General Discussion Section for All Other Makes and Models of Handguns and Rifles, including Aftermarket Accessories. Please keep Canik Firearm discussions in the Canik section.
Lets say hell freezes over and the NFA registry is opened up for another amnesty, you can register only one item though. What gun would you want to register and convert?
For me Id try to find a PKM parts kit if they're all dried up then an RPD.
Of course I'd try to cheat and have non gun people family members register an m16 lower, ak, and hk sear to transfer to me.
Have them individually registered then transferred to a family NFA trust?
Top of the list is an H&K MP5 SD. Probably. At least an MP5. My wife really wants the RDIAS, even if she doesn't know it yet. My eldest daughter will probably want something crew-served, M240 or Mk19. It's easier to get the small kids involved with a semi-stationary weapon system.
M3 'grease gun'.
Been in love with them since I was a kid.
Don't see them all that often in old war movies, but they used them in 'Attack Force Z'.
Have never seen one in person.
I just bought a Gatling gun, no extra paperwork but will run 1800 rpm with an $20 gear change but I just want to run 600-800. Like it so much I bought my wife one. The original machine gun as Gatlin put an elect motor on in 1893 & ran 3000rpm reliably. I think they're better as it has 8 barrels so no over heating, runs variable speed & if you get a dud it just run it thru & drops it in the pile or the spent brass can. Custer had 4 80# Gatlings but didn't take them. $4500 new, 9mm, take Glock 33 rd import mags $7.99 & 100 rd drums all on a 4473. My wife & I visited the factory & were so very impressed. My wife isn't against guns but liked the people, plant & quality she wanted one too. I'm putting them on great looking tripods & large Amish made wheels with hexagon barrel extensions like many old ones had 1/2 round 1/2 hexagon. These are true Gatlings made just like they were made for 160 years. Lots of history but runs as well as any modern firearm. Gatling made 1" guns, 45, 30 & 22lr for crowd control. If you think the mag is not authentic on the side look at the patent & several models.
Here's the full history. I have 2 & may buy a 3rd. I'll try to post pics when done with theor makeovers.
Gatling Machine Gun The Model 1862 GunThe North was deprived of a great ordnance officer when Major General Gorgas joined the Confederacy, but this loss was more than offset when Richard Jordan Gatling moved to the North in 1844, hoping to manufacture and market several of his mechanical inventions.Gatling was born in Hertford County, N. C, on 12 September 1818. His parents were Mary Barnes and Jordan Gatling, both descended from English colonists in North Carolina. His father, while still a young man, had invented a machine for planting cotton and another for thinning the plants to a stand. Richard Jordan Gatling assisted in the construction of these mechanical aids and, in his own name, patented a rice planter. The younger Gatling, believing that the prospects of a northern market were more profitable, adapted his rice planter to other grain, and moved to various cities in Missouri, Ohio, and Indiana.In 1847-48, he studied medicine at Laporte, Ind. The following year he entered Ohio Medical College from which he received a degree. While he was ever afterwards known as Dr. Gatling, there is no record of his ever practicing medicine. It is claimed that he studied only to protect his family from the ravages of the smallpox epidemics which were regularly sweeping the country.Purportedly at a suggestion by Col. R. A. Maxwell that a special objectives weapon was needed, Gatling drew up plans for a machine gun. Conceived in 1861 and patented in 1862, it was designed to defend buildings, causeways, and bridges. The first model was only a crude forerunner of the gun he soon perfected, the prototype of one of the most remarkable firing mechanisms of all ordnance history—the Gatling gun.The weapon was the logical outgrowth of the trends portrayed in the Ager and Ripley guns.Gatling combined the best principles of both and overcame their most objectionable features. His successful results caused him to be credited generally with being the father of the machine gun.The 1862 Gatling guns, types I and II, were fundamentally the Ager principle, improved by the multibarrel arrangement of the Ripley gun. In these models the engineering difficulties had not been completely overcome. However, his first gun laid the basic design groundwork. It was crank-operated with six revolving barrels, having a bolt for each barrel. Cocking and firing were performed by cam action and the weapon was gear driven. By taking advantage of the machine tool progress, he was the first to have used successfully a method of camming to insure positive action and certainty of fire.This model had many of the bad features of its forerunner, the Ager. It used paper cartridges and steel chargers that acted as firing chambers. The chargers were primed with percussion caps on nipples and the bolts acted as strikers to fire the caps. The chargers were supported during combustion by a cylindrical piece that housed the striker. A hopper gravity feed similar to that of the Ager was also used.As early as 1862 enough progress had been made on the weapon that a model, actually in working order, was exhibited before thousands of people in Indianapolis. One of the most interested spectators was the Hon. O. P. Morton, Governor of Indiana. This gentleman wrote to P. H. Watson, then Assistant Secretary of War, advising him of the weapon's unusual performance. He suggested that Dr. Gatling's gun be permitted officially to prove its worth.With this encouragement, Gatling continued to perfect his prototype until he deemed it reliable enough to pass any government test. Financial backers were sought in order to produce the weapon in sufficient quantities. With all the capital he could muster, Gatling went to Cincinnati, Ohio. There Miles Greenwood & Co. contracted to make six weapons in accordance with his patent of 4 November 1862.Unfortunately for Gatling, this factory, together with the weapons then near completion, blueprints and patterns, was destroyed by fire. The inventor was subjected to a heavy loss, both in money and in irreplaceable pilot models used in constructing these first weapons.But he was not easily discouraged. After a very short interval he was again in business, now backed by McWhinny, Rindge & Co., also of Cincinnati. This time 12 guns of the 1862 model were manufactured.Constantly seeking perfection, Gatling made several basic construction changes soon after the guns left the factory. For instance, the prototype and the November 1862 weapons employed a steel container with a percussion cap on the end and paper cartridges for the charge. Soon after the guns were completed by McWhinny, Rindge & Co., Gatling decided to use copper in place of paper in the cartridge cases. These metal cartridges were rim fire, which necessitated the placing of two projections on the bolt head to strike the rim-fire primer. The striker served both as firing pin and as a hammer while eliminating the use of the percussion cap on a nipple. In view of these modifications the gun can be classified correctly as type II of the 1862 model.Results were so successful that, while the inventor retained the steel chambers on this model, he always used metal cartridges thereafter.The copper-cased rim-fire ammunition was a definite step forward. It made the 1862 model Gatling easier to load and more certain to fire. However, it did not overcome the one difficulty that plagues all revolver-type firearms: the excessive gas leakage that takes place between the forward end of the cylinder and the breech end of the barrel.Gatling tried to solve this in both of his 1862 types by using a fixed steel cam, so placed as to wedge the chargers tightly against the barrel at the moment of firing. This arrangement was not too efficient. It made the crank hard to turn and caused excessive wear on the parts involved. To some extent this galling action could be compensated for by an adjusting screw that controlled the fore and aft position of the cartridge container.Both types of the 1862 model were made with six barrels and in rifle caliber .58 only. One of the oddest things about the design of the guns was a tapered bore, which was used to overcome mismatch of the barrels with the steel chargers in the cylindrical carrier. However, this proved very unsatisfactory. Recovered projectiles often showed no engraving marks of the rifling and generally struck the target sideways. An attempt was made to remedy this by increasing the taper and reducing the bore at the muzzle.Dr. Gatling and Mr. Rindge, one of his partners, demonstrated the gun themselves. They made no attempt to conceal the characteristics or construction of the weapon, but published fully illustrated accounts of its design and performance. These eventually found their way to all parts of the world, and aroused foreign inquiry. Nevertheless, our military authorities did not consider the invention especially desirable.On one of his numerous trips to Washington to interest the Army, Gatling called on Brig. Gen. J. W. Ripley, Chief of Ordnance, and asked that the weapon be given tests with a view of adopting it. General Ripley refused point blank to take the gun under consideration; no doubt he was influenced by confidential reports on the inventor's southern sympathies as much as by any other factor.A few days later, one of Gatling's representatives met Gen. Benjamin F. Butler in Baltimore, and asked permission to demonstrate the weapon. At the same time he neglected to mention General Ripley's refusal to become interested. Butler was enthusiastic over the resulting exhibition. He immediately purchased 12 guns, paying $12,000 for the weapons, on carriages, complete with 12,000 rounds of ammunition, and personally directed their use in battle during the siege of Petersburg, Va.Gatling was not the kind to hide his light under a bushel. Ever the opportunist, he had written to Maj. R. Maldon of the French Royal Artillery as early as 29 October 1863, suggesting the devastating possibilities of his gun in warfare, and enclosing a full and accurate description of the weapon. He proposed that should the major