Gatling gun info?

[Forty Rod]

I'm trying to find information (and pictures, if possible) of the loading system for an 1866 model Gatling gun in 1" caliber. I think the .50" caliber guns are different. There is a tinned box magazine of 20 rounds that feeds by gravity, but I can't find a picture or description of how it fit in the gun's hopper on the left side. Later guns had totally different loading systems in both function and appearance.

I have a model of an 1883 model with the fully encased barrels and an Accles drum feed, but the visual similarities are few, so I don't have much there I can use. Also Wahl and Toppel's book hasn't been any help. Neither have web searches.

I'm building a 1/16 scale model and want to get the details right.

[JimBob]

Tough to find pictures of those early Gatlings with any details http://wpcontent.answcdn.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/Gatling_gun_1865.jpg/180px-Gatling_gun_1865.jpg Is it possible to find patent drawings that would show the feed on this model?

[Forty Rod]

Thanks.  I've seen that pic too, JimBob, and it's the best photo I've found. It's good for color reference, if nothing else.  

There's also a site www.gatlinggunsforsale.com that has some animated pictures that show the workings in some detail, including the hopper (one with the hopper loaded with the steel cases), but not a hint of anything to do with the mags.

The Gatling Gun (Wahl and Toppel) has cut-away drawings of the cartridges, one with a solid projectile 3 3/4" long, and a "grapeshot' round with fifteen balls about .36 caliber.  This one is 4 5/8" long.

There are also pics of the "magazines" for the 1/2" and 1" guns.  They appear to be a simple single-stack box with a friction-fit slide-on lid and a hole in one side...maybe a "witness hole" to see if the thing is loaded.  Can't see that though, because a loaded mag is going to be hefty in either caliber.  The caption says they are "tinned".  There is no information on the capacity but measurements indicate 20 rounds in the 1" mag and 35-40 in the 1/2" mag.

I posted the question on the GatChat site and am waiting to see if they can help.

I found a photo of a 1/2" gun in a British war museum with a magazine extending out of the top of the hopper at about a 45 degree angle. I have no idea if that's how it was used or if it was simply placed there to show what it looked like.

[JimBob]

Wonder if the Rock Island Arsenal museum has one of the M1866 guns?Production numbers on this model are not great and as you say the Wahl and Toppel book isn't all that informative.

[Forty Rod]

I'll add RI to the list of museums I'm contacting.  Seems the Brits have more than we do.                           

[JimBob]

I'll add RI to the list of museums I'm contacting.  Seems the Brits have more than we do.                           

A lot of historical guns were melted down during the scrap drives of WW2 here in the U.S.,it makes you wonder how the Brits managed to save so much of theirs during the same period.

[Four-Eyed Buck]

They were already museum pieces, probably.

[Dead I]

The Gatling gun worked pretty well.  The trouble was that at the time we didn't have tactics to take advantage of it's rapid fire.  It was used as an area weapon like artillery.  It took the Germans andn WWI to figure out how to make a machine gun into a killing machine.

I talked to some ordnance guys who were working on the modern Volcan gun.  They said that they hooked up a motor to an old Gattling gun and got it to cycle at around 1,000 rds a minute. The earlliest Gattlings were fired using individually loaded cylinders each one capped.  I read that it worked pretty well. 

The Volcan gun is just an updated Gattling gun and it works well.  It is astounded to watch them fired from aircraft onto ground targets.  They are death on tanks.

[Bob R.]

The Gatling gun worked pretty well.  The trouble was that at the time we didn't have tactics to take advantage of it's rapid fire.  It was used as an area weapon like artillery.  It took the Germans andn WWI to figure out how to make a machine gun into a killing machine.

Hi Dead I,

That just ain't so. The British had the Maxim gun worked out by 1898 - check out the battle of Omdurman, and what did most of the slaughtering of the 'fuzzi-wuzzies' (Not to forget their use o the NorWest Frontier, either) and let us not forget the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and the failed attacks in columns with bayonet by the Japanese against Russian dug in defenses at Port Arthur, including Maxim Machine-guns, trenches, wire entanglements, and electric searchlights which stimied night-time attacks.

You can argue the Germans refined the machine-gun tactics, and increased the numbers on the battlefield per thousand of troops, but most major powers had effective machine guns and the troops who were trained to use them had effective tactics for them prior to the war. The Germans had the most numbers the earliest, but everybody caught up in 2 years.

[Books OToole]

Montanna Slim works for the Rock Island Arsenal.  You might send him a PM.

Books

[Tascosa Joe]

There is a Gatling Gun at the Cody Firearms Museum but I think it is a later period .45-70.

[Forty Rod]

Montanna Slim works for the Rock Island Arsenal.  You might send him a PM.

Books

Thanks, Books.  I'll drop him a line.

