Great Gatling Pics

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Sharps '63

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A US friend of mine is making pre-brass cartridge Gatlings utilizing steel chambers that take a .577 Enfield Minie cartridge. Each chamber is fired with a standard musket cap.

It's patterned after an 1863 British model he saw in a museum in the UK. To check it out, hit:

http//photos-marshall-engineering-ltd.co.uk

If that doesn't work, email him at: stew_m_3@yahoo.com He'll be happy to forward pics. This thing is to die for beautiful!

He made duplicate castings but all came out well, so he'll have one for sale.
Pricey, unless you've got a rich aunt.
 
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Oops!

John is right. I blew the url by putting a - between photos and marshall instead of a . Thanks for posting the pic, John!

Hey - Gimme a break. I play with Gatlings, Sharps and ML Enfields, not 'puters.

Notice the octagonal form of the barrels at the muzzle end. This to facilitate unscrewing the barrels from the breech plate for cleaning and maintenance. The rest of the barrel is round.

The steel inserts each have a musket nipple in a recessed hole, much like what's on an inline ML. I found him a good drawing of one one in an antique cartridge book. He hopes to find a CNC machinist to crank out about 100 per gun. It takes him 1/2 hour to produce one on his leather belt driven lathe.

This system obviates the need for an extractor, just striker mechanism, and the inserts fall out of the bottom of the gun at the '6 o'clock' into a canvas bag.

He had to 'reverse engineer' the firing mechanism as the museum wouldn't let him dismantle their gun. He says they thought he was another eccentric American blowhard that was all hat and no cattle. Little did they know .....
What he says he can do, he can.

Makes you want to put on your pith helmet and 'Stand To' in the Zulu Dawn, doesn't it? We'll be in period dress to man it, circa 1860s, as per our re-enactment era. The Zulu War guns were actually a later model that used the British iron cupped/brass foil cartridges like the M-H. This wasn't a good idea as the iron heads pulled of the cases during extraction.

"Enemy to your front, fire on my command" ...... Gun ready to fire, Sir! .....FIRE!"
 
Very nice !!
There is German machinist that used to go to the Heffley Creek shoot in Aug, he was showing pics of his gatling guns, 6 of them :eek:form .22 cal to 45/70
Apparently in Germany the laws are not as stringent as here.
Cheers nessy.
 
Gatling Legality

Only in Canada would it be a problem to own a Gatling, especially one fired with percussion caps.

Germany is more gun paranoid that we are, so if a German national can own such a device, ......???

We are going to check into this, but I have been informed by a subscriber that it is a no-no in Canada as he understands the law.
 
According to the FRT, the Model 1874 Gatlings, FRT #s 94875-1, and -2 (different barrel lengths), and the Model 1883, FRT # 118231-1 are prohibited; cc84(1) para (c). Classed as full automatic. I didn't search for any of the modern reproductions. The ones noted are the 19th century originals.
 
Figgers....hafta go back to plan B......

Deatails to follow over the next few months....(other projects on the bench just now...see the pic below....)

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British Gatlings were in .450" Gatling or the later .450" Gatling and Gardner cal. These rounds were only made using solid drawn cartridges. The rolled case 577/450 Martini ctg was not used in Gatlings.
 
British Gatlings

Green

I didn't say that the British Gatling used 577/450 M-H rounds, but that it used Boxer-type foil wrap/iron cup cartridges similar to those used by the M-H. I don't know what was used in the Gatling, but I suspect it might have been the same ammo as the M-H for ease of supply.

"The Boxer cartridge was used in the new Gatling; but the Americans used a solid metal cartridge case, stamped out of the sheet.
Nevertheless, the British continued to use a compound cartridge of iron and brass, which was weak, and admitted moisture so that a trifling exposure ruined both powder and fulminator."

"Undoubtedly, the jamming of the Gatling guns was due to the use of the Boxer-type of cartridges which were liable to have their bases torn from the body of the case by the Gatling's extractor, and jamming it.
With solid drawn cartridge cases of the American type, specially made for Gatling guns, no such difficulty was encountered." Zululand 1879

This from "Weapons of the Victorian Soldier" by Donald Featherstone. Got a reference for your comments?

