receiver were no different from the original. But the bolt handle curved smoothly downward, and a small, rounded recess had been cut into the stock to accommodate it.
The front sling swivel had been moved to the left side of the barrel band, while the rear one had been replaced with a narrow slot running across the buttstock. The sling passed through it and lay against the left side of the rifle.
I inspected the rifle’s right side, and the recess in the stock beneath the bolt handle was almost exactly as shown in the drawing. Its edges flowed in a gentle curve instead of turning sharply, and there was enough space between the end of the handle and the wood for a finger.
I opened my notebook and checked the dimensions I’d written on the drawing one by one.
“Are you inspecting it yourself, Your Highness?”
An Imperial Guard officer asked curiously, and I nodded.
“I have to check whether it matches what I drew first.”
It wasn’t that I suspected the company had made a mistake. It was also possible that the maker had followed my drawing exactly, even though I’d drawn it incorrectly.
After checking that the safety was on and confirming the chamber was empty, I lifted the bolt handle and pulled it back. I loaded five dummy rounds into the internal magazine, pushed the bolt forward, and lowered the handle. The first dummy round slid into the chamber.
Click. Clack.
There were no snags as I cycled all five dummy rounds in and out.
Watching me, Oskar held out a hand beside me.
“Let me try.”
When I handed it over, he loaded the dummy rounds and yanked the bolt back with all his strength.
While Oskar played with the rifle, Father carefully inspected the stock.
“Where is the Imperial crest?”
“It’s a prototype, so I left it off.”
“Still, it’s the first rifle you designed. Shouldn’t we have at least a crest engraved on it?”
“It’d be a waste to decorate a rifle that might break during testing.”
Father muttered with a deeply disappointed expression. In the end, we compromised by engraving only a small serial number and my initials on the inside of the stock.
It was out of sight, but Father seemed satisfied with that alone.
“The Princess Rifle.”
Oskar set the rifle on the table, came over beside me, and whispered.
“Call it that again, and I won’t show it to you anymore.”
At that, he immediately shut his mouth.
I picked up the rifle. It was still a long, heavy weapon, but with the sling mounted on the side, the stock lay flat against my back. Even after walking a few steps, it didn’t flip outward like before.
The bolt also required less movement from my hand. Even when prone, I didn’t have to raise my elbow very high, making it much easier to work the action.
‘It worked.’
Just as pride began to swell in my chest, Mauser spoke.
“We can’t be sure of anything until we’ve fired it.”
“I know.”
I answered, doing my best to sound calm.
The test took place the following day at the Imperial Guard’s firing range.
One standard Gewehr 98 and one improved model were placed side by side, and the same soldiers took turns firing them. First, they checked the zero and accuracy. Since we hadn’t touched the barrels or ammunition, there was little difference between the rifles’ groups.
The difference appeared when they fired from the prone position.
When the officer blew his whistle, the soldiers fired five rounds and reloaded. With the original model, their right elbows rose noticeably as they reached for the bolt. With the improved model, they could reach the handle with only a slight movement of the wrist.
After several repetitions, the recorder called out the times.
“The improved model is faster on average.”
“By how much?”
“It varies by shooter, but for five rounds, roughly one to two seconds.”
Father’s expression brightened at that.
“Did you hear that? My daughter made the soldiers faster.”
“We’re not done yet.”
Thinking Father was getting ahead of himself, I hurriedly spoke up.
One or two seconds was a clear improvement, but I couldn’t assume it was finished based on that alone.
When a soldier wearing thick winter gloves operated the bolt, his fingers kept brushing against the stock’s recess. It was fine at first, but the repeated contact slowed his movements.
The sling had a problem, too. The edges of the rear slot were gradually scraping the leather. It wouldn’t break after just a day or two, but there was a good chance the surface would wear down with prolonged use.
By afternoon, raindrops began to fall.
One soldier, carrying the rifle with wet hands as he stepped over a low obstacle, slipped his forward hand off the stock. He didn’t drop the rifle, but his stance was badly disrupted.
“Is it uncomfortable to grip the front?”
When I asked, the soldier glanced at Father and the officers for a moment.
“I wouldn’t say it’s uncomfortable.”
“Then is it comfortable?”
At that, the soldier hesitated again.
“It gets a little slippery when wet.”
That was probably the most honest answer he could give in front of a princess.
I inspected the fore-end of the stock. The smoothly finished wood had nowhere for the fingers to catch.
Carving a fine checkered pattern would make it easier to grip. But cutting it by hand over such a wide area would increase production time, and it seemed like it would be difficult to clean if mud got into it.
What if we cut long, shallow grooves into both sides of the stock where the hands rested? I remembered seeing grooves like that on some bolt-action rifles in my previous life, and came up with that solution.
Leave them deep enough for the fingers to catch, and round off the edges. The grooves could be machined in one pass, and wouldn’t be hard to clean.
I took out my notebook and sketched the side of the rifle.
Seeing me, Mauser asked from beside me,
“Are you already drawing your next set of plans?”
“It’s slippery to hold with wet hands. I think it’d be better if we cut long grooves on both sides.”
He looked back and forth between the place where the soldier had gripped it and my drawing.
“It’s a good idea, but if they’re too deep, it could weaken the stock.”
“We’ll have to make a model first.”
At my answer, a faint smile appeared beneath Mauser’s mustache.
By the end of the test, the officers’ attitude had changed from what it had been that morning.
Those who had initially stood around as if watching a toy made by the Emperor’s little daughter now picked up the rifle themselves, worked the bolt, tried changing the sling’s position, and offered their opinions.
A captain tried slinging both the original and improved models over his shoulder in turn, then said,
“The improved rifle is definitely less of a nuisance on the march.”
Another officer nodded.
“It’s definitely easier to operate from the prone position, too.”
Father looked at me with the utmost pride.
“Now it’s settled. Everyone agrees your rifle is better.”
I looked down at the test rifle. It was certainly improved, and much more comfortable than the original. But even with gloves on, fingers still brushed against the recess; the sling was wearing away the leather; and wet hands slipped on the stock.
“Not yet. There are a few things we need to change.”
“What do you mean, not yet? Isn’t it finished?”
“We have to make it again. The uncomfortable parts are better, but there are things that could fail.”
Father looked at me in confusion.
“But it already works well.”
“Working well and being finished are different things. It works well now, but we can’t let it break in a few months or years.”
I added three more lines to my notebook.
Widen the bolt-handle recess.
Reinforce the edges of the sling slot.
Add long, shallow gripping grooves to both sides of the fore-end.
At last, I ran my fingertips over the test rifle’s serial number. It finally sank in that this wasn’t a line on paper, but something an actual soldier would carry and run with.
Rather than fearing failure this time, I found myself thinking first about what I needed to check in the next prototype.
Testing was no longer about finding failure. It was about finding the next answer.
Fortunately, the first official prototype was a success. And because it had succeeded, the parts that needed fixing began to stand out more clearly.