You read that right, Metal Storm actually created a 36-barreled stacked projectile machine gun, boasting the highest rate of fire in the world. This impressive prototype weapon demonstrated a firing rate of just over 1-million-rounds per minute for a 180-round burst, with a claimed maximum rate of fire of 1.62 million RPM. Continue reading for videos and more information.
Metal Storm Limited was a research and development company based in Brisbane, Australia that specializes in electronically initiated superposed load weapons technology and owns the proprietary rights to the electronic ballistics technology invented by J. Mike O’Dwyer.
Metal Storm uses the concept of superposed load; multiple projectiles loaded nose to tail in a single gun barrel with propellant packed between them. The Roman candle, a traditional firework design, employs the same basic concept, however, the propellant continues to burn in the Roman candle’s barrel, igniting the charge behind the subsequent projectile. The process is repeated by each charge in turn, ensuring that all projectiles in the barrel are discharged sequentially from the single ignition. Various methods of separately firing each propellant package behind stacked projectiles have been proposed which would allow a “single shot” capability more suitable to firearms.