think it ethical, this might be the appropriate time to show the description and drawings to the Emperor Napoleon III.Gatling did not have to wait long for a reply. A request, in the name of the French Government, promptly came making specific inquiry on test reports, type of ammunition, the kind considered best for field conditions, proof of reliability, and the possibility of obtaining one of the weapons with ammunition for conducting a conclusive test.It is of particular interest that the text of the letter showed the keen awareness of the French Government toward this gun. Its observers during the Civil War, knowing the effectiveness of grapeshot fired from cannon against personnel, had recognized the need for an even more efficient weapon. Undoubtedly they had already dispatched information concerning the Gatling gun to their own ordnance department, and discussed the possibilities of its deadly use in European warfare.To the French inquiry, Gatling promptly responded by sending all the data requested, including published endorsements from high ranking military and civilian persons who maintained that the weapon was revolutionary and the most destructive engine of war ever invented. He likewise informed the French that he would not sell them one gun, as requested; but he could deliver them a hundred if needed, as he was now in a position to manufacture them in a reasonable length of time. This proposition was declined—fortunately; since the United States Government, shortly thereafter, forbade the exporting of arms and munitions of war.Gatling's correspondence with the French authorities definitely proves that his gun was known to the French high command as early as October 1863.This occurred considerably before Napoleon III ordered Commandant de Reffye, the leading French ordnance engineer, to produce a weapon that would actually do what records of tests and statements of individuals claimed was possible for the Gatling. It is conclusive proof that Gatling had a reliable and practical weapon for military use, long before any similar gun of European origin was beyond the blueprint stage.With the hope of getting the necessary Union authorities interested in the matter, Gatling wrote President Lincoln, and pointed out that his deadly invention was an act of Providence for suppressing the rebellion in short order.This brings to light a peculiar thing about the personality of this extraordinary man. At the same time he was describing his gun as the tool of Providence to help the North defeat the South, Army authorities were investigating his personal life. Henry B. Carrington, commanding general of the District of Indiana, reported that Gatling belonged to the Order of American Knights, a group of Confederate sympathizers busily engaged in aiding the Southern cause by acts of sabotage; and described Dr. Gatling, "inventor of the gun so named," and the jailer of Louisville, Ky., as the most active and dangerous of the entire organization. Furthermore, he reported that at Louisville a Federal supply boat had been recently burned by them.Having been born in North Carolina, Gatling's loyalties were naturally assumed to be with the South. This is believed to have influenced the location of his place of manufacture in Cincinnati, on the opposite side of the Ohio River from the South. Should he have gotten into quantity production, it would be a strategic position for selling his product to both the North and the South. He could either have delivered guns, or let them be seized in his shop by a quick Southern raid.Whatever his incentive was for locating in Cincinnati, nothing materialized. Gatling did not receive from the armed services of either side the recognition he expected. Therefore his production was meager. However, during this period his gun was given an official trial at the Washington Navy Yard and was successful enough for Admiral Dahlgren to approve the weapon's adoption by any fleet or squadron commander who requisitioned it.As bad features appeared during tests, Gatling observed them and a short time later made corrections. In the autumn of 1864 he made his first attempt to prepare changes that would correct the parts causing malfunctions, so common to all prototype or first model weapons.With the completion of what he thought was the solution, Gatling ended his partnership with McWhinny, Rindge & Co., of Cincinnati, and contracted with the Cooper Fire Arms Manufacturing Co. of Frankford (Philadelphia), Pa., for the production of the improved gun. James Maslin Cooper already had an outstanding reputation for precision-built weapons. Therefore, the Gatling guns made under this contract between 1865 and 1866 were a marked improvement over the earlier models.Incorporated in these later guns were all the things thought necessary to correct the objection able features of the previous design. Gatling ended the gas leakage problem by redesigning the weapon, and combining the cartridge chamber with the barrel; which, in effect, resulted in a breech-loading musket barrel, chambered to receive the metallic cartridge. At the same time he introduced reciprocating motion to a bolt of new design. While this piece revolved with the barrels, a fixed helical cam imparted a shuttle movement that performed the functions of loading, firing, extracting, and ejecting.Since the cartridge was placed in the chamber of the barrel, a method of extraction had to be put into the gun. This was done by adding a spring leaf attachment on the side of the bolt. When the bolt was in battery, the notched lip of the extractor cammed itself over the rim of the cartridge in order to pull the empty case rearward immediately after it was fired.This modified Gatling design used the caliber .58 with a rim-fire copper cartridge case, having a powder charge of 54 grains, and a Minié bullet of 566 grains. It had six barrels, as did the earlier models. However, this gun design resulted in the excellent piece that was so universally accepted.The operation of the weapon is very simple. One man installs a loaded feeder while the operator aims the gun and turns the crank. A set of beveled gears revolves the main shaft, carrying with it the bolt cylinder, carrier, barrels, and bolts. As the barrels rotate, the cartridges, one by one, drop into the grooves of the carrier from the feed. Instantly the bolt, by its engagement in the spiral cam surfaces, moves forward pushing the incoming round into the chamber. On the continued forward movement of the bolt, the spring is fully compressed by the cocking lug of the striker reaching the highest projection on the cam. Upon being released at this point, the spring drives the striker forward into the primer, firing the cartridge.As the rotation continues, the bolt starts rearward. The extractor hooks loosen the empty case, and carry it to a point where its base hits the ejector, knocking the empty brass through an opening in the housing, clear of the mechanism.Each barrel is discharged in turn as it reaches the lower right hand position, the cycle of operation of any single bolt and barrel assembly being completed in one revolution. The firing continues as long as the crank is turned and the feeder remains loaded.One of these weapons was finished in late December 1864. One month later it was sent to Washington and submitted by the Gatling representative, Gen. John Lowe, to the Army Ordnance Department for test.A trial was ordered and carried out satisfactorily within a month. The improvements made by Gatling were hailed as a great success. The fact that it had completely overcome all gas leakage at the breech was accepted as the greatest accomplishment of all. After these tests he was granted a patent on the changes (9 May f 865).General Dyer, the new Chief of Army Ordnance, suggested that additional guns be designed in 1-inch caliber. These were to use either a solid lead ball, or a ball and buckshot load for close shooting—such as might be needed for street fighting and bridge protection. If the design changes could be accomplished, Dyer agreed to order Government trials at the Frankford Arsenal at Philadelphia where machinery would be especially constructed to make the 1-inch rim-fire cartridges. It was decided to build eight such weapons and Gatling personally supervised their construction at the Cooper plant.When these weapons were completed, they were turned over to Col. S. V. Benét, officer in charge of the Frankford Arsenal. He was to conduct tests for the purpose of improving the ammunition design, since it was very difficult not only to manufacture the conventional rim-fire ammunition, but also to maintain even distribution of mercury fulminate all around the inside of the rim. The latter was necessary to insure positive ignition.While the weapons were in the hands of Colonel Benét, who later became the Army's Chief of Ordnance with the rank of general, many demonstrations were conducted for high ranking officers. Among those who witnessed a firing in Washington were Generals Grant, Hancock, Dyer, Manadier, and Hagner, as well as other Army and Government officials.With respect to these various exhibitions, and the expenditure of thousands of rounds of ammunition, Colonel Benét, in a summation that was unique in its brevity, stated: "The gun worked smoothly in all its parts."
The development of this type of weapon divided military men into two schools of thought. One believed that it should be an artillery support; the other considered it a special objectives gun for bridges or street defense. Neither recognized its true mission as an infantry weapon.
Many of the trials included its being fired in competition with howitzers and cannon. In each instance the Gatling placed more bullets in the target than did the artillery if allowed to fire as many bullets as the number of grapeshot fired. On the basis of these results, the gun was officially adopted by the United States Army on 24 August 1866. In 18 months' time the 1-inch weapon had been manufactured, given strenuous tests, and adopted by the Army. An order was placed for 100 guns. Fifty were to have 1-inch caliber. The remainder were to use the service ammunition for the caliber .50 army rifle. These 1-inch and caliber .50 rounds were the outgrowth of experimentation and development by Colonel Benét to produce a successful center-fire cartridge.
