Feat of the Week: 9mm Gatling Gun
The Gunsmithing Story
This week’s gunsmithing feat is replacing two firing pins and a bolt assembly on a 9mm Gatling gun from Tippmann Armory. We typically feature more flashy services like crazy Cerakote patterns or custom machining. It’s rare that we write a blog post on something so common and relatively boring. While installing a new firing pin wouldn’t usually qualify to be featured on our blog, this is a job we just couldn’t resist sharing.
This $5,000 modern 9mm Gatling gun (which takes Glock mags) belongs to one of our frequent customers who has several other awesome guns. He brought it to us because he had never been able to fire more than 200 rounds through it without some sort of issue.
The original Gatling guns were designed with one firing mechanism per barrel. On this modern version, each barrel also has its own bolt assembly. Upon disassembly and examination, it was clear that two firing pins and one of the bolt assemblies were broken. A relatively simple fix! We ordered the parts and waited for them to come in. Once we received them, we installed the new parts and reassembled the gun.
The customer was pleased to hear his gun was finished, but before picking it up, he asked a favor—a test fire. We don’t usually test fire guns with easy fixes like this. But the customer wanted to be sure he would be able to get more than 200 rounds through his 9mm Gatling. Happy to oblige, we headed to Albany Pistol and Rifle Club to test these new parts—in rapid succession, of course.
Not many guns make me giddy, but this one sure did. Unfortunately, 200 rounds go awfully fast through this thing. Too bad they didn’t make it belt fed!
Some readers might be thinking, “That looks like a machine gun. Is that legal?” The short answer is YES! While many refer to the Gatling gun as the first machine gun, it isn’t classified as such. A machine gun has a firing mechanism which can discharge multiple bullets with a single motion or action. On the Gatling gun, however, each crank of the handle engages a single firing mechanism. Thus, it doesn’t fall into the machine gun category.
Gatling’s Gun
While Gatlings aren’t technically considered machine guns, they were the first guns in history to sustain a high rate of fire. Designed in 1861, Gatling guns could fire up to 600 rounds per minute—the same rate as a Browning 1919. Comparatively, repeating rifles of this era could shoot around 4 rounds per minute.
Patent Drawing for Gatling’s Gun in 1865
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=290407
This innovative weapon was developed by Doctor Richard Gatling. Though a trained physician, he never practiced medicine. Instead, he pursued the family tradition of invention (his dad held an agricultural patent and his brother had been working on a flying machine before his death). Dr. Gatling himself earned over fifty patents between 1844 and 1902. Before inventing the Gatling gun, he created several agricultural machines which eventually inspired the gun’s design.
During the Civil War, while living In Indianapolis, he had witnessed scores of injured Union soldiers returning from battle. Hoping to prevent more war casualties in the future, he set out to create a gun which would eliminate the need for large armies.
What resulted was a crank operated, multi-barreled gun mounted on two tall wheels. With the Gatling’s rate of fire, it could surely do the work of a hundred soldiers.
Manhattan Anti-Draft Riots
While some claim that Dr. Gatling was a Confederate sympathizer, he sold a few of his guns to Union leaders near the end of the Civil War. Though it was only employed in a few battles, the Gatling gun was used against anti-draft rioters in New York City in 1863.
With the passage of the Enrollment Act, the United States established the first military draft. Along with women, wealthy men and free black men were exempt—the former could buy way out of the draft and the latter weren’t yet considered citizens. Angry about the draft and its exemptions, white working-class men rioted for several days in Manhattan.
Anti-Draft Rioters Attacking Buildings
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6762837
Though it originally began as an anti-draft riot, the violence quickly turned into a racial conflict—with Irish immigrants attacking and murdering free black people. This anger wasn’t just related to the draft. It also stemmed from fears that newly freed black men would take their jobs (the Emancipation Proclamation was issued the same year).
The angry mobs destroyed the homes, businesses, and churches of black people and abolitionists. They also attacked news organizations including the New York Times and the New-York Tribune.
Legend has it that when the mob approached the New York Times headquarters, they were met with three Gatling guns wielded by the editor and several staff members. Once the mob saw the guns, they backed down and left the building alone.
With the NYPD unable to quell the chaos, Lincoln sent 4,000 federal Union troops—directly from the Battle of Gettysburg—and several volunteer militia groups to control the situation. While official reports claim that only 120 people died, the unofficial count is almost 1,200—including eleven black people who had been beaten and lynched. The draft resumed a month later.
Gatling Around the World
After the Civil War, the Gatling gun was officially adopted by the U.S. Army in 1866. This version upgraded from six barrels to ten barrels. With a large order to fill in 1866 for the U.S. War Department, Gatling contracted Colt to manufacture the gun for him.
Gatling Gun from 1876
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45135
These Gatling guns were used by the Army Spanish-American War. The most famous story comes from the Battle of San Juan Hill in which three Gatling guns fired 18,000 rounds in under nine minutes.
But with the invention of the first machine gun in 1886 by Hiram Maxim, the Gatling gun quickly became obsolete. It was officially retired by the military in 1911, when the Maxim’s recoil operated, single barrel machine gun took over.
While Gatling’s gun was in service for less than fifty years with the U.S. military, it laid the groundwork for some of the most terrifying weapons of our time.
Modern Gatlings
At the turn of the century, Dr. Gatling had been developing a version of his gun which used an electric motor to drive the crank. While this electric Gatling gun could produce 1,500 rounds per minute, it was complicated and cumbersome. With Maxim’s new machine gun, Dr. Gatling’s electric gun never gained traction—at least not until the modern era.
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M61 Vulcan
By Robert Frola - Flickr, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32416154
Today, the M61 Vulcan and the M134 Minigun are the modern incarnates of the original Gatling gun. These weapons—designed by GE—use Gatling’s concept and are capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute.
The modern version of the Gatling gun for us civilians, however, isn’t electrically powered or belt fed. But it does take Glock mags and fires as fast as you can crank the handle. And that’s just enough to make me giddy.
Next Up
We hope you enjoyed this week’s blog. Thank you for following along! New feats are posted every Monday at 9am PST. Comment with any gunsmithing content you want to see!
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Sources:
https://www.middlecreek.org/civil-war-weapons/
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/gatling-gun
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a22451/history-gatling-gun/
https://www.ncpedia.org/gatling-gun/overview
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2018/10/16/the-gatling-gun-a-civil-war-innovation/
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130493013
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/27/AR2008062701752.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots