How the machine gun works?

Answer 1

Most machine guns have around a 30 round magazine, at the bottom of the magazine there is a high powered spring which is constantly trying to push the rounds into the gun.

A round is made up from a bullet and its casing. The bullet is generally led and the the casing is copper brass and closed up a one end the casing is a cylinder. The casing contains smokeless gun powder then the bullet is stuck in the end of the open side of the casing with an airtight seal. At the closed end of the casing is a blast cap.

Once you've inserted the magazine the spring starts pushing the bullets into the gun but they can't get in because there isn't a hole for them to get in. On the side of the gun, often the left, there will be a lever that will be at the front of the gun you pull it towards you then release it once it clicks it will go back into its original position. The gun is now cocked. In doing this you made a hole in the inner workings of the gun for a split second allowing the first round to be put into the chamber you have also stuck the hammer into position. When you pull the trigger the hammer hits the base of the round and therefore hitting the blast cap this in turn creates a spark igniting the smokeless gunpowder that explosive force sends the bullet down the barrel at just under the speed of sound, once the bullet exits the barrels there is a sonic boom as the bullet hits a speed just over the speed of sound. The casing gets shot backwards pushing against the chamber pushing the entire inner working backwards, re-cocking the hammer, ejecting the old cartridge (when you see guns firing in movies and all those little metal things flying out of the gun they're the used casings which are now useless) it also reveals another hole so that the next round can be put into the chamber then if the the trigger is held down the entire process will repeat until there is no longer any rounds int the magazine.

So the gun basically uses the recoil of the last round to load the next and eject the current casing.

Hope it helped. For any other firearm related queries please just ask: jazzomonkey@hotmail.co.uk

MistroJoe