Posted on 10/03/2019 5:49:24 AM PDT by w1n1
Going back to 1850-1880, chain guns was a rare thing in firearm technology. When you think about high capacity, the Guycot chain pistol was the first and ahead of its time.
The Guycot chain pistol was the development of two Frenchmen, Henri Guenot and Paulin Gay in 1879. It is chambered for a unique 6.5mm caseless rocket ball type cartridge in which the base of the projectile is hollowed out and contains the propellant powder and a primer. Upon firing, the entirely of the projectile exits, leaving nothing to be extracted or ejected from the chamber. So yes, this means that once it is loaded, the gun can be fired as fast as the user can pull the trigger. Paulin Gay reportedly got the idea of using a chain, after observing chains being used to cut stone blocks in a quarry.
There was also a Guycot rifle which holds 80 cartridges.
Compared to their competitors during that era, the Colt revolver (holds 6 cartridges) and the Henry rifle (which can only hold 16 cartridges), the Guycot pistol and rifle have a huge advantage in capacity. However, they never really caught on. Read the rest of Guycot chain pistol.
Alors! Certainment no one needs zuch firepower!
well, we know it has never been fired...
badda bump...
Would love to have a modern work up of this in .22 short just for giggles.
"Yeah, I own a chain gun....right here in my pocket."
Hardly used. Only dropped once.
Interesting invention for sure. But as a black powder enthusiast I know traditional black powder fouls a barrel in short order making it harder to reload with each successive shot.
Being caseless means the projectile left behind fouling matter right where the next bullet loads. I doubt if it made it through the entire chain of bullets before it jammed as the breach would be quite dirty after a while.
In other words, I do not think it could be fired as fast as the trigger was pulled as the article asserts. Now if a bore brush were ran down the barrel between every few shots, then that would make a difference.
You cannot compare this to a machine gun that shoots cased bullets as the casing’s simply being in the breach keeps it clean enough so when ejected the next round can be easily placed by the mechanism.
I’ve worked with jammed projectiles in a black powder propellant muzzle loader. The round binds up quickly when the bore is fouled. I suspect this chain gun jammed also and was a serious reason why the weapon never became popular.
Ban it! It’s a black gun and scary....
I stand corrected in my post #7.
After watching the video a few posts back, my theory does not hold water. The chain has it’s own chamber for each round meaning the bullet does not have to be pushed into any breach, thus it cannot jam.
So yes, it could be fired as often as the trigger is pulled.
Yes indeed, “chain guns was a rare thing”.
And “the entirely of the projectile exits,”
SMH
Yes, it do be.
Then there's the issue of "unload and show clear."
Takes forever to load?
Actually, given the type of ammunition it used, it probably wasn't all that slow to load.
But it would be a pain to unload without firing.
Here's Forgotten Weapon's video on the gun, cued up at the ammunition description part of the video:
No mention in the article of the Volcanic cartridge of 1855 or the Volcanic pistol, forerunners of both Smith & Wesson and Winchester firearms. Same type of cartridge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Repeating_Arms
More click-bait from American Shooting Urinal, stealing information from Forgotten Weapons and not attributing it to them (although they did post a video from FW).
They even parrot an error from Forgotten Weapons. There is no historical information stating the caliber of any Guycot variant but it is highly unlikely to have been 6.5mm because it would have used the Gaupillat-Collette cartridge, which was never made in 6.5mm.
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