While maintaining, as before, his Indianapolis main office, Gatling made another change in manufacturing connections. This time he entered into contract with Colt's Patent Fire Arms Co., Hartford, Conn., to build the 100 guns for delivery in 1867. This business connection proved so satisfactory that as long as the service used the Gatling, it was manufactured by the Colt Co.To adapt the gun to the improved cartridges of Colonel Benét, Gatling again modified his bolt in order to convert from the caliber .58 rim-fire to the caliber .50 center-fire ammunition. By this improvement he completed in four short years an evolution in design. He divorced the machine gun for all time from the percussion nipple on a steel cartridge container and substituted instead the center-fire brass cartridge. In doing this he developed the kind of bolt assembly used in so-called "modern" machine guns.Among the guns in this 1866 group were the first deviations from the original six-barreldesign. A 10-barrel version was made in both the 1-inch and the caliber .50 dimensions.With the Civil War over and the arms embargo lifted, the Colt Co. appointed representatives for the purpose of introducing and selling Gatling guns throughout the world. They met in open competition the best that Europe had to offer. In every instance where a properly designed cartridge was used, the Gatling gun out-shot everything else under consideration, and successfully met dispersion trials against artillery loaded with grape.The United States Navy on 30 May 1868, concluded its trials on both the caliber .50 and the 1-inch guns at the Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. The weapons performed in such a creditable manner that the improved model was recommended to replace the few obsolete caliber .58 rim-fire Gatlings that were on hand. A letter praising the weapon's over-all performance was sent on that day to Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, apprising him of these facts. The board, appointed by the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, concluded its report by saying that to its knowledge, the gun tested by them had no superior.Shortly after the adoption of the 1865 model Gatling by the armed forces of this country, the weapon was manufactured in Europe by the Messrs. Paget & Co., Vienna, Austria, and the W. G. Armstrong Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. These firms made the guns with 10 barrels, which were chambered to whatever musket cartridge was used by the various governments. Some of the off sizes included a caliber .65 using a solid 3 1/4-ounce bullet, and a caliber .75 with a lead projectile of 4 1/2 ounces. All were 10-barrel guns, the only exception being the 1inch model which was made in both 6- and 10-barrel sizes.Some of the European governments, in order to prove certain tactical points, subjected the weapons to most unusual competitive events. For instance, in Carlsbad, Baden, in 1869 there were pitted against the rifle-caliber Gatling, 100 picked infantry soldiers, armed with the celebrated needle gun and trained to fire by volley. The machine gun was to fire the same amount of ammunition as the 100 riflemen at a distance of 800 meters. The results showed that the Gatling put 88 percent of its bullets into the target, while the soldiers succeeded in scoring only 27 percent hits. Doubtless the difference would have been even greater had the firing taken place during the heat and smoke of battle.Even after such a show had clearly demonstrated the Gatling gun's superiority as a death-dealing instrument, its general acceptance was not too enthusiastic. The London Times accused the Russian Government of making "undue haste" in adopting this American invention, and ordering a number of guns without even more rigorous trials than had already been conducted.British distrust of the Gatling at this particular time was due to stubbornness in demanding that all tests be conducted with the famous Boxer cartridge, invented in 1865 by the then Chief of British Ordnance, Colonel Boxer. This was far inferior to American ammunition. The Boxer cartridge case, instead of being made of solid drawn copper, was formed by rolling a thin brass plate around a mandrel, and after soldering, attaching an iron base to it. The bullet had a hollow base with a clay plug. Later, for stability at long range, the clay was replaced with a wooden plug. In 1866 the Boxer cartridge was officially adopted as the standard ammunition of all the English armed forces. The persistence of English authorities in conducting tests of highly efficient manually operated machine guns with this outmoded ammunition led to many failures through no fault of the weapon.During the first Gatling trials in England, the Boxer cartridge was used. On every burst attempted, the extractor, at some point in the firing, invariably tore the head off the cartridge and left the remaining brass in the chamber to block the incoming round and jam the gun.At later trials in Vienna, continued malfunction was caused by the use of ill-fitting ammunition. The Gatling gun, which had been advertised as firing 300 to 500 shots a minute, barely succeeded in doing more than 200 a minute.Gatling Gun, Model 1883, Ten-Barrel, Cal. .45, with Accles Feed Drum However, any time reliably constructed ammunition was used, the weapon's performance was equal to, and sometimes beyond, the claims of its promoters. When the British finally developed cartridges suitable for the Gatling, they ordered a demonstration at Shoeburyness. There they put the gun in competition with everything and anything that could be mustered; all ranges and various sizes of targets, both stationary and moving, were included. It was concluded that the arm in no way matched certain types of field guns, but that no artillery branch of an army would be complete without Gatlings as auxiliary or weapons.Although almost ignored in the Civil War and practically untested in battle, the Gatling slowly but surely impressed observers of all nations that, when used with suitable ammunition, it was the most reliable firing mechanism yet designed. Its drum-type gravity feed was improved by the invention of a positive cartridge-positioning device by James G. Accles of Hartford, Conn. This corrected a feature in the gun's design that had heretofore limited the angle of fire.The Gatling Gun Co. sent expert operators to every part of the world. In their enthusiasm to put on a good show, they have been known to set up their guns against the enemy of a prospective customer and repel a charge, just to show its effectiveness as an instrument of annihilation.After the United States Navy and Army had adopted the Gatling, in 1862 and 1866 respectively, the French successfully used a few in the Franco-Prussian War, while the much publicized rapid-firing weapons of European origin were being proved utter failures. For more than 40 years thereafter, the Gatling was used by practically every major power and influenced world events in no small manner.The Colt Co.'s greatest feat of salesmanship was in Russia. That government, one of the first foreign powers to adopt the Gatling (1871), sent General Gorloff to Hartford as head of a mission to witness the construction of the weapons, and, if thought advisable, to purchase an additional number. They were to be chambered for the Russian infantry rifle cartridge. Four hundred guns were made and delivered in less than a year, but not until each gun was stamped in Russian with Gorloff's name, since he had supervised their construction. Years later Gatlings were manufactured in Russia's own arsenals, but under the Gorloff name. Finally, when the Russo-Turkish War came, the Russians were fully equipped with Gorloffs. The Turks had the same weapons, but theirs were called Gatlings.Performance and Improvement D
The endurance of the Gatling gun seems almost phenomenal when judged by modern standards. On 23, 24, and 25 October 1873, at Fort Madison near Annapolis, Md., 100,000 rounds of center-fire caliber .50 ammunition were fired from one gun to test not only the durability of the 1865 model gun, but also the quality of the cartridges. Lt. Comdr. J. D. Marbin supervised these trials under the auspices of Commodore William Nicholson Jeffers, Chief of the Navy Bureau of Ordnance. Excerpts of the official report are given below:"October 23, 10:33 a. m., commenced firing in the presence of Chief of Bureau of Ordnance and others. Ten drums, each holding 400 cartridges (making 4,000), were fired rapidly, occupying in actual time of firing ten minutes and forty-eight seconds. The firing was then discontinued to witness experimental firing of the 15-inch Navy rifle. The firing of the Gatling gun was resumed in the afternoon, when some 28,000 cartridges were fired. Commenced firing at 8:50 a. m., October 24, the gun having been cleaned."One hundred and fifty-nine drums, of 400 cartridges each, making a total of 63,600 cartridges, were fired without stopping to wipe out or clean the barrels. At the close of the firing, which extended over a period of five hours and fifty-seven minutes, although the actual time of firing was less than four hours, the barrels were not foul to any extent; in proof of which a very good target was made at 300 yards range before cleaning the barrels. On the 25th day of October the remainder of the 100,000 cartridges were fired. The working of the gun, throughout this severe trial was eminently satisfactory, no derangements of any importance whatever occurring."Colt representatives sold the rifle-caliber guns,with the improved feed, to Egypt, Morocco, China, Japan, and practically all South American countries. However, it remained for Britain to give the gun more world-wide use in its empire building than any other nation had done. It not only adopted the weapon as the first-line machine gun for its army and navy, but manufactured Gatlings under royalty rights from the Colt Co. In fact, the gun was looked on so favorably by English authorities that it paved the way for the long list of American inventors who have since designed machine guns for the British Empire (there being no record of an Englishman designing any that were officially adopted by his own government). As other gun designers attempted to encroach on Gatling's world market, he boldly stood his ground. An English publication in September 1881 carried the following:"A CHALLENGE."THE GATLING GUN. "Recently many articles have appeared in the press claiming superior advantages for . . . other machine guns over the Gatling system. In order to test the question which is the better gun, the undersigned offers to fire his gun (the Gatling) against any other gun on the following wagers, viz:"First--£100 that the Gatling can fire more shots in a given time, say one minute, than any other gun in the world."Second--£100 that the Gatling can give more hits on a target, firing, say one minute, at a range of 800 or 1000 yards, than any other gun."The winning party to contribute the wagers won to charitable objects."The time and place for the trials to be mutually agreed upon. Trials of the above character will do more to determine the efficiency of the guns than newspaper articles ever so cleverly written."