M14 Forum

Rojkoh

For those of you who wanted to know, the Mini's used in Predator, T-2 and "soldier" was set up to fire blanks and was not a gas gun. I worked on it as did a friend named Mark who drug me kicking into working on it. Sid was not happy with Arnold when he dropped it in T-2. For all movies the electrical wiring to get the thing fuctional was run up inside the clothes and the ammo feed was done differently. Predator, the flex feed was run into the "pouch" and then out to a normal feed can. T-2 not, a lot of cuts and very short pieces of films because the mini quickly run empty on that little ammo in the pouch. Solder, funny thing was that we who knew how to tune it to cycle at 3000 rpm's were not available to work on it and the kid that did got it running per the manual (i.e. 6000 rpms) and it pushed Kurt down into the water. Movie "magic"? They reversed the footage so it looks like he's coming out of the water. No one stops to think about how nasty a barrel blocked with water can be even with stelite liners.

PPS, 14's in movies? Go all the way back to "Green Berets" with the Duke. In the over runs scenes you'll note a lot of round eye's carrying all kinds of weapons including 14's posing as NVA/VCs. Friend of mine was in the green beenies when it came out and needless to say, they killed the movie screen..

GARRARD

That's damn funny.

NE450N02

I have seen, in person, a Mini Gun shooting real ammo a few times.
It is pretty impressive.

Whatsinaname181

I used to gun with the mini-gun from time to time. How do I put this?... Well, lets just say that words cannot describe not only the exhileration of putting rounds downrange with this marvel of small-arms design, but the way it tends to dominate a good two way live fire. Cant get too overzealous either, or youll be rounds-complete in like 15 seconds, lol.

I remember when i was taught how to use it and he was showing me how to clear a malfunction... you just jam a flathead screw driver in between the barrels and rotate. Pow Pow Pow.

Albud3

From 1980 to 1987 I was a 68M20: Aircraft Weapons Systems Repairer. I worked on AH-1S/F Cobras as well as AH-64s. While at Ft Hood, I worked on the old S marks with the M-134 Mini-guns. The M-134 is electrically driven with a rate of fire of 3000 and 6000 rpm. The motor is controlled by the 3-position trigger: off, 1st stop = 3000 rpm and 2nd stop = 6000 rpm. While that's the rate used by the Army back then, Dillon Aero's new M-134D uses a reduced rate of fire of 4000 rpm. That, as well as mechanical upgrades to the gun and de-linker has resulted in a weapon that is about 1000% more reliable than the ones I used to work on. The system used in the Cobras and -134 pods was a nightmare!!! If you had a jam in flight you turned around and RTB or landed and cussed for about 15-20 minutes while you broke things down to find the jam and fixed it. PIT@!!!
As for shooting the gun...gods!!! what fun!!! 6000 rpm with every 5th a tracer! Looked like the wraith of the gods was raining down on the target!!! It took about 3 days to get the S***-eating grin off our faces when we fired those guns! Only thing that was better was shooting the M-197 20mm Gattling on the newer S & F models. Only rated at 750 rpm but what a kick to the A/C when you shot that mudder! Never did get to shoot the wing podded 20mm used on the old -G models. That was a 2000 rpm Mo-Fo that had the unfortunate habit of blowing off the pilot's door before they modified the system. Our platoon leader at Ft Campbell was a CW-4 that used it in VN and he said that the A/C would slew to the right every time it was fired. Had to apply hard left to keep it on target. Said that they only had to make 1 or 2 passes before Charlie decided to find a safer place to be.

Albud3

n/t