NimbleJack3 said:
sooperman said:
NimbleJack3 said:
Unfortunately, the rifle is completely implausible. A hand-held Gatling rifle with 200 rounds + battery would be terribly heavy and awkward to carry, let alone fire. The box you have to hold ammo would be about 3 seconds worth of ammunition at 4000rpm. Shooting at 600rpm would also probably snap your wrist off, and jerk the gun up into the air or turn it into a bullet hose - even using 7.62 mm rifle ammunition. There's a reason these things are bolted to helicopters or the ground.
Even so, it would make a nice concept if you had the strength to carry and fire enough ammunition as well as the gun.
Looks like we have some problems, but I do always enjoy fixing these things. I suppose that I could lower the fire rate, though I still think three seconds of fire could work if you fired in bursts. If I fired at only 2000rpm, I'd squeeze six seconds of fire out of my 200 rounds, while still being able to dish out a lot of bullets.
The weight actually went into consideration while I was building. I tried to focus weigh toward the front to reduce muzzle climb, though you would probably have to be a space marine just to carry the thing with you. Thoughts on that?
Even firing in bursts, you'd have trouble compensating for the hideous muzzle climb that results from firing 10 rounds at once. All the problems are solved if you say 'it's for a space marine', but it's just not gonna happen with a normal, squishy person.
Hint: fire smaller ammunition. Instead of 7.62 (which is completely infeasible in a gun of this type), or even 5.56mm ammunition, maybe use a pistol round, like .45 caliber or something like it.
Edit: There's a very good reason gatling guns are bolted onto heavy objects: they're too heavy and too fast. At 3000 rpm, any handheld gun would not only shear your arms off, but break your back because of the weight. From world.guns.ru:
http://world.guns.ru/machine/minigun-e.htm
This should gve a basic idea of how much weight there is. the smallest minigun has recoil of 240 lbs, while the biggest has over 4 tons.