The basic minigun is a six-barrel, air-cooled, and electrically driven rotary machine gun. The electric drive rotates the weapon within its housing, with a rotating firing pin assembly and rotary chamber.
source.image: WorkX
The minigun’s multi-barrel design helps prevent overheating, but also serves other functions. In this video I wanted to show how M134 Minigun works with 3D Animation.
Multiple barrels allow for a greater capacity for a high firing rate, since the serial process of firing, extraction, and loading is taking place in all barrels simultaneously. Thus, as one barrel fires, two others are in different stages of shell extraction and another three are being loaded.
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The minigun is composed of multiple closed-bolt rifle barrels arranged in a circular housing. The barrels are rotated by an external power source, usually electric, pneumatic, or hydraulic. Other rotating-barrel cannons are powered by the gas pressure or recoil energy of fired cartridges.