Chapter 17
After that, for a while, I kept revising the design using nothing but paper and cardboard.
At first, I tried to complete the entire pistol all at once, but after realizing how difficult that was, I began thinking about the parts one by one. I first decided on the path a round would take from the magazine to the chamber, then positioned the barrel, slide, and recoil spring where they wouldn’t obstruct it.
On paper, it moved well enough.
When I pushed the slide back, the barrel recoiled with it, and after it moved a little farther, the rear of the barrel dropped. When I pushed it forward again, it drove the paper round on top of the magazine into the chamber.
Of course, paper crumpled when parts collided, and even when they overlapped, I could force them through. Parts that would have broken or jammed if they were real passed right through one another on paper as if nothing were wrong.
But at least once I had a rough outline that I could move by hand, I decided to make a pistol model.
The first person I sought out wasn’t a gunsmith, but a carpenter who repaired the furniture and decorations in the Imperial Palace.
I wasn’t going to put gunpowder in it or cut rifling into the barrel. I didn’t think there was any need to call in a gunsmith for a model meant only to check the order in which the parts moved and whether they collided.
“Please make this out of wood.”
The carpenter stared at the plans I handed him, blinking for a while.
“Is this a pistol?”
“It’s a pistol model. It doesn’t need to actually fire. The parts drawn here just need to move.”
The carpenter seemed to understand the frame and slide from the plans, but his expression grew darker as he looked at the link beneath the barrel and the inside of the magazine.
“I can make the larger parts out of wood. But if I make this pin and spring out of wood too, they’ll break in no time.”
In the end, they even called in the clockmaker who repaired clocks and small mechanisms in the palace.
The clockmaker looked at my plans, and his expression was even more serious than the carpenter’s.
“Your Highness, clocks and guns are very different.”
“I’m not asking you to make a gun.”
I pointed to the sentence I’d written on the plans.
“It doesn’t need to fire. It only needs to move, so I can check the positions and movements of the parts.”
I didn’t know whether he liked my answer, but the clockmaker asked nothing more.
He and the carpenter spent a long time talking as though trying to foist the work onto each other. The carpenter said the metal parts were the main thing, so the clockmaker should take the lead, while the clockmaker argued that since it involved a lot of wood, the carpenter should be in charge.
‘They’re both annoyed because a little princess has asked them to make something strange.’
After arguing for quite a while, they finally decided the carpenter would take the lead, making the frame, slide, and barrel out of wood, while the pins, links, and magazine would be made of brass. The clockmaker would wind temporary recoil and magazine springs to fit the model.
I asked them to make it twice the size of the real thing.
If it were life-sized, it would be hard to check the small gaps, and I didn’t think I could move the parts by hand very well. At twice the size, I could slip my fingers between the parts and immediately check where they caught.
A week later, a giant wooden pistol was brought into my room.
Since it was twice the size of a real pistol, it was heavy even to lift with both hands, let alone one. The barrel and slide were made of pale, unpainted wood, while the pins and connecting rods were brass. The magazine was folded from thin brass sheet as well.
Oskar’s eyes lit up as soon as he saw it.
“Ooh. Is this mine?”
“Why would it be yours?”
“You’re going to make a real gun later. You won’t need the wooden one, so it’s mine.”
“This is for testing, so I have to use it.”
“Then it’s mine when you’re done testing.”
“I’ll think about it then. Don’t touch it for now.”
I shoved him aside and put the wooden dummy rounds into the magazine.
A makeshift spring and follower had been fitted into the bottom of the magazine. The more rounds I pressed down, the more the spring compressed, and when I let go, the top round rose between the magazine lips.
Of course, it didn’t reproduce the force of a real magazine.
The model was twice the size of the real thing, the rounds were wooden, and the magazine was thin brass sheet. It couldn’t be used to compare spring strength or friction.
There was only one thing I wanted to check now: where the round started and what path it followed into the chamber.
I pushed the magazine into the grip.
Click.
The magazine catch engaged, and the magazine stopped in place.
When I pulled the slide back, the large wooden slide moved along the rails and compressed the recoil spring. When I let go, the slide snapped forward with a thud.
But the round didn’t enter the chamber. Its nose had struck the underside of the barrel head-on and stopped.
“It can’t even fire one round.”
Oskar said from beside me.
“The model isn’t meant to fire.”
“It can’t even load a bullet.”
I didn’t answer. I examined the jammed round.
Its nose was pressed against the underside of the barrel, while its rear remained caught between the magazine lips. The slide kept pushing forward, but the round had no way to rise.
I attached a thin piece of wood to the underside of the barrel to make a ramp, then pulled the slide back and released it again.
Fortunately, this time the nose rode up the ramp.
Just when I thought it had worked, the front of the round struck the upper edge of the chamber and jammed at an angle.
“It went too high.”
Oskar said.
“I can see that too, you know.”
“It was too low before, and now it’s too high. So can’t you just put it in the middle?”
Easy to say.
But it wasn’t enough to just guide the nose of the round into the middle. The rear of the round was caught by the magazine lips, while the underside of the slide was pushing against the base of the case.
If the magazine held onto the round for too long, the rear wouldn’t follow even after the nose entered the chamber. On the other hand, if it released the round too early, it would spring upward or strike the chamber entrance at an angle.
I slipped a thin sheet of paper beneath the magazine to raise it.
