Minigun idea

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms/Machine-Guns/GE_XM214_Minigun.htm

So for all the reasons in the article, the man-pack minigun never got fielded. Would it be possible to scale it down? 4 barrels chambered in .22LR should reduce the weight of the weapon, the ammo, the recoil, and the batteries needed to spin the whole contraption. Can anyone see a use for such a baby monster? Other than being really cool at the machine gun shoot or clearing a hot LZ I really can't but maybe.... foam bullets for riot dispersal?

It just seemed like a fun idea in my head.

It would not be the first gun designed whose sole purpose was being really cool to shoot.

There's a couple of people that use a scuba tank, a drill, and a rotating assembly to build them for paintball.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6oneDeiOBsg

Useful? Probably not. Fun? Yes.

There's currently several the hand cranked .22LR kits that are for sale.

The article mentions car batteries and their weight. I wonder how much some high-density Li-Ion batteries would reduce the weight?

Scale down to rim fire, add in modern electronics such as brushless motors and various lithium battery packs, it could work.

I know there were some belt fed .22 baby machine guns made a while back. With current regulations, I think the market would be very small, but a huge portion of the American firearms market is really just toys for enthusiasts so there might be something there.

Found a video of the one I remembered: Tippmann Machine Gun

"Throw the maximum possible amount of .22LR downrange" is a pretty old idea.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/J50N5lQoAFw

I have been looking at .22lr gatling guns for a while now(inside challenge budget at that), this looks like the next evolution of that idea.

If you are willing to deal with the hassle of a Class III firearms license, I say go for it.

Would a hand cranked Gatling gun be subject to Class lll?

Some outfit scaled down the 7.62 minigun and built one in .223. Battery, 1000 rds ammo and belt in a backpack, 1 man carry, 6000 rpm... I'd go broke feeding it so fast...

In reply to spitfirebill:

No. They're not. And you can even buy kits for the Ruger 10/22 at Cabelas to convert. The act of cranking counts as separate trigger pulls, so they're considered semi automatic. The same loophole the Hellfire crank trigger for AR 15s falls through.

I can't remember the company name right now but they're in Texas somewhere and make 22 and 45-70 classic style gatling guns fairly cheap. I found them on gunbroker originally. It's the freight shipping that hurts the wallet, almost as much as ammo.

There is a class 3 shop by me, I've been there looking at things before. They built a backpack style belt feed 308 in full auto for "a guy that works for an alphabet soup agency", got a picture on the wall of it in use, it's wicked.

E36 M3load of aftermarket 10/22 parts available, be good place to start shopping. Machine shop plus ingenuity for the rest. It's doable.

The microgun is now a thing. Looks like fun.

conesare2seconds wrote: The microgun is now a thing. Looks like fun.

Yep, that's the lil monster right there, the one I'd go broke trying to keep the backpack full!

conesare2seconds wrote: The microgun is now a thing. Looks like fun.

That looks like a lot of fun.

At 6000RPM that's about $22 per second shooting the cheapest ammo on the market (wolf steel case).

BrokenYugo wrote: "Throw the maximum possible amount of .22LR downrange" is a pretty old idea. https://www.youtube.com/embed/J50N5lQoAFw

Went with friends to the Knob Creek MG shoot several years ago. One of the guys bought an American 180 there. It's a lot of fun to shoot. Not so much fun reloading the magazine.

I've heard that the American 180 was used by state prison guards in Utah for years.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/jHgZh4GV9G0

BrokenYugo wrote: At 6000RPM that's about $22 per second shooting the cheapest ammo on the market (wolf steel case).

That's part of my reasoning for using .22 LR instead of 5.56 cost.