(Signed) R. J. GatlingOf Hartford, Conn., USA"The English Navy used Gatlings against the Peruvians in 1877, put them ashore against the Zulus in 1879, and at Alexandria in 1882. Historians claim the British Christianized the uncivilized world with the Gatling. In fact, it, more than any other weapon, helped change the odds in their favor during their days of empire building.The United States, however, was in the midst of peace. There was nothing to warrant the expenditure of ammunition except an occasional Indian uprising, which was suppressed by the regular army. The old-line military men were still not inclined to accept anything as revolutionary as the Gatling. Although it is recorded that each detachment in the field had several of these guns on its allowance list, nothing can be found to show their use in the Indian warfare of the Western plains.For the purpose of conjecture and discussion, it should be noted that when Gen. George Custer's entire troop was annihilated at Little Big Horn in 1876. his headquarters had on hand four of the 90-pound Gatlings having a rate of fire of 1,000 rounds a minute. These perfected General Custer, Who Left his Gatlings Behind When He Met Sitting Bull at Little Big Horn.Weapons were designed especially for animal transportation, and could be fired from horseback or from the ground on a tripod mounting. They were chambered for the Army standard caliber .45-70-405 infantry center-fire rifle cartridge. Had General Custer taken with him only one of the four that were available, the phrase "Custer massacre," so well known to every school child, would have had a reverse meaning--as one can hardly visualize a more perfect target for a tripod-mounted machine gun than a band of Indians galloping in a circle.Conditions remained about the same until the war with Spain in 1898. Then, for the first time, American troops fired a Gatling gun at a foreign enemy. This event might well have never taken place had it not been for the audacity of one man, Capt. John H. ("Gatling Gun") Parker. Having recognized the potentialities of this new kind of weapon, he asked that he be allowed to organize a Gatling unit against the Spaniards at Santiago in Cuba. His immediate superior opposed Parker's plans. However, he carried the request to the commanding officer, Gen. Joe Wheeler, who not only liked the suggestion, but directed Parker to get together the proper men and equipment to operate and maintain the guns. Parker's effective work against the enemy is a matter of history. As a result of his theories on the employment of the machine gun, the high command of the Army commissioned him to "devise a form of organization for machine guns to be attached to regiments of infantry." For the first time, 36 years after the Gatling was used by General Butler, the Army recognized the value of the weapon in offensive warfare, and gave it a place in future planning.Machine gun development owes much to Parker, for he organized with great foresight, laying the groundwork of tactical application, and creating in the military a place for future weapons of such a nature. Were it not for Parker, it is quite possible that the Gatling, first-line machine gun at the time of all the major powers in the world, although conceived, developed, and Gatlings at Baiquiri Just before Starting for the Front in the Spanish-American War. Perfected here, could have been declared obsolete by this country without firing a shot against a foreign foe. The weapon was finally abandoned and its manufacture discontinued in 1911, after surviving its inventor by 8 years.The 37 years that Gatling lived, following the official adoption of his gun by the United States, were spent as head of the Gatling Gun Co. (a section of Colt's Patent Fire Arms Co., Hartford, Conn.), where he constantly sought to keep the weapon ready to meet changing conditions.In 1871 Gatling patented his first improvement on the gun, namely, the introduction of a center-fire firing pin. In the next year he was granted a patent on general improvements allowing him to reduce the size and weight of the gun. This patent covered most of the features of his caliber .45 camel gun, so called because it could be easily transported on mules, horses, or camels, and was useful in mountainous desert countries. The gun had 10 barrels, weighed 125 pounds, and fired at a rate of 600 rounds per minute. An automatic traversing mechanism was described, but not claimed in this patent. The patent also shows an alteration in the breech housing to facilitate the use of the drum-type gravity feeder. The feeders came in two sizes, holding 200 and 400 rounds. The heavy guns were equipped with two of the large drums.In 1873 Gatling patented his automatic traversing mechanism. The same year he began experimenting with a five-barrel model with a direct-drive crank in the rear replacing the side crank with reduction gears.In 1875 the Springfield Armory issued a pamphlet with field instructions for maintenance and use of the weapon. In this handbook, under the heading Precautions, it was noted that the headspace of the gun was customarily adjusted to the ammunition to be used before being issued to the service. In the event this critical measurement was changed; through use or disassembly, and the weapon started separating brass from excessive headspace, a simple field adjustment could put it back in safe operation. By removing the front cover, and tightening the adjusting screw on the front of the main shaft, headspace could be shortened, allowing a minimum clearance for freedom of action between rotating barrels and breechblock. If a case should rupture during firing, or a block should fail on any barrel, there came as standard equipment with every gun a steel insert that would prevent an attempt to feed the fouled chamber and eliminate jams, while permitting the remaining chambers to function. The same handbook cautioned the man in the field to limit bursts to 10 minutes, or 4,000 rounds. It had been observed that a burst of this duration was sufficient, by color test, to heat the barrels to a point where ammunition in the feed might be exploded from contact with the hot mechanism.In 1876 the Gatling gun received the only award for machine guns at the International Exhibition in Philadelphia. The gun shown there was a 5-barrel one using a caliber .45 infantry rifle cartridge. It had a traversing mechanism that, at the choice of the gunner, could either fire at a single target or spread its field of fire automatically over a large lateral area. The weight of this gun was a little over 90 pounds. It fired sustained bursts at 700 rounds per minute and short bursts at 1,000 rounds per minute. At this time the Colt Co. was also making a 10-barrel model with all the improvements of the smaller gun.By 1880 Gatling was getting fire at a rate of 1,200 rounds per minute from his light gun. Three years later, James G. Accles, an employee of the Gatling firm, patented what has since been known as the Accles feed. This made the weapon even more reliable, and is the grandfather of the drum feed we know today.In 1886 Gatling developed a new type of gun alloy, composed of steel and aluminum, which was successfully adapted to gun manufacture. In this case, like other inventors of the era, Gatling was forced by popular demand into a field in which he had no business.About this time Congress granted him $40,000 to develop a method of casting large steel gun barrels in one piece. An 8-inch cannon was made at the Otis Steel Works, Cleveland, Ohio, and taken to Sandy Hook Proving Ground to be test fired. On the first shot, the gun blew up. Gatling called on an astronomer-mathematician, John Stockwell, to explain the accident. This choice was indeed a wise one, because Stockwell's report was such a mass of scientific confusion and improbable probabilities that Gatling was given the War Department Letter Attesting Capabilities of Gatling Mechanism the benefit of the doubt, and the whole thing forgotten. In 1886 L. F. Bruce, also employed by the Colt firm, received three patents on a gravity-type vertical feeder for use with the light model gun. The novel feature of this feeder was that ammunition could be loaded into it just as it came packaged from the factory. To load, the operator removed the top of the box and in one motion could insert all 20 rounds.Two patents were granted Gatling in 1893 for a flat strip type feed and for a rifle caliber gun with an electric motor built into the rear of the gun casing. The motor could be detached and replaced by a hand crank should no power be available.By this time the Gatling gun was totally obsolete, because the word "automatic" was now part of the ordnance vocabulary. Gatling, still a man of determination, proved his vision by designing this built-in electric motor drive. The gun was chambered for the smokeless caliber .30-40 Krag-Jorgensen rifle cartridge. The power-driven weapon in tests was fired at the phenomenal rate of 3,000 rounds per minute. Production of a reliable mechanism capable of this terrific volume of fire placed Gatling's design as far ahead in the power-driven field as his reliable hand-cranked gun had been with respect to the manually operated weapons of 1865. As a final defiant gesture to the "full automatic" trend, a device was designed in 1895 for eliminating the electric motor and converting Gatling machine guns to automatic. It did not entirely eliminate the hand crank, but depended on it only to sear off the first round. Thereafter, the gun became gas-operated in the following manner: A spring loaded pivoted lever was mounted on the front of the gun housing. Near the muzzle of each barrel there was a gas orifice. Upon firing the initial round, the orifice of the discharged barrel was positioned against the lever. This allowed the gas to bleed through this vent driving the lever down. The lever, upon being returned by its spring, indexed the gun through a ratchet assembly bringing the next barrel into position to be fired. This permitted a constant rate of fire to be obtained by correlating the size of the gas orifice with the spring pressure on the lever arm.No automatic Gatling, either electric or gas operated, was ever accepted by the armed forces of the Nation. However, the crank-operated guns were rechambered for the latest model cartridges caliber .30-40 and .30/06, and the Colt firm continued to produce them until they were declared obsolete by the United States Army in 1911. James Accles, inventor of the feed, went to England, became associated with Shelldrake Arms Co., of Birmingham, and continued to produce the gun.Gatling lived to see his weapon progress from loose powder and percussion cap to primed metallic ammunition, from black to smokeless powder, and from hand crank to electric drive and thence to full automatic.
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"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." - Thomas Jefferson
Enthusiastic! If you tried it you wouls be too. I just added the history for those interested as much as much as I do.You can buy one of these at a reasonable price which will do more than a class 3 with no wait, hassle or excess paperwork, just like buying a single shot 22lR chipmunk only on steroids. What's not to love?