The Nordenfeldt used a similar brassfoil/iron cupped cartridge in the 1880s and 1890s, some as large as 1" bore.

"Cartidges" by H.C. Logan has excellent drawings of these rounds and the .58"chamber piece" used by my friend's Gatling, showing external and internal views. They were used by Union forces at the siege of Petersburg, Virginia during the Civil War.
 
My references are:
"British Machine Gun Cartridges .4-.65 in Calibres 1870-ca1905" Temple
"British Small Arms Ammunition 1864-1938" Labett
The .45 Gatling was introduce in List of changes 2644 and described as a solid drawn case, 1874.
The .45 Gatling and Gardner was in LoC 4193 and the case was described as solid drawn, 1883.

All .45" Gatling and ..45" Gatling and Gardner ammo shown in these books are solid drawn cartridges. The .45g and .45" GG are not interchangeable with the MH ctg.
The MKII GG ctg was found to have a weak head causing case separations and jams in the Sudan. A MkIII ctg having a stroger head was introduced in 1886, LoC 5234.
 
more on Gatling ammo

Green

Thanks, I appreciate the references. All too often we get the 'expert opinion' with nothing to back it up.
I hit my reference library as well and found this in "The Boxer Cartridge In British Service" By Temple-

"Again in August 1870, another series of trials was carried out, this time with three Gatling guns of different calibres - 1", 0.65" and 0.42"."

Subsequently, the 0.42" was dropped in favour of a 0.45" round.

"Although the 0.45" Gatling round was of solid drawn type, the larger (0.65")was of Boxer pattern, and remained so for it's entire service life.
The case was of typical Boxer type, with sheet brass 0.010" thick, rolled and inserted into a single iron base cup.
It was not much used after the adoption of the 1" Nordenfeldt machine gun and declared obsolete in 1905 along with the 0.45" gatling guns."

From this, I would deduce that some of the Gatlings mentioned in the Zulu Land report were in 0.65" calibre with the brass rolled case. These would be the ones most likely to suffer ammunition failures due to case separation.
 
Green and Sharps63 -

Don't know if this will add to the discussion, but the following quotes come from Chapter XXI ("Ammunition For Quick-Firing Guns and Machine Guns") of the War Office's "Treatise on Ammunition, 1887" ....

The Cartridge, Machine Gun, Gatling, .65", Mark 1, is very little used now. It has a coiled case made of sheet brass .01" thick. The construction generally resembles that of the M.H. cartridge, and differs only in dimensions and minor details. The bullet, of the same alloy as the M.-H. bullets, weighs 1,422 grains (about 3 1/4 oz.). The charge is 270 grains R.F.G.
-----------------
The Cartridge, Machine Gun, Gatling, .45" Mark 1, originally called "cartridge, small arm, ball, Gatling gun, 0.45 inch" is made of solid drawn brass somewhat contracted at the top, and the base is formed by pressing out the material of the case, so as to form the projecting rim necessary for extraction. There is no anvil, but the cap strikes against a small boss or nipple in the chamber, which is pierced with two fire holes.
The charge, bullet, wads, &c., are the same as those used in the Martini-Henry rifle cartridge.

The "Machine Gun Ammunition" section of this chapter is 7 1/2 pages long, covering the above two cartridges and several others. As I read it, and the section on Martini-Henry cartridges in the next chapter on "Small Arms Ammunition", the .45 Gatling gun cartridge was a straight-walled (or nearly straight-walled) case, but there were also Gatling guns chambered for the bottlenecked .45 Martini-Henry cartridge ....

I could scan the relevant sections if they would be of interest ....
 
The .45 Gatling and GG ctgs are bottle necked similar to .450 No2 Musket and .45 Turk.
I can find no reference to Gatlings in 577/450 in British service.
From Temple " In the event, the .45 in. used only solid cases in service, and it is perplexing that references can often be found to the effect that this gun(.45 Gatling) suffered in service frequent ammunition problems because of shortcomings of the Boxer cartridges it was firing."
The.65 Gatling was made in a total quantity of 24 and the RN had this number on charge in 1886.
 
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