New Super Gun Fires Bullets Super
Fast
Source: NewsMax.com December 9, 2000
An Australian inventor has come up with a gun that can
fire 180 rounds in one hundredth of a second, or an impossible 1
million rounds a minute - so fast that a bullet enters the barrel
before the preceding one has even left the muzzle. Incredibly,
storekeeper James Michael O'Dwyer's gun has no moving parts and
operates entirely on electrical impulses.
Despite the fact that O'Dwyer's invention has vast and
even dizzying implications as an awesome military weapon, when he
approached Australian defense officials in 1994 with his idea they
turned a deaf ear. And when he showed his gun to former U.S. Special
Forces chief Gen. Wayne Downing, the general said O'Dwyer was
"certifiably" crazy.
That's no longer true. The general is now a member of
the board of directors of Metal Storm Ltd., O'Dwyer's new company,
along with retired U.S. Adm. William A. Owens.
As described in the Nov. 13 issue of Forbes magazine, in
the barrel of the gun "bullets are stacked like Life Savers with
explosive charges sandwiched in between."
The charges are set off when electrical contacts spark
them in "precisely timed electronic sequence," much the same way an
ink jet printer sprays ink.
O'Dwyer's company now has a $10 million contract to
design a .50 caliber sniper's rifle that could fire three rounds
before the rifle even recoiled, spoiling the sniper's aim. In
Australia the military is working on a 40 mm grenade launcher.
According to Forbes, in a recent test a 36-barrel gun
fired bullets at a rate of a mind-boggling 1 million rounds a minute.
Among the weapons O'Dwyer's idea could produce would be
super-rapid-fire multiple barreled guns that would emit a "cloud of
hot metal" instead of a stream of bullets and capable of downing
cruise missiles and modern versions of Kamikaze suicide planes.
O'Dwyer's super gun has already created a cloud of hot
money - though his company hasn't produced a single sale, his stock is
now worth $180 million, and he owns half the shares.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/12/8/172124.shtml