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[Funk]

The expensive part comes more from the effort put in to so that, for the most part, multiple shot don't go through at once and jam the gun.

Does that mean the the rifle is Very Expensive because it has two expensive parts?

On making the rifle more durable lets:
Make the stock go around the reservoir and have a big cut out for replacing them.
Cover the reservoirs with leather to protect them form drops.
Make the reservoir out of bronze so they will bulge before cracking.

As for cheaper,

We can replace the magazine with a Falling-block action.
Troopers will simply move the block and open the beach, put in a ball and close it before fireing.

This gets rid of entire magazine and lets the rife be loaded with out any of the waveing it about.
It will take a little longer but not any longer than primeing a musket pan.

[Playergamer]

Revision
Try to rationalize the Victoria rifle to make it sturdier and cheaper. A wheel with paddles inside the end of the magazine ensures that shots chamber properly and that only one can be chambered at a time, and the nicely crafted air reservoir are to be replaced by a cruder but cheap and sturdy replacement that can be screwed on or off to "reload" the rifle. Add metal handle to the side of the magazine. The soldier pulls back the handle to turn the wheel, allowing the ball to fall. Once the ball has fallen, the soldier returns the handle, or "bolt" to its original position, and is ready to fire.

This way, we don't have to worry about jamming, and we can keep up the same high rate-of-fire. Plus, we'll have invented an extremely simple bolt-action rifle.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Revision
Try to rationalize the Victoria rifle to make it sturdier and cheaper. A wheel with paddles inside the end of the magazine ensures that shots chamber properly and that only one can be chambered at a time, and the nicely crafted air reservoir are to be replaced by a cruder but cheap and sturdy replacement that can be screwed on or off to "reload" the rifle.

+1 to this. Other variants are too complex for a revision phase

[Wolfhunter107]

Revision
Try to rationalize the Victoria rifle to make it sturdier and cheaper. A wheel with paddles inside the end of the magazine ensures that shots chamber properly and that only one can be chambered at a time, and the nicely crafted air reservoir are to be replaced by a cruder but cheap and sturdy replacement that can be screwed on or off to "reload" the rifle.

This looks like it'll fix the biggest problems quite nicely.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

BTW, are we sure that there are no other ways to spend our revision phase?

After all, our rifle is rather good for specialized uses

[Baffler]

I suppose a carbine version of the brown bess would be a fairly low-risk move. We'd be able to field dragoons that way instead of just light sword-armed cavalry, which could honestly be quite useful. I could see a couple revisions that would make our gunboats more effective, like copper bottoms, but I don't know very much about navy stuff. We could also get cannister shot for our cannon, but that might require a design.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Also, we can improve carriage for logistics or breed new kind of horses.

[Sheb]

Overall though, I think using our revision + production on the Victoria, and having a good, repeating firearm by the late 18th century would be an achievement worth spending the revision on.

[VoidSlayer]

Man that thing has two major flaws, I propose we work on redesigning one at a time like you are doing.

The compressed gas containers we are using are difficult to make with current metalworking techniques and they break easily, maybe instead of reworking them with bronze, we could add steel braces around the outside then a thin outer container of bronze around that to provide another protective layer.

We could make a lightly armed merchant ship for transporting cargo, no need to go steam right away for our ships if we can get experience building larger vessels instead before making warships.

[Baffler]

Right, so it sounds like we're all for this one?

Revision
Try to rationalize the Victoria rifle to make it sturdier and cheaper. A wheel with paddles inside the end of the magazine ensures that shots chamber properly and that only one can be chambered at a time, and the nicely crafted air reservoir are to be replaced by a cruder but cheap and sturdy replacement that can be screwed on or off to "reload" the rifle.

[Sheb]

Yeah, might work. Not so sure about the paddlewheel though.

[Playergamer]

Revision
Try to rationalize the Victoria rifle to make it sturdier and cheaper. A wheel with paddles inside the end of the magazine ensures that shots chamber properly and that only one can be chambered at a time, and the nicely crafted air reservoir are to be replaced by a cruder but cheap and sturdy replacement that can be screwed on or off to "reload" the rifle.

Yep. By the way, if this revision works and we can get this down to cheap, I'd like to propose a major offensive on the western plains. I think we can slaughter the bandit-king's troops if we fight in a skirmish line with these things, unless they got a great design in.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Can you explain how the paddlewheel works?  I'm trying to visualize it, but I can't see how it works.

[Baffler]

The way I pictured it was as a metal wheel with paddles, like a waterwheel, in the spot where the magazine feeds rounds into the chamber. The bottom of the wheel is exposed so the soldier can turn it. Inside the magazine, it traps the ball closest to the chamber between two of the paddles, to hold it steady and to prevent more than one ball entering the chamber at once and jamming it, like a revolving door. When the user turns the wheel the ball that's already in the locked position drops down into the chamber, and the next ball in line takes it's place.

[Kashyyk]

If I understand correctly, it looks like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)