The Gorgas machine gun (or sometimes just a Gorgas gun) was a manually cranked prototype
machine gun, the creation of
Confederate States
The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or Dixieland, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865. It comprised eleven U.S. states th ...
General
Josiah Gorgas.
It had a single smooth-bore barrel. The barrel was fed from a
revolver
A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...
-like ring, but with an axis of rotation perpendicular to the bore, rather than the usual revolver configuration with parallel axes. The cylinder housed 18 copper-lined chambers that were muzzle loaded from the outer side of the ring. The interior side of the multiple-chamber ring was lined with the corresponding 18
percussion cap
The percussion cap, percussion primer, or caplock, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. Its invention gave ...
nipples. The ring was rotated by a hand lever. The gun had a
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...
receiver.
The sole exemplar built was not used in combat, not having been sufficiently perfected.
See also
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Agar gun
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Centrifugal gun
A centrifugal gun is a type of rapid-fire projectile accelerator, like a machine gun but operating on a different principle. Centrifugal guns use a rapidly rotating disc to impart energy to the projectiles, gaining kinetic energy from steam, elec ...
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Confederate Revolving Cannon
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Gatling gun
The Gatling gun is a rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling of North Carolina. It is an early machine gun and a forerunner of the modern electric motor-driven rotary cannon.
The Gatling gun's operatio ...
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Puckle gun
The Puckle gun (also known as the defence gun) was a primitive Crew-served weapon, crew-served, manually operated flintlock revolver patented in 1718 by James Puckle (1667–1724), a British inventor, lawyer and writer. It was one of the earlies ...
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Revolver cannon
A revolver cannon is a type of autocannon, commonly used as an aircraft gun. It uses a cylinder with multiple chambers, similar to those of a revolver handgun, to speed up the loading-firing-ejection cycle. Some examples are also power-driven, ...
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gorgas Machine Gun
Early machine guns
Machine guns of the United States
Weapons of the Confederate States of America
American Civil War weapons