An automatic firearm is a firearm that will continue to load and fire rounds of ammunition as long as the trigger (or equivalent) is activated or until it runs out of ammunition.
The .50 caliber (12.7 mm) M2 machine gun, the 7.62 mm NATOM60 machine gun and the M134 minigun are examples of fully-automatic weapons, as are the autocannon mounted on any number of military aircraft and used in other military applications for point defense and/or anti-aircraft defense.
So-called automatic pistols, however, are generally not fully automatic weapons, but fire a single shot every time that the trigger is pulled, automatically ejecting the spent cartridge and loading a fresh one into the chamber.
The 6MM Sidewinder is a fully automatic non-lethal machine gun, firing a 6MM spherical plastic pellet at the cyclic rate of 150 rounds per second (9,000 per minute).
Various weights of the plastic ammunition are available, as well as tactical choices including metallic and paint filled rounds.
It is a fully gas operated unit, with no springs, pistons, electric motors or electronics.
Such automaticweapons with a caliber of 20 mm or larger are generally referred to as autocannons.
Other automaticweapons are subdivided into several categories based on the size of the bullet used, and whether the cartridge is fired from a positively locked closed bolt, or a non-positively locked open bolt.
Fully automatic firearms using pistol-caliber ammunition are called machine pistols or submachine guns (largely on the basis of size); selective-fire rifles firing a full-power rifle cartridge from a closed bolt are called automatic rifles, while those using a reduced-power rifle cartridge are called assault rifles.
Feeds |
Contact