To test its feasibility, I first took a small pinch of mugwort floss, held it with a stick, and soaked it in a diluted solution.

Then, keep a certain distance from the fire and slowly dry off the moisture. This thing is probably inherently fire-resistant; after only a short time, the embers inside suddenly burst into flames.

The sudden scene startled me so much that I dropped the wooden stick I was holding. Even though this was the first time I'd ever made one, the burning effect was incredible! In the blink of an eye, it was reduced to ashes.

However, this also confirms the feasibility of using mugwort wool to replace cotton. Guncotton can not only be used as a propellant, but also, due to its high sensitivity to impact, it can be processed into an initiator.

If we can get another firearm, then we can go and test our skills against that monster in the lake and see who is more lethal.

I plan to build a double-barreled, double-shot shotgun. Currently, my resources and tools only allow me to manufacture this relatively simple smoothbore gun.

The blueprints were already in my mind, but the standards required for manufacturing guns were much higher, and the iron used also needed to be reprocessed.

My current type of iron is only good for making knives, but to improve its blast resistance, I need to carburize it to increase its carbon content.

The production of high-carbon steel, in modern smelting technology, first requires coking coal, which in turn needs to be mined and refined to form the desired shape.

At present, with my personal capabilities, I can only mine open-pit coal mines at most, but such open-pit coal mines are generally very rare.

Coal mines are mostly located deep underground, and they are difficult to find without drilling equipment.

Natural coal mines are out of the question for the time being, so I have to settle for second best and use traditional steelmaking methods to produce some high-performance carbon steel.

When it comes to traditional steelmaking, there are two methods to increase the strength of iron: one is the folding and forging method.

This method involves forging to remove impurities from the iron, hence the name "hundred-times-refined steel".

I use this method to make most of the ironware.

Another method is the steel-mixing method.

This process typically involves refining two batches of molten iron simultaneously. One batch is made by refining charcoal and iron ore together in a crucible to obtain cast iron with a higher carbon content, also known as pig iron.

The other pot involves constantly stirring the molten iron with an iron rod to allow it to fully contact the air and oxidize, thus reducing the carbon content of the molten iron to a minimum, which is the purpose of refining it into pure iron and wrought iron.

Finally, the two types of molten iron are mixed in a certain proportion to obtain carbon steel with a certain carbon content.

The second method is suitable for casting high-carbon steel, and for the gun barrels I make, casting is currently the only method that can be used.

Now that I have a plan, I intend to implement it as soon as possible. I still have some iron powder reserves, which should be enough to make a musket.

My iron powder already has a high iron content. Combined with the appropriate charcoal used in the molten iron refining process, the impurities will be significantly fewer than those produced from ore.

However, before smelting steel, I need to crush the charcoal to increase the contact area between the carbon and the molten iron during the smelting process.

Fearing that there wouldn't be enough charcoal, I then burned another full kiln of charcoal.

After crushing some of the charcoal and mixing it with the iron powder from one of the crucibles, I started a fire to smelt the iron.

After several hours of high-temperature refining, the iron powder in the two crucibles had turned into molten iron.

I inserted an iron rod into one of the crucibles that had not been carbonized and stirred it continuously. As the iron rod stirred, a layer of black impurities floated to the surface of the molten iron in the crucible.

These impurities are iron slag, a product of the oxidation of molten iron and air during the smelting process.

I removed all the impurities and continued stirring. This process continued until the impurities on the surface of the molten iron were basically removed, and stirring no longer generated any impurities; the wrought iron was then successfully refined.

The molten iron produced is bright red in color, and there is little resistance when it is stirred with an iron rod, with no obvious impurities floating on the surface.

The mold making process is quite complex, so I won't go into details. For the mold for the gun barrel, you can refer to the mold for the blowgun, as they are very similar.

The only difference is that the barrel of a shotgun has a slightly larger caliber in the rear half than in the front, while the front remains the same caliber.

This design allows the bullet to accumulate a large amount of high-temperature, high-pressure gas in the rear half of the space during firing, thus increasing the performance of the propellant.

The smaller front and larger back barrel also serves to control the dispersion of the bullet. The smaller front barrel has a function that we call "ball" in our area.

This means that after the projectile is launched, most of it continues to fly in a straight line for a certain distance. This structure allows the projectile to have greater destructive power and a longer range, as well as a higher hit rate.

The principle behind it is the same as that of homemade firearms; both rely on stabilizing the trajectory of the projectile to enhance the weapon's power.

I mixed two different types of molten iron together in a 1:2 ratio of high-carbon molten iron to wrought iron.

Next, the well-mixed molten iron was poured into two 40-centimeter prefabricated clay molds. This batch of molten iron was just enough for the two gun barrels.

The current task is to let the molten iron cool naturally. This type of carburized steel cannot be tempered in one molding process, otherwise the strength of the steel will be greatly reduced.

Now I need to start making a suitable gunstock. I've chosen the same purplish-red wood used for making crossbow mounts. This wood is not only sturdy but also produces a nice-looking finished product.

I still plan to use a shoulder-mounted I-stock. This old-fashioned rifle stock has a good grip, and when shoulder-mounted, it can better control the stability of the gun and improve the accuracy.

The stock is about 60 centimeters long, and the triangular shoulder rest at the back is estimated to be 30 centimeters long.

Six centimeters forward is the trigger mechanism slot, which is similar to the pot guard slot on the crossbow mount.

I also plan to use the same mechanism as a crossbow, but the sight on top needs to be improved. It needs to be made into a short, figure-seven shaped impact hammer.

Since I plan to make a double-barreled shotgun that can fire two shots, I need to make two sets of impact hammers, and two sets of triggers to control the firing of the two barrels respectively.

I used the remaining molten iron to cast these trigger parts.

After the two cast high-carbon steel pipes cooled, I removed the outer mold and found that the casting of the steel pipes was very successful. Except for the inner wall not being so smooth, the dimensions were basically the same.

The problem with the inner wall is easy to solve. Besides, this kind of smoothbore gun doesn't have high requirements for the inner wall itself, only for the barrel structure, so I don't care about this small problem at all.

Over time, the friction of the projectiles can polish the inner wall smooth.

Now I'm going to use a round chisel to carve out two grooves to secure the barrel. The barrel must be securely fixed here, otherwise it might fly off later.