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What happens when a minigun's barrel gets hit by a shotgun slug?

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Aminar:

--- Quote from: OZ on July 09, 2012, 06:12:40 AM ---I have always heard that when writing about guns or horses (I personally think martial arts may now fit onto this list.) it doesn't matter what you write someone is going to find fault with it. Is the protagonist the one with the mini gun or the one with the shotgun? I think you could make a good argument that the gun could be disabled by hitting it with a slug. Especially in another world that possibly doesn't make them up to the specifications that we are familiar with. Of course some things material wise and mechanics wise are going to be necessar for the gun to ever work in any world.Does that mean that no one would write in and claim that it would never work? No. Even if you had the means to personally test it and put the recorded event on You Tube, someone would find a way to try to discredit it. You just have give a reasonable explanation of why it could work. Is the shotgun from a higher tech society? Of so they do have shotgun shells that are made for better penetration. I know there is a You Tube clip of one blowing holes through the engine block of an old Russian car. It's only shooting the engine so it didn't have to go through the car or the radiator first but it is still pretty impressive.

--- End quote ---

I found that too.  Issue(with the engine block) being the difference between Steel and Cast Iron.  Iron is fragile, odd as that may seem.  Steel is far far far less so.  I've just thrown in a quick line along the lines of, "Thank the gods for shoddy(insert country name here's) engineering.

Yeratel:
A good many modern engine blocks are made of cast aluminum nowadays to save weight. Even ordinary non-armorpiercing ammo will turn them into swiss cheese.
Regarding damage done by a shotgun slug, we shoot lead slugs at steel targets all the time, and they just splatter; they really knock the targets down with some authority, though.  :)
To penetrate or really damage something made of hard steel, like a gun barrel, you'd need something harder than pure lead.  They make a type of saboted slug for shotguns for the purpose of penetrating things like barricades and engine blocks which has a hardened steel or tungsten alloy slug of about .50 calibre loaded in a plastic sleeve that falls away after the slug leaves the muzzle. It's lighter than a lead slug, so it travels at a higher velocity and will punch right through light armor. One of these hitting a gun barrel while it was firing would probably cause the barrel to burst, and wreck the firing mechanism as well.

Quantus:
If the question is accuracy with one barrel, it should be noted that miniguns are intentionally designed with the barrels slightly off from each other so that the bullets spread a little bit.  Otherwise they'd just be putting 6 bullets through the same hole rather than tearing 6 holes. 

Yeratel, correct me if Im wrong,

Aminar:
I suppose I could use some extra Deus Ex Machine to get a steel jacketed slug into the gun.  The character already has a  goddess mucking up things pretty well.  (she did drop off the things he accidentally left asst her place, shotgun included. Hmmmm.

Quantus:

--- Quote from: Aminar on July 09, 2012, 06:11:49 PM ---I suppose I could use some extra Deus Ex Machine to get a steel jacketed slug into the gun.  The character already has a  goddess mucking up things pretty well.  (she did drop off the things he accidentally left asst her place, shotgun included. Hmmmm.

--- End quote ---
The only reason they dont use solid steel ball bearings is that they damage the barrel over time (and thats more important with rifled barrels over smooth bore shotguns) being the same material.

I cant get you a link on this computer, but there are some truly amazing (or horrific, depending on your outlook) things that can come out of a Shotgun shell out there.   Might be worth a look just for ideas if nothing else.

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