This time, the nose touched the middle of the ramp. But the rear of the round didn’t go under the slide; it was pushed sideways.
When I removed the paper, the round jammed again.
I could barely feel the difference between putting in and taking out a single sheet, even with my finger. But the path the round took changed completely.
Oskar peered into the magazine.
“If you stand the magazine straight up, won’t the bullet go right in?”
On a whim, I removed the magazine from the grip and stood it beneath the barrel.
But after looking at it from every angle, I didn’t see how tilting the magazine forward or backward would solve the problem.
The problem wasn’t the angle, but the position.
When I stood the magazine upright, the top round did come close to the chamber. But the rear of the magazine intruded into the space where the trigger mechanism needed to go. When I moved the magazine back, it cleared that space, but the slide couldn’t push the base of the round properly.
If I moved it up, it hit the slide; if I lowered it, it struck the ramp too low.
“So it’s not enough to make the grip upright.”
When I said that, Oskar tilted his head.
“Then does the shape of the grip not matter?”
“It matters, but the magazine doesn’t have to be upright just because of the direction the rounds feed.”
The grip could be angled to fit the hand. I could adjust the position of the magazine and the top round inside it separately.
However, that meant redesigning the front and rear shape of the magazine, the follower, and the magazine lips.
Starting the next day, I began proper testing.
I changed the magazine’s height by slipping paper underneath it, and bent the magazine lips, made from thin brass sheet, a little at a time. I added pieces of wood to the feed ramp, then carved them back down.
I moved the magazine forward and backward, and checked whether the rear of the top round met the slide precisely.
It was easy to get it working with just one dummy round in the magazine.
The round rode up the ramp and entered the chamber.
It worked with two rounds as well.
But when I put in seven rounds, the wooden slide couldn’t push the first one forward. As the magazine spring compressed, the rounds pressed hard against the magazine lips, increasing the friction between the wood and brass.
I tried replacing the spring with a weaker one.
The first round fed, but the last two didn’t rise high enough.
“It should push them all the same no matter how many rounds there are.”
Oskar said.
“If you can find a spring like that, bring it to me.”
“Just ask the clockmaker to make one.”
“Even if we get the force right in this model, everything will be different in a real gun.”
I pushed the wooden slide by hand. With just a little help to overcome the friction, the round entered the chamber.
I could see the space the round passed through and where the parts collided. I could also check how high the magazine needed to sit and which part of the round the slide needed to push.
But I couldn’t determine the spring’s force, the actual friction, or the slide’s speed.
“So it wasn’t a failure.”
When I said that, Oskar looked at the wooden pistol.
“It hasn’t succeeded yet, either.”
“Still, I have a rough idea of what to do.”
I raised the magazine a little and made the feed ramp gentler. I shaped the magazine lips so they would hold the rear of the round, but release it around the time the nose entered the chamber.
If I gave the wooden slide a little help by hand, all seven rounds entered the chamber one after another.
I didn’t know whether it would work in a real pistol, but a mechanism that had only worked on paper could now move without its solid parts jamming against one another.
A few days later, news reached the palace that a war had broken out between Britain and the Boers in South Africa.
At the dinner table, the officers talked about the Boers’ marksmanship and the movements of the British Army. The German newspapers rooted for the Boers, but letters from the British royal family arrived at the palace every day.
To me, Britain was a foreign country in the newspapers, and the country where my great-grandmother lived.
Father was busy preparing for his scheduled visit to Britain, while Mother hoped politics wouldn’t come up when the family got together.
I didn’t join in the political discussions. I had plenty to say, but worried it would only make things awkward.
Beneath the table, I kept tracing with my finger the motion of a round riding up the ramp.
On the day Father left for Britain, I went to see him off, then returned and went straight to the model.
This time, changing the length of the magazine lips a little made the third round turn sideways at the chamber entrance.
I left the round jammed in place and examined it from every direction.
Its nose was halfway inside the chamber, while the rear of the round was still caught by the magazine lips. The magazine had held onto it for too long.
I shortened the ends of the lips by the tiniest amount and tested it again. This time, the round was released too early and tilted upward.
The difference was smaller than the tip of my fingernail, but it completely changed the path the round took.
The magazine wasn’t some mysterious component. After a few tests, I could tell which parts needed adjustment.
But it wasn’t as simple as the metal box I’d first imagined, either.
It had to store the rounds, keep the top round at a set height, hold it until the slide pushed it, and release it at just the right moment.
It did more than I’d expected.
When Father returned from Britain, he brought back more newspapers and letters than luggage.
As soon as I finished welcoming him, I asked what kind of pistols the British officers had used.
“Is your first question to your father, whom you haven’t seen in a while, about guns?”
“You know what I’ve been working on lately, Father.”
Father said many British officers used revolvers, and that automatic pistols were still regarded as strange and novel.
Oskar chimed in.
“Revolvers work fine without magazines.”
“That’s why we have to show that automatic pistols are more convenient and reliable before there’ll be any reason to switch.”
I showed Father the wooden pistol.
I pulled the slide back, then slowly pushed it forward by hand, and the dummy round rode up the ramp into the chamber.
Father seemed amused even by a pistol that couldn’t fire bullets.
“It looks much more complicated than when you first brought me a rifle.”
“With a rifle, a person worked the bolt, but this has to move by itself every time it fires.”
After explaining it to Father, what I was trying to do felt even clearer to me.