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"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." - Thomas Jefferson
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CANIK FANATIK FORUM
CANIK FIREARMS DISCUSSION COMMUNITY
you can have one machine gun
you can have one machine gun
Post by TL1000RSquid » Sat Apr 11, 2020 9:13 am
For me Id try to find a PKM parts kit if they're all dried up then an RPD.
Of course I'd try to cheat and have non gun people family members register an m16 lower, ak, and hk sear to transfer to me.
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Lgaam » Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:03 am
Top of the list is an H&K MP5 SD. Probably. At least an MP5. My wife really wants the RDIAS, even if she doesn't know it yet. My eldest daughter will probably want something crew-served, M240 or Mk19. It's easier to get the small kids involved with a semi-stationary weapon system.
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by TL1000RSquid » Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:19 am
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by ncjw » Sat Apr 11, 2020 12:35 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by jgillaspy » Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:10 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by TL1000RSquid » Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:18 pm
RPD you can get for $1500 put it on the nfa books, convert to auto and chop barrel MACV SOG style
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by GearHead_1 » Sat Apr 11, 2020 1:20 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Ghostwolf308 » Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:13 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Lgaam » Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:15 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Lgaam » Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:18 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by colonel00 » Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:38 pm
MP5SD would definitely be at the top of the list too.
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Jester560 » Sat Apr 11, 2020 7:41 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Ghostwolf308 » Sat Apr 11, 2020 9:27 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Crosspower » Mon Apr 13, 2020 9:24 am
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by hydguy » Sun Apr 26, 2020 8:07 pm
Been in love with them since I was a kid.
Don't see them all that often in old war movies, but they used them in 'Attack Force Z'.
Have never seen one in person.
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Schrambo » Sun Apr 26, 2020 10:22 pm
Had one with a sear pack back in the day... Sear packs are God's way of telling you that you have too much money... ;)
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by Retiredtrooper » Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:17 am
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by flylo » Mon Apr 27, 2020 8:10 pm
Here's the full history. I have 2 & may buy a 3rd. I'll try to post pics when done with theor makeovers.
Gatling Machine Gun The Model 1862 GunThe North was deprived of a great ordnance officer when Major General Gorgas joined the Confederacy, but this loss was more than offset when Richard Jordan Gatling moved to the North in 1844, hoping to manufacture and market several of his mechanical inventions.Gatling was born in Hertford County, N. C, on 12 September 1818. His parents were Mary Barnes and Jordan Gatling, both descended from English colonists in North Carolina. His father, while still a young man, had invented a machine for planting cotton and another for thinning the plants to a stand. Richard Jordan Gatling assisted in the construction of these mechanical aids and, in his own name, patented a rice planter. The younger Gatling, believing that the prospects of a northern market were more profitable, adapted his rice planter to other grain, and moved to various cities in Missouri, Ohio, and Indiana.In 1847-48, he studied medicine at Laporte, Ind. The following year he entered Ohio Medical College from which he received a degree. While he was ever afterwards known as Dr. Gatling, there is no record of his ever practicing medicine. It is claimed that he studied only to protect his family from the ravages of the smallpox epidemics which were regularly sweeping the country.Purportedly at a suggestion by Col. R. A. Maxwell that a special objectives weapon was needed, Gatling drew up plans for a machine gun. Conceived in 1861 and patented in 1862, it was designed to defend buildings, causeways, and bridges. The first model was only a crude forerunner of the gun he soon perfected, the prototype of one of the most remarkable firing mechanisms of all ordnance history—the Gatling gun.The weapon was the logical outgrowth of the trends portrayed in the Ager and Ripley guns.Gatling combined the best principles of both and overcame their most objectionable features. His successful results caused him to be credited generally with being the father of the machine gun.The 1862 Gatling guns, types I and II, were fundamentally the Ager principle, improved by the multibarrel arrangement of the Ripley gun. In these models the engineering difficulties had not been completely overcome. However, his first gun laid the basic design groundwork. It was crank-operated with six revolving barrels, having a bolt for each barrel. Cocking and firing were performed by cam action and the weapon was gear driven. By taking advantage of the machine tool progress, he was the first to have used successfully a method of camming to insure positive action and certainty of fire.This model had many of the bad features of its forerunner, the Ager. It used paper cartridges and steel chargers that acted as firing chambers. The chargers were primed with percussion caps on nipples and the bolts acted as strikers to fire the caps. The chargers were supported during combustion by a cylindrical piece that housed the striker. A hopper gravity feed similar to that of the Ager was also used.As early as 1862 enough progress had been made on the weapon that a model, actually in working order, was exhibited before thousands of people in Indianapolis. One of the most interested spectators was the Hon. O. P. Morton, Governor of Indiana. This gentleman wrote to P. H. Watson, then Assistant Secretary of War, advising him of the weapon's unusual performance. He suggested that Dr. Gatling's gun be permitted officially to prove its worth.With this encouragement, Gatling continued to perfect his prototype until he deemed it reliable enough to pass any government test. Financial backers were sought in order to produce the weapon in sufficient quantities. With all the capital he could muster, Gatling went to Cincinnati, Ohio. There Miles Greenwood & Co. contracted to make six weapons in accordance with his patent of 4 November 1862.Unfortunately for Gatling, this factory, together with the weapons then near completion, blueprints and patterns, was destroyed by fire. The inventor was subjected to a heavy loss, both in money and in irreplaceable pilot models used in constructing these first weapons.But he was not easily discouraged. After a very short interval he was again in business, now backed by McWhinny, Rindge & Co., also of Cincinnati. This time 12 guns of the 1862 model were manufactured.Constantly seeking perfection, Gatling made several basic construction changes soon after the guns left the factory. For instance, the prototype and the November 1862 weapons employed a steel container with a percussion cap on the end and paper cartridges for the charge. Soon after the guns were completed by McWhinny, Rindge & Co., Gatling decided to use copper in place of paper in the cartridge cases. These metal cartridges were rim fire, which necessitated the placing of two projections on the bolt head to strike the rim-fire primer. The striker served both as firing pin and as a hammer while eliminating the use of the percussion cap on a nipple. In view of these modifications the gun can be classified correctly as type II of the 1862 model.Results were so successful that, while the inventor retained the steel chambers on this model, he always used metal cartridges thereafter.The copper-cased rim-fire ammunition was a definite step forward. It made the 1862 model Gatling easier to load and more certain to fire. However, it did not overcome the one difficulty that plagues all revolver-type firearms: the excessive gas leakage that takes place between the forward end of the cylinder and the breech end of the barrel.Gatling tried to solve this in both of his 1862 types by using a fixed steel cam, so placed as to wedge the chargers tightly against the barrel at the moment of firing. This arrangement was not too efficient. It made the crank hard to turn and caused excessive wear on the parts involved. To some extent this galling action could be compensated for by an adjusting screw that controlled the fore and aft position of the cartridge container.Both types of the 1862 model were made with six barrels and in rifle caliber .58 only. One of the oddest things about the design of the guns was a tapered bore, which was used to overcome mismatch of the barrels with the steel chargers in the cylindrical carrier. However, this proved very unsatisfactory. Recovered projectiles often showed no engraving marks of the rifling and generally struck the target sideways. An attempt was made to remedy this by increasing the taper and reducing the bore at the muzzle.Dr. Gatling and Mr. Rindge, one of his partners, demonstrated the gun themselves. They made no attempt to conceal the characteristics or construction of the weapon, but published fully illustrated accounts of its design and performance. These eventually found their way to all parts of the world, and aroused foreign inquiry. Nevertheless, our military authorities did not consider the invention especially desirable.On one of his numerous trips to Washington to interest the Army, Gatling called on Brig. Gen. J. W. Ripley, Chief of Ordnance, and asked that the weapon be given tests with a view of adopting it. General Ripley refused point blank to take the gun under consideration; no doubt he was influenced by confidential reports on the inventor's southern sympathies as much as by any other factor.A few days later, one of Gatling's representatives met Gen. Benjamin F. Butler in Baltimore, and asked permission to demonstrate the weapon. At the same time he neglected to mention General Ripley's refusal to become interested. Butler was enthusiastic over the resulting exhibition. He immediately purchased 12 guns, paying $12,000 for the weapons, on