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Richard Gatling Essay

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Richard Gatling Essay
Richard Jordan Gatling was born in January 1818 in Winton North Carolina, and died at the age of 85 in 1903. Gatling's career as an inventor began when he assisted his father in the construction of machines for sowing cottonseeds, and also for thinning cotton plants. He spent a lot of time in the fields with his father who helped him build some of his inventions. Richard Jordan Gatling was a medical doctor with numerous patents for his farm equipment inventions.
To his credit he came up with the famous 1862-model Revolving Battery Gun, that is now referred to as the Gatling gun. The 1862-model was one of the first reliable Revolving guns, but still had a few problems that needed to be fixed. Richard was not the first to manufacture a …show more content…
Though this model did not see service, it was adopted officially in 1866. The military was so pleased with the performance of the Gatling gun that it has been used in every battle since it was invented to this day and has been continuously upgraded and improved. Having received government approval, Gatling began to sell his guns throughout the world. This was a big mark in Richards's future, he had gone from working in the fields to developing a gun that is used throughout the military of the world.
The gun was a hand-crank-operated weapon with six barrels revolving around a central shaft. Having a gun that revolves was very difficult because the barrels would not always line up correctly when being fired. The original gun was actually designed to fire the standard military issue paper cartridge of the day, .58 caliber. A .58 caliber bullet has a diameter of an inch and is capable of damaging anything it hits. The paper cartridge was placed inside a steel or brass chamber with a percussion nipple on the back end just like the muzzle loading rifles and pistols of there time. The cartridges were fed to the gun by gravity through a hopper mounted towards the top of the gun. As the six cam operated bolts alternately fired, and dropped the bullets, which were contained in steel chambers, it made quite an impression on their enemies. Gatling also used the six barrels to partially cool
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