Mike, Unfortunatly you got here a month too late.Go to the Photo Album and look at the pictures of Butch's Gatling.He finished it and took ill soon after and passed onto the machine shop in the sky.There is still a lot of info in the posts there and further down this page.(Look at the post by Butch titled 'Chambering 22 cal barrels'. Here are some links I looked up after he got me thinking about the same project: There is a lot more online if you search for it.Plans are usually offered for sale in the back of most gun magazines for the one Butch built.There is one other company selling plans also that you may find.I think the one Butch used was the R G set. Good luck,Robert. I'm in the process of building the model engineering gatling (same one that Butch posted pictures of.) I've been picking away at it for about 3 years, and have a ways to go, but can see the finish line. I'm a software engineer by trade, so I had to learn to machine and aquire tooling along the way as time and finances permitted. There are two sets of prints that I'm aware of. Model engineering is a scale replica of an 1874 in.22 short, and is the nicer/more detailed of the two.
Gatling Gun Blueprints.pdf - Download as PDF File (.pdf) or view presentation slides online. 30 Cal Gatling Gun 1900. 1877 Bulldog Gatling Gun. THE GATLING Gij N. Gatling gun consists of a series of barrels grouped around and parallel to a common shaft or axis, aboLlt wilich they re>oh-e.
Blue prints leave something to be desired, but the guy who sells them can be reached by phone., and has been very helpful. RG&G Industried in Connifer Co. This guy worked up his own design, and appears to have made manufactuability a primary concern. Haven't started on this one yet, but I have looked at the blueprints. They are quite a bit better than the ME blueprints, in that they list tollerences and such, and the design looks to be considerably less time consuming and expensive to build.
Just as an example, the body of the RGG gatling is made from readily available brass tubing while the ME gatlings body is turned from 2 1/2' brass bar stock. IMHO if you want one to shoot, build the RG&G gatling, if you want a REALLY nice model that will shoot, but is mostly a display piece, build the ME. I intend to build both. If I get the time. Regardless of which one you build, I'd suggest using.22 rifle barrels instead of steel tubing with a rifled sleve inserted.
I went to gun shows, called parts people from the Gun List, and talked to my local gun smiths looking for used barrels. I ended up with 17 of them that I paid anywhere from $2 to $10 for. If you do go the used barrel route, you'll most likely have to anneal the chamber end as semi autos had the breech face hardened to prevent the bolt from peening it. You could also just cut off a 1/2 or so rom the chamber end and ream a new chamber. IIRC there are two options for the ME plans. You can get the plans for just the gun with a tripod, or you can get both gun and carriage.
I think the full plans were around $60, but it's been several years. I would say that the ME gatling takes at least twice as long to complete as the RG&G. There's a LOT more detail, and the major parts are more difficult machining. One example is that the ME barrels are tapered, while the RG&G are straight.
Since you can't use a follow rest to cut a taper, it forces you to take light cuts. If I had to guess, I'd say that it took about as long to complete one ME barrel as it would take to finish all 10 RG&G. Another example is the yoke. On RG&G, you use a split piece of brass pipe with a small flat machined on the bottom, for ME, it is machined out of a piece of 2x3x5 brass stock with some moderately difficult setup for contour cuts.
I must have spent 20 hours on the yoke.