SpudFiles

Hey everyone. I haven't posted in a while, but I have what I consider to be an awesome idea for a fully auto gun powered only by cranking.

Picture how an ordinary gatling gun pulls back the firing pin with a helical track that engages a rod and pulls it back as the gun spins, until the helical track ends and the spring is free to push the rod forward. If you don't know how that mechanism works, check out http://www.howstuffworks.com's article on gatling guns. In my design, the rod that is pulled back would not connect to the firing pin, but instead to an o-ringed piston/plunger in a cylinder. Whereas the firing pin would be released ordinarily, instead we are releasing the piston/plunger in a cylinder. Just like how a spring-piston airgun would, the compressed gas (from the piston/plunger being released and sprung forward) would shoot the projectile out the barrel. The fact that there is spining barrels makes the loading system for projectiles the same as a gatling gun loads cartridges.

If we wanted we could even have an electric motor spinning the gun, to eliminate the crank.

So, what do all ya'll think?

-goose_man

It would be awesome ofcourse.
Youll just need to do the hard part, build this complicatedness!

Something like this but incorporating pistons as opposed to ammunition directly fired by the springs?

Yep, just like that. Also, if engineered properly, one chamber and barrel would work too: the helical track spins and a fixed cam on the rod is pulled back by it.

I think if it was spun electrically, maybe one of the best available electric motor configurations would be an electric boat motor.

They work on 12vdc, are water proof designed to be quiet as possible and have lots of torque, so gears can be added to run at higher rpm if necessary. Can't think of a better motor for that application.
Gatling guns are cool 8)