[Mogorilla]

There is a guy in the extended KC area who built one, complete with Caison.   95% sure it was the .50 cal model.   I have searched for days and cannot find his contact info.  I believe he ordered the blueprints online,  (or maybe from the patent office)

[Professor Marvel]

Ah my Dear Forty Rod

Please allow me blither away on the topic of your choice, and at your expense  :-)

I began my search with the patent office and whilst the patents for the Gatling I found were interesting they were of no use as to details of caliber, &etc. Thus I turned my search to a rather more esoteric and convoluted methodology which produced some somewhat successful results, to whit:

Exhibit The First
The most fortuitous find was this image of the Colt Model 1865 Gatling in the
desired calibration of 1 inch, apparently on display at "Musée Militaire Vaudois", Switzerland

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colt_Mod_1865_Gatling_Gun_Caliber_1-inch.JPG

Now, knowing the maker and year model of the object of your desire I was able to
find an link to an outdated and now dead military website. But be not dismayed, for that
wonderful device, the Wayback Machine allows us to surf some dead websites !
and Thus we discover

Exhibit B
http://web.archive.org/web/20041031121516/http://tri.army.mil/lc/cs/csa/aagatlin.htm

according to this source we see that the US Army ordered just 50 of the 1 inchers:

"Model 1866. After successful trials at Frankford Arsenal and Fort Monroe, the U.S. Army
ordered 50 1 inch cal. and 50 .50 cal. model 1866 six-barrel Gatling guns. All but five
of the .50 cal. guns were converted to .45 cal. beginning in August 1866. The gun used a
simple tin box to hold cartridges. These guns were all fixed-mounted on an artillery carriage. "

I find it further interesting that  "In 1870, Richard Gatling and his family moved to Hartford,
Connecticut, home of the Colt Armory where the Gatling gun was being manufactured."

And Lastly I stumbled upon
Exhibit III

here are photos of the extremely rare 1" PERCUSSION gatling Gun

http://www.jamesdjulia.com/auctions/catalog_detail_shots.asp?Details=35108&sale=264

Technically it is the desired 1 " caliber .... 

and here is where my skills and little grey cells begin to peter out, as it were ....

yhs
prof marvel

btw how's that japanese room coming along ?

[Forty Rod]

First is an earlier gun with the same type hopper, but still no pics of the magazine box.

B is a duplication of the info I already have.

III. is a later model gun with the 1874 feed mechanism, but the color photos are the best I've seen.  There are also some close-up details I can use.

Thanks.....a lot!

[Drayton Calhoun]

The Gatling gun worked pretty well.  The trouble was that at the time we didn't have tactics to take advantage of it's rapid fire.  It was used as an area weapon like artillery.  It took the Germans andn WWI to figure out how to make a machine gun into a killing machine.

I talked to some ordnance guys who were working on the modern Volcan gun.  They said that they hooked up a motor to an old Gattling gun and got it to cycle at around 1,000 rds a minute. The earlliest Gattlings were fired using individually loaded cylinders each one capped.  I read that it worked pretty well. 

The Volcan gun is just an updated Gattling gun and it works well.  It is astounded to watch them fired from aircraft onto ground targets.  They are death on tanks.

I have seen F-14 Tomcats do strafing runs at close range using the Vulcan and the CWIS used on aircraft carriers. Believe me, if the drive mechanism had been available in the nineteenth century, wars would have been even more horrendous. albeit considerably shorter.

[paulc]

First is an earlier gun with the same type hopper, but still no pics of the magazine box.

B is a duplication of the info I already have.

III. is a later model gun with the 1874 feed mechanism, but the color photos are the best I've seen.  There are also some close-up details I can use.

Thanks.....a lot!

The original patent drawings are a bit too large to post here but can be found at freepatentsonline.com .
Gatlings patent is #112138 and an improved magazine loader  by Franklin is #159404 that does away with the spring loaded gate at the bottom of the original

[Dead I]

Hi Dead I,

That just ain't so. The British had the Maxim gun worked out by 1898 - check out the battle of Omdurman, and what did most of the slaughtering of the 'fuzzi-wuzzies' (Not to forget their use o the NorWest Frontier, either) and let us not forget the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and the failed attacks in columns with bayonet by the Japanese against Russian dug in defenses at Port Arthur, including Maxim Machine-guns, trenches, wire entanglements, and electric searchlights which stimied night-time attacks.

You can argue the Germans refined the machine-gun tactics, and increased the numbers on the battlefield per thousand of troops, but most major powers had effective machine guns and the troops who were trained to use them had effective tactics for them prior to the war. The Germans had the most numbers the earliest, but everybody caught up in 2 years.

Okay. 

I guess my point is that when were where shooting the Gatling guns they didn't have effective tactics.  Custer's men would have used it as a long range area weapon, and not as a dug in weapon aimed in a cross fire, as they were eventually, and bloodily, deployed.

[Books OToole]

Someone told me of a tatic that involved a section (2) of Mountain Howitzers, suported by a section of Gatling guns (2).  The idea was to shell a indian village with the howitzers and then when the "hostiles" attacted them the Gatlings would mow them down.

I pretty sure it was never put into practice.

Books

[Wild Billy Potts]

The first electric motor for a Gatling gun was patented in the mid 1890s. I forget the exact date, but they were definately thinking of how to speed up this awesome weapon.