carriages, complete with 12,000 rounds of ammunition, and personally directed their use in battle during the siege of Petersburg, Va.Gatling was not the kind to hide his light under a bushel. Ever the opportunist, he had written to Maj. R. Maldon of the French Royal Artillery as early as 29 October 1863, suggesting the devastating possibilities of his gun in warfare, and enclosing a full and accurate description of the weapon. He proposed that should the major think it ethical, this might be the appropriate time to show the description and drawings to the Emperor Napoleon III.Gatling did not have to wait long for a reply. A request, in the name of the French Government, promptly came making specific inquiry on test reports, type of ammunition, the kind considered best for field conditions, proof of reliability, and the possibility of obtaining one of the weapons with ammunition for conducting a conclusive test.It is of particular interest that the text of the letter showed the keen awareness of the French Government toward this gun. Its observers during the Civil War, knowing the effectiveness of grapeshot fired from cannon against personnel, had recognized the need for an even more efficient weapon. Undoubtedly they had already dispatched information concerning the Gatling gun to their own ordnance department, and discussed the possibilities of its deadly use in European warfare.To the French inquiry, Gatling promptly responded by sending all the data requested, including published endorsements from high ranking military and civilian persons who maintained that the weapon was revolutionary and the most destructive engine of war ever invented. He likewise informed the French that he would not sell them one gun, as requested; but he could deliver them a hundred if needed, as he was now in a position to manufacture them in a reasonable length of time. This proposition was declined—fortunately; since the United States Government, shortly thereafter, forbade the exporting of arms and munitions of war.Gatling's correspondence with the French authorities definitely proves that his gun was known to the French high command as early as October 1863.This occurred considerably before Napoleon III ordered Commandant de Reffye, the leading French ordnance engineer, to produce a weapon that would actually do what records of tests and statements of individuals claimed was possible for the Gatling. It is conclusive proof that Gatling had a reliable and practical weapon for military use, long before any similar gun of European origin was beyond the blueprint stage.With the hope of getting the necessary Union authorities interested in the matter, Gatling wrote President Lincoln, and pointed out that his deadly invention was an act of Providence for suppressing the rebellion in short order.This brings to light a peculiar thing about the personality of this extraordinary man. At the same time he was describing his gun as the tool of Providence to help the North defeat the South, Army authorities were investigating his personal life. Henry B. Carrington, commanding general of the District of Indiana, reported that Gatling belonged to the Order of American Knights, a group of Confederate sympathizers busily engaged in aiding the Southern cause by acts of sabotage; and described Dr. Gatling, "inventor of the gun so named," and the jailer of Louisville, Ky., as the most active and dangerous of the entire organization. Furthermore, he reported that at Louisville a Federal supply boat had been recently burned by them.Having been born in North Carolina, Gatling's loyalties were naturally assumed to be with the South. This is believed to have influenced the location of his place of manufacture in Cincinnati, on the opposite side of the Ohio River from the South. Should he have gotten into quantity production, it would be a strategic position for selling his product to both the North and the South. He could either have delivered guns, or let them be seized in his shop by a quick Southern raid.Whatever his incentive was for locating in Cincinnati, nothing materialized. Gatling did not receive from the armed services of either side the recognition he expected. Therefore his production was meager. However, during this period his gun was given an official trial at the Washington Navy Yard and was successful enough for Admiral Dahlgren to approve the weapon's adoption by any fleet or squadron commander who requisitioned it.As bad features appeared during tests, Gatling observed them and a short time later made corrections. In the autumn of 1864 he made his first attempt to prepare changes that would correct the parts causing malfunctions, so common to all prototype or first model weapons.With the completion of what he thought was the solution, Gatling ended his partnership with McWhinny, Rindge & Co., of Cincinnati, and contracted with the Cooper Fire Arms Manufacturing Co. of Frankford (Philadelphia), Pa., for the production of the improved gun. James Maslin Cooper already had an outstanding reputation for precision-built weapons. Therefore, the Gatling guns made under this contract between 1865 and 1866 were a marked improvement over the earlier models.Incorporated in these later guns were all the things thought necessary to correct the objection able features of the previous design. Gatling ended the gas leakage problem by redesigning the weapon, and combining the cartridge chamber with the barrel; which, in effect, resulted in a breech-loading musket barrel, chambered to receive the metallic cartridge. At the same time he introduced reciprocating motion to a bolt of new design. While this piece revolved with the barrels, a fixed helical cam imparted a shuttle movement that performed the functions of loading, firing, extracting, and ejecting.Since the cartridge was placed in the chamber of the barrel, a method of extraction had to be put into the gun. This was done by adding a spring leaf attachment on the side of the bolt. When the bolt was in battery, the notched lip of the extractor cammed itself over the rim of the cartridge in order to pull the empty case rearward immediately after it was fired.This modified Gatling design used the caliber .58 with a rim-fire copper cartridge case, having a powder charge of 54 grains, and a Minié bullet of 566 grains. It had six barrels, as did the earlier models. However, this gun design resulted in the excellent piece that was so universally accepted.The operation of the weapon is very simple. One man installs a loaded feeder while the operator aims the gun and turns the crank. A set of beveled gears revolves the main shaft, carrying with it the bolt cylinder, carrier, barrels, and bolts. As the barrels rotate, the cartridges, one by one, drop into the grooves of the carrier from the feed. Instantly the bolt, by its engagement in the spiral cam surfaces, moves forward pushing the incoming round into the chamber. On the continued forward movement of the bolt, the spring is fully compressed by the cocking lug of the striker reaching the highest projection on the cam. Upon being released at this point, the spring drives the striker forward into the primer, firing the cartridge.As the rotation continues, the bolt starts rearward. The extractor hooks loosen the empty case, and carry it to a point where its base hits the ejector, knocking the empty brass through an opening in the housing, clear of the mechanism.Each barrel is discharged in turn as it reaches the lower right hand position, the cycle of operation of any single bolt and barrel assembly being completed in one revolution. The firing continues as long as the crank is turned and the feeder remains loaded.One of these weapons was finished in late December 1864. One month later it was sent to Washington and submitted by the Gatling representative, Gen. John Lowe, to the Army Ordnance Department for test.A trial was ordered and carried out satisfactorily within a month. The improvements made by Gatling were hailed as a great success. The fact that it had completely overcome all gas leakage at the breech was accepted as the greatest accomplishment of all. After these tests he was granted a patent on the changes (9 May f 865).General Dyer, the new Chief of Army Ordnance, suggested that additional guns be designed in 1-inch caliber. These were to use either a solid lead ball, or a ball and buckshot load for close shooting—such as might be needed for street fighting and bridge protection. If the design changes could be accomplished, Dyer agreed to order Government trials at the Frankford Arsenal at Philadelphia where machinery would be especially constructed to make the 1-inch rim-fire cartridges. It was decided to build eight such weapons and Gatling personally supervised their construction at the Cooper plant.When these weapons were completed, they were turned over to Col. S. V. Benét, officer in charge of the Frankford Arsenal. He was to conduct tests for the purpose of improving the ammunition design, since it was very difficult not only to manufacture the conventional rim-fire ammunition, but also to maintain even distribution of mercury fulminate all around the inside of the rim. The latter was necessary to insure positive ignition.While the weapons were in the hands of Colonel Benét, who later became the Army's Chief of Ordnance with the rank of general, many demonstrations were conducted for high ranking officers. Among those who witnessed a firing in Washington were Generals Grant, Hancock, Dyer, Manadier, and Hagner, as well as other Army and Government officials.With respect to these various exhibitions, and the expenditure of thousands of rounds of ammunition, Colonel Benét, in a summation that was unique in its brevity, stated: "The gun worked smoothly in all its parts."
The development of this type of weapon divided military men into two schools of thought. One believed that it should be an artillery support; the other considered it a special objectives gun for bridges or street defense. Neither recognized its true mission as an infantry weapon.
Many of the trials included its being fired in competition with howitzers and cannon. In each instance the Gatling placed more bullets in the target than did the artillery if allowed to fire as many bullets as the number of grapeshot fired. On the basis of these results, the gun was officially adopted by the United States Army on 24 August 1866. In 18 months' time the 1-inch weapon had been manufactured, given strenuous tests, and adopted by the Army. An order was placed for 100 guns. Fifty were to have 1-inch caliber. The remainder were to use the service ammunition for the caliber .50 army rifle. These 1-inch and caliber .50 rounds were the outgrowth of experimentation and development by Colonel Benét to produce a successful center-fire cartridge.
