20mm autoloader
Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:21 pm
I drew out plans for an air and electrically powered minigun that would shoot foam bullets when I was eleven. Just sayin'. They wouldn't have worked, but they were the start of something workable.
Now, forget all that. I don't think anyone without the help of a few graduate level engineering students and a fully equipped machine shop can make a minigun that shoots bbs, airsoft, darts, nerf, golf balls, or whatever. I do have a few ideas that would fix a lot of timing issues if the barrel cluster rotated independant of the load and fire mechs- but it's pretty much pointless aside from "cool" factor. I want something that operates without having to sink years of my life and my entire savings into it.
I'm thinking about making a 20mm tri-barreled cannon. I've worked out how it would feed (partially) load and fire. I'll build a model first in PVC, and then later on, a finished production in steel.
These are my design challenges:
Maintaining a sufficient supply of compressed gas for rapid (600+rpm) fire. Dry nitrogen?
A suitable magazine system that would smoothly feed in the ABS / organic matter slugs into the feed mechanism. I think a large drum would work with my concept for a springloaded multitrack follower.
Having the magazine feed system go directly to the breech could result a slug being pushed into the moving face and being shorn / mutilated, so the magazine would end at a feeder claw that would move in sync with the receiver unit to load in a round at a time at the needed speed.
Once the round is inside the breech, the unit will make either 1/3 or 2/3 rotation, then fire. ( http://www.pureluckdesign.com/videos/Gau17animation.wmv )The breech will need to seal somehow when firing, so possibly it can rotate past a seal, or have a block clamp down as part of the firing operation to provide a breech seal.
Hey, at the least, I'll wind up with a semi auto pneumatic (propane might work better because there's no problem with maintaining a high pressure supply- but I get a bit nervous about the idea of a fast firing gun using that if there were a few cycles that failed to detonate followed by one that did...) that shoots at least one slug per second with a crappyass feed system and lag for repressurization.
I can't find any google info on Index Valves but from what I read about them in the one post on here that has a guy being eulogized (rest in peace, cool guy) it seems like I could use it to automatically handle six or more compressed air sources to go to one tube, sort of backwards from the idea of how it should be though.
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.e ... mid=554245 might end up being a crucial part of my feed system
Now, forget all that. I don't think anyone without the help of a few graduate level engineering students and a fully equipped machine shop can make a minigun that shoots bbs, airsoft, darts, nerf, golf balls, or whatever. I do have a few ideas that would fix a lot of timing issues if the barrel cluster rotated independant of the load and fire mechs- but it's pretty much pointless aside from "cool" factor. I want something that operates without having to sink years of my life and my entire savings into it.
I'm thinking about making a 20mm tri-barreled cannon. I've worked out how it would feed (partially) load and fire. I'll build a model first in PVC, and then later on, a finished production in steel.
These are my design challenges:
Maintaining a sufficient supply of compressed gas for rapid (600+rpm) fire. Dry nitrogen?
A suitable magazine system that would smoothly feed in the ABS / organic matter slugs into the feed mechanism. I think a large drum would work with my concept for a springloaded multitrack follower.
Having the magazine feed system go directly to the breech could result a slug being pushed into the moving face and being shorn / mutilated, so the magazine would end at a feeder claw that would move in sync with the receiver unit to load in a round at a time at the needed speed.
Once the round is inside the breech, the unit will make either 1/3 or 2/3 rotation, then fire. ( http://www.pureluckdesign.com/videos/Gau17animation.wmv )The breech will need to seal somehow when firing, so possibly it can rotate past a seal, or have a block clamp down as part of the firing operation to provide a breech seal.
Hey, at the least, I'll wind up with a semi auto pneumatic (propane might work better because there's no problem with maintaining a high pressure supply- but I get a bit nervous about the idea of a fast firing gun using that if there were a few cycles that failed to detonate followed by one that did...) that shoots at least one slug per second with a crappyass feed system and lag for repressurization.
I can't find any google info on Index Valves but from what I read about them in the one post on here that has a guy being eulogized (rest in peace, cool guy) it seems like I could use it to automatically handle six or more compressed air sources to go to one tube, sort of backwards from the idea of how it should be though.
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.e ... mid=554245 might end up being a crucial part of my feed system