The History of the Gatling Gun :: US Arm Corp.

	Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling was born in Hertford County, North Carolina in 1818 and came from a family of inventors. In 1847-1848, he studied medicine at Laporte, Indiana and the following year he entered Ohio Medical College from which he received his degree.

Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling was born in Hertford County, North Carolina in 1818 and came from a family of inventors. In 1847-1848, he studied medicine at Laporte, Indiana and the following year he entered Ohio Medical College from which he received his degree.


Gatling conceived the idea of his gun and began work in 1861 with a prototype being made in 1861. The gun was demonstrated in 1862 and a patent, No 36836, for “Improvement in Revolving Battery-Guns”, was granted on November 4, 1862. This gun was a crude predecessor of what was to become one of the most significant firing mechanisms of all ordnance history. After a successful demonstration in Indianapolis in 1862, Gatling contracted with Miles Greenwood and Company in Cincinnati, Ohio to produce 6 weapons based on the 1862 patent. Gatling continued to perfect his gun by designing a breech system that would allow the cartridge to be inserted and withdrawn from a chamber that was an integral part of the barrel requiring the breech mechanism to have a reciprocal motion.	This led to the design of the Model 1865, the precursor of all later Gatling guns. Gatling continued to refine the operation and mechanism of his gun. The Model 1877 "Bulldog" was the first Gatling gun to feature a fully enclosed bronze housing over the barrels and breech. The "Bulldog" was a five-barrel .45 cal. tripod mounted weapon. A few were mounted on a light cavalry cart. A rear mounting hand crank permitted a very high rate of fire of up to 1,000 rpm, almost twice the rate of a typical World War II machine gun. Bruce feed, named after it's inventor, L.F. Bruce, permitted the Gatling gun to be loaded directly from 20 round cardboard cartons or wooden feed blocks into a two slot vertical bar. When one slot emptied, gravity forced a full slot over the feed hopper.	By alternately loading the empty slot, a continuous fire could be sustained. The Bruce feeder was a favorite of the U.S. Army. The Gatling gun was the beginning of the state-of-the-art manually operated guns that flourished until HIRAM Maxim took the next step with fully automatic guns, but Gatling’s operating principal lives on today in Vulcans and Miniguns. Richard Gatling pursued and promoted many new inventions until he died in February 1903, at the age of 84.

Gatling conceived the idea of his gun and began work in 1861 with a prototype being made in 1861. The gun was demonstrated in 1862 and a patent, No 36836, for “Improvement in Revolving Battery-Guns”, was granted on November 4, 1862. This gun was a crude predecessor of what was to become one of the most significant firing mechanisms of all ordnance history.

After a successful demonstration in Indianapolis in 1862, Gatling contracted with Miles Greenwood and Company in Cincinnati, Ohio to produce 6 weapons based on the 1862 patent. Gatling continued to perfect his gun by designing a breech system that would allow the cartridge to be inserted and withdrawn from a chamber that was an integral part of the barrel requiring the breech mechanism to have a reciprocal motion.

This led to the design of the Model 1865, the precursor of all later Gatling guns. Gatling continued to refine the operation and mechanism of his gun. The Model 1877 "Bulldog" was the first Gatling gun to feature a fully enclosed bronze housing over the barrels and breech.

The "Bulldog" was a five-barrel .45 cal. tripod mounted weapon. A few were mounted on a light cavalry cart. A rear mounting hand crank permitted a very high rate of fire of up to 1,000 rpm, almost twice the rate of a typical World War II machine gun.

Bruce feed, named after it's inventor, L.F. Bruce, permitted the Gatling gun to be loaded directly from 20 round cardboard cartons or wooden feed blocks into a two slot vertical bar. When one slot emptied, gravity forced a full slot over the feed hopper.

By alternately loading the empty slot, a continuous fire could be sustained. The Bruce feeder was a favorite of the U.S. Army.

The Gatling gun was the beginning of the state-of-the-art manually operated guns that flourished until HIRAM Maxim took the next step with fully automatic guns, but Gatling’s operating principal lives on today in Vulcans and Miniguns.

Richard Gatling pursued and promoted many new inventions until he died in February 1903, at the age of 84.


Gatling continued to perfect his gun by designing a breech system that would allow the cartridge to be inserted and withdrawn from a chamber that was an integral part of the barrel requiring the breech mechanism to have a reciprocal motion. This led to the design of the Model 1865, the precursor of all later Gatling guns. Gatling continued to refine the operation and mechanism of his gun.

U.S. Armament Corp
121 Valley View Drive • Ephrata, PA 17522 | Tel:(717) 721-4570 • Fax: (717) 738-4890