While maintaining, as before, his Indianapolis main office, Gatling made another change in manufacturing connections. This time he entered into contract with Colt's Patent Fire Arms Co., Hartford, Conn., to build the 100 guns for delivery in 1867. This business connection proved so satisfactory that as long as the service used the Gatling, it was manufactured by the Colt Co.To adapt the gun to the improved cartridges of Colonel Benét, Gatling again modified his bolt in order to convert from the caliber .58 rim-fire to the caliber .50 center-fire ammunition. By this improvement he completed in four short years an evolution in design. He divorced the machine gun for all time from the percussion nipple on a steel cartridge container and substituted instead the center-fire brass cartridge. In doing this he developed the kind of bolt assembly used in so-called "modern" machine guns.Among the guns in this 1866 group were the first deviations from the original six-barreldesign. A 10-barrel version was made in both the 1-inch and the caliber .50 dimensions.With the Civil War over and the arms embargo lifted, the Colt Co. appointed representatives for the purpose of introducing and selling Gatling guns throughout the world. They met in open competition the best that Europe had to offer. In every instance where a properly designed cartridge was used, the Gatling gun out-shot everything else under consideration, and successfully met dispersion trials against artillery loaded with grape.The United States Navy on 30 May 1868, concluded its trials on both the caliber .50 and the 1-inch guns at the Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. The weapons performed in such a creditable manner that the improved model was recommended to replace the few obsolete caliber .58 rim-fire Gatlings that were on hand. A letter praising the weapon's over-all performance was sent on that day to Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, apprising him of these facts. The board, appointed by the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, concluded its report by saying that to its knowledge, the gun tested by them had no superior.Shortly after the adoption of the 1865 model Gatling by the armed forces of this country, the weapon was manufactured in Europe by the Messrs. Paget & Co., Vienna, Austria, and the W. G. Armstrong Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. These firms made the guns with 10 barrels, which were chambered to whatever musket cartridge was used by the various governments. Some of the off sizes included a caliber .65 using a solid 3 1/4-ounce bullet, and a caliber .75 with a lead projectile of 4 1/2 ounces. All were 10-barrel guns, the only exception being the 1inch model which was made in both 6- and 10-barrel sizes.Some of the European governments, in order to prove certain tactical points, subjected the weapons to most unusual competitive events. For instance, in Carlsbad, Baden, in 1869 there were pitted against the rifle-caliber Gatling, 100 picked infantry soldiers, armed with the celebrated needle gun and trained to fire by volley. The machine gun was to fire the same amount of ammunition as the 100 riflemen at a distance of 800 meters. The results showed that the Gatling put 88 percent of its bullets into the target, while the soldiers succeeded in scoring only 27 percent hits. Doubtless the difference would have been even greater had the firing taken place during the heat and smoke of battle.Even after such a show had clearly demonstrated the Gatling gun's superiority as a death-dealing instrument, its general acceptance was not too enthusiastic. The London Times accused the Russian Government of making "undue haste" in adopting this American invention, and ordering a number of guns without even more rigorous trials than had already been conducted.British distrust of the Gatling at this particular time was due to stubbornness in demanding that all tests be conducted with the famous Boxer cartridge, invented in 1865 by the then Chief of British Ordnance, Colonel Boxer. This was far inferior to American ammunition. The Boxer cartridge case, instead of being made of solid drawn copper, was formed by rolling a thin brass plate around a mandrel, and after soldering, attaching an iron base to it. The bullet had a hollow base with a clay plug. Later, for stability at long range, the clay was replaced with a wooden plug. In 1866 the Boxer cartridge was officially adopted as the standard ammunition of all the English armed forces. The persistence of English authorities in conducting tests of highly efficient manually operated machine guns with this outmoded ammunition led to many failures through no fault of the weapon.During the first Gatling trials in England, the Boxer cartridge was used. On every burst attempted, the extractor, at some point in the firing, invariably tore the head off the cartridge and left the remaining brass in the chamber to block the incoming round and jam the gun.At later trials in Vienna, continued malfunction was caused by the use of ill-fitting ammunition. The Gatling gun, which had been advertised as firing 300 to 500 shots a minute, barely succeeded in doing more than 200 a minute.Gatling Gun, Model 1883, Ten-Barrel, Cal. .45, with Accles Feed Drum However, any time reliably constructed ammunition was used, the weapon's performance was equal to, and sometimes beyond, the claims of its promoters. When the British finally developed cartridges suitable for the Gatling, they ordered a demonstration at Shoeburyness. There they put the gun in competition with everything and anything that could be mustered; all ranges and various sizes of targets, both stationary and moving, were included. It was concluded that the arm in no way matched certain types of field guns, but that no artillery branch of an army would be complete without Gatlings as auxiliary or weapons.Although almost ignored in the Civil War and practically untested in battle, the Gatling slowly but surely impressed observers of all nations that, when used with suitable ammunition, it was the most reliable firing mechanism yet designed. Its drum-type gravity feed was improved by the invention of a positive cartridge-positioning device by James G. Accles of Hartford, Conn. This corrected a feature in the gun's design that had heretofore limited the angle of fire.The Gatling Gun Co. sent expert operators to every part of the world. In their enthusiasm to put on a good show, they have been known to set up their guns against the enemy of a prospective customer and repel a charge, just to show its effectiveness as an instrument of annihilation.After the United States Navy and Army had adopted the Gatling, in 1862 and 1866 respectively, the French successfully used a few in the Franco-Prussian War, while the much publicized rapid-firing weapons of European origin were being proved utter failures. For more than 40 years thereafter, the Gatling was used by practically every major power and influenced world events in no small manner.The Colt Co.'s greatest feat of salesmanship was in Russia. That government, one of the first foreign powers to adopt the Gatling (1871), sent General Gorloff to Hartford as head of a mission to witness the construction of the weapons, and, if thought advisable, to purchase an additional number. They were to be chambered for the Russian infantry rifle cartridge. Four hundred guns were made and delivered in less than a year, but not until each gun was stamped in Russian with Gorloff's name, since he had supervised their construction. Years later Gatlings were manufactured in Russia's own arsenals, but under the Gorloff name. Finally, when the Russo-Turkish War came, the Russians were fully equipped with Gorloffs. The Turks had the same weapons, but theirs were called Gatlings.Performance and Improvement D
The endurance of the Gatling gun seems almost phenomenal when judged by modern standards. On 23, 24, and 25 October 1873, at Fort Madison near Annapolis, Md., 100,000 rounds of center-fire caliber .50 ammunition were fired from one gun to test not only the durability of the 1865 model gun, but also the quality of the cartridges. Lt. Comdr. J. D. Marbin supervised these trials under the auspices of Commodore William Nicholson Jeffers, Chief of the Navy Bureau of Ordnance. Excerpts of the official report are given below:"October 23, 10:33 a. m., commenced firing in the presence of Chief of Bureau of Ordnance and others. Ten drums, each holding 400 cartridges (making 4,000), were fired rapidly, occupying in actual time of firing ten minutes and forty-eight seconds. The firing was then discontinued to witness experimental firing of the 15-inch Navy rifle. The firing of the Gatling gun was resumed in the afternoon, when some 28,000 cartridges were fired. Commenced firing at 8:50 a. m., October 24, the gun having been cleaned."One hundred and fifty-nine drums, of 400 cartridges each, making a total of 63,600 cartridges, were fired without stopping to wipe out or clean the barrels. At the close of the firing, which extended over a period of five hours and fifty-seven minutes, although the actual time of firing was less than four hours, the barrels were not foul to any extent; in proof of which a very good target was made at 300 yards range before cleaning the barrels. On the 25th day of October the remainder of the 100,000 cartridges were fired. The working of the gun, throughout this severe trial was eminently satisfactory, no derangements of any importance whatever occurring."Colt representatives sold the rifle-caliber guns,with the improved feed, to Egypt, Morocco, China, Japan, and practically all South American countries. However, it remained for Britain to give the gun more world-wide use in its empire building than any other nation had done. It not only adopted the weapon as the first-line machine gun for its army and navy, but manufactured Gatlings under royalty rights from the Colt Co. In fact, the gun was looked on so favorably by English authorities that it paved the way for the long list of American inventors who have since designed machine guns for the British Empire (there being no record of an Englishman designing any that were officially adopted by his own government). As other gun designers attempted to encroach on Gatling's world market, he boldly stood his ground. An English publication in September 1881 carried the following:"A CHALLENGE."THE GATLING GUN. "Recently many articles have appeared in the press claiming superior advantages for . . . other machine guns over the Gatling system. In order to test the question which is the better gun, the undersigned offers to fire his gun (the Gatling) against any other gun on the following wagers, viz:"First--£100 that the Gatling can fire more shots in a given time, say one minute, than any other gun in the world."Second--£100 that the Gatling can give more hits on a target, firing, say one minute, at a range of 800 or 1000 yards, than any other gun."The winning party to contribute the wagers won to charitable objects."The time and place for the trials to be mutually agreed upon. Trials of the above character will do more to determine the efficiency of the guns than newspaper articles ever so cleverly written."(Signed) R. J. GatlingOf Hartford, Conn., USA"The English Navy used Gatlings against the Peruvians in 1877, put them ashore against the Zulus in 1879, and at Alexandria in 1882. Historians claim the British Christianized the uncivilized world with the Gatling. In fact, it, more than any other weapon, helped change the odds in their favor during their days of empire building.The United States, however, was in the midst of peace. There was nothing to warrant the expenditure of ammunition except an occasional Indian uprising, which was suppressed by the regular army. The old-line military men were still not inclined to accept anything as revolutionary as the Gatling. Although it is recorded that each detachment in the field had several of these guns on its allowance list, nothing can be found to show their use in the Indian warfare of the Western plains.For the purpose of conjecture and discussion, it should be noted that when Gen. George Custer's entire troop was annihilated at Little Big Horn in 1876. his headquarters had on hand four of the 90-pound Gatlings having a rate of fire of 1,000 rounds a minute. These perfected General Custer, Who Left his Gatlings Behind When He Met Sitting Bull at Little Big Horn.Weapons were designed especially for animal transportation, and could be fired from horseback or from the ground on a tripod mounting. They were chambered for the Army standard caliber .45-70-405 infantry center-fire rifle cartridge. Had General Custer taken with him only one of the four that were available, the phrase "Custer massacre," so well known to every school child, would have had a reverse meaning--as one can hardly visualize a more perfect target for a tripod-mounted machine gun than a band of Indians galloping in a circle.Conditions remained about the same until the war with Spain in 1898. Then, for the first time, American troops fired a Gatling gun at a foreign enemy. This event might well have never taken place had it not been for the audacity of one man, Capt. John H. ("Gatling Gun") Parker. Having recognized the potentialities of this new kind of weapon, he asked that he be allowed to organize a Gatling unit against the Spaniards at Santiago in Cuba. His immediate superior opposed Parker's plans. However, he carried the request to the commanding officer, Gen. Joe Wheeler, who not only liked the suggestion, but directed Parker to get together the proper men and equipment to operate and maintain the guns. Parker's effective work against the enemy is a matter of history. As a result of his theories on the employment of the machine gun, the high command of the Army commissioned him to "devise a form of organization for machine guns to be attached to regiments of infantry." For the first time, 36 years after the Gatling was used by General Butler, the Army recognized the value of the weapon in offensive warfare, and gave it a place in future planning.Machine gun development owes much to Parker, for he organized with great foresight, laying the groundwork of tactical application, and creating in the military a place for future weapons of such a nature. Were it not for Parker, it is quite possible that the Gatling, first-line machine gun at the time of all the major powers in the world, although conceived, developed, and Gatlings at Baiquiri Just before Starting for the Front in the Spanish-American War. Perfected here, could have been declared obsolete by this country without firing a shot against a foreign foe. The weapon was finally abandoned and its manufacture discontinued in 1911, after surviving its inventor by 8 years.The 37 years that Gatling lived, following the official adoption of his gun by the United States, were spent as head of the Gatling Gun Co. (a section of Colt's Patent Fire Arms Co., Hartford, Conn.), where he constantly sought to keep the weapon ready to meet changing conditions.In 1871 Gatling patented his first improvement on the gun, namely, the introduction of a center-fire firing pin. In the next year he was granted a patent on general improvements allowing him to reduce the size and weight of the gun. This patent covered most of the features of his caliber .45 camel gun, so called because it could be easily transported on mules, horses, or camels, and was useful in mountainous desert countries. The gun had 10 barrels, weighed 125 pounds, and fired at a rate of 600 rounds per minute. An automatic traversing mechanism was described, but not claimed in this patent. The patent also shows an alteration in the breech housing to facilitate the use of the drum-type gravity feeder. The feeders came in two sizes, holding 200 and 400 rounds. The heavy guns were equipped with two of the large drums.In 1873 Gatling patented his automatic traversing mechanism. The same year he began experimenting with a five-barrel model with a direct-drive crank in the rear replacing the side crank with reduction gears.In 1875 the Springfield Armory issued a pamphlet with field instructions for maintenance and use of the weapon. In this handbook, under the heading Precautions, it was noted that the headspace of the gun was customarily adjusted to the ammunition to be used before being issued to the service. In the event this critical measurement was changed; through use or disassembly, and the weapon started separating brass from excessive headspace, a simple field adjustment could put it back in safe operation. By removing the front cover, and tightening the adjusting screw on the front of the main shaft, headspace could be shortened, allowing a minimum clearance for freedom of action between rotating barrels and breechblock. If a case should rupture during firing, or a block should fail on any barrel, there came as standard equipment with every gun a steel insert that would prevent an attempt to feed the fouled chamber and eliminate jams, while permitting the remaining chambers to function. The same handbook cautioned the man in the field to limit bursts to 10 minutes, or 4,000 rounds. It had been observed that a burst of this duration was sufficient, by color test, to heat the barrels to a point where ammunition in the feed might be exploded from contact with the hot mechanism.In 1876 the Gatling gun received the only award for machine guns at the International Exhibition in Philadelphia. The gun shown there was a 5-barrel one using a caliber .45 infantry rifle cartridge. It had a traversing mechanism that, at the choice of the gunner, could either fire at a single target or spread its field of fire automatically over a large lateral area. The weight of this gun was a little over 90 pounds. It fired sustained bursts at 700 rounds per minute and short bursts at 1,000 rounds per minute. At this time the Colt Co. was also making a 10-barrel model with all the improvements of the smaller gun.By 1880 Gatling was getting fire at a rate of 1,200 rounds per minute from his light gun. Three years later, James G. Accles, an employee of the Gatling firm, patented what has since been known as the Accles feed. This made the weapon even more reliable, and is the grandfather of the drum feed we know today.In 1886 Gatling developed a new type of gun alloy, composed of steel and aluminum, which was successfully adapted to gun manufacture. In this case, like other inventors of the era, Gatling was forced by popular demand into a field in which he had no business.About this time Congress granted him $40,000 to develop a method of casting large steel gun barrels in one piece. An 8-inch cannon was made at the Otis Steel Works, Cleveland, Ohio, and taken to Sandy Hook Proving Ground to be test fired. On the first shot, the gun blew up. Gatling called on an astronomer-mathematician, John Stockwell, to explain the accident. This choice was indeed a wise one, because Stockwell's report was such a mass of scientific confusion and improbable probabilities that Gatling was given the War Department Letter Attesting Capabilities of Gatling Mechanism the benefit of the doubt, and the whole thing forgotten. In 1886 L. F. Bruce, also employed by the Colt firm, received three patents on a gravity-type vertical feeder for use with the light model gun. The novel feature of this feeder was that ammunition could be loaded into it just as it came packaged from the factory. To load, the operator removed the top of the box and in one motion could insert all 20 rounds.Two patents were granted Gatling in 1893 for a flat strip type feed and for a rifle caliber gun with an electric motor built into the rear of the gun casing. The motor could be detached and replaced by a hand crank should no power be available.By this time the Gatling gun was totally obsolete, because the word "automatic" was now part of the ordnance vocabulary. Gatling, still a man of determination, proved his vision by designing this built-in electric motor drive. The gun was chambered for the smokeless caliber .30-40 Krag-Jorgensen rifle cartridge. The power-driven weapon in tests was fired at the phenomenal rate of 3,000 rounds per minute. Production of a reliable mechanism capable of this terrific volume of fire placed Gatling's design as far ahead in the power-driven field as his reliable hand-cranked gun had been with respect to the manually operated weapons of 1865. As a final defiant gesture to the "full automatic" trend, a device was designed in 1895 for eliminating the electric motor and converting Gatling machine guns to automatic. It did not entirely eliminate the hand crank, but depended on it only to sear off the first round. Thereafter, the gun became gas-operated in the following manner: A spring loaded pivoted lever was mounted on the front of the gun housing. Near the muzzle of each barrel there was a gas orifice. Upon firing the initial round, the orifice of the discharged barrel was positioned against the lever. This allowed the gas to bleed through this vent driving the lever down. The lever, upon being returned by its spring, indexed the gun through a ratchet assembly bringing the next barrel into position to be fired. This permitted a constant rate of fire to be obtained by correlating the size of the gas orifice with the spring pressure on the lever arm.No automatic Gatling, either electric or gas operated, was ever accepted by the armed forces of the Nation. However, the crank-operated guns were rechambered for the latest model cartridges caliber .30-40 and .30/06, and the Colt firm continued to produce them until they were declared obsolete by the United States Army in 1911. James Accles, inventor of the feed, went to England, became associated with Shelldrake Arms Co., of Birmingham, and continued to produce the gun.Gatling lived to see his weapon progress from loose powder and percussion cap to primed metallic ammunition, from black to smokeless powder, and from hand crank to electric drive and thence to full automatic.
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by colonel00 » Mon Apr 27, 2020 8:41 pm
Re: you can have one machine gun
Post by flylo » Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:35 am
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