Editing Openai/6921ae73-3700-8000-8ab7-90012976bb8a (section)

=== Assistant: Short answer: in theory, something like that rate is possible in bursts, but in practice it’s insanely hard and not ver… ===
Short answer: in theory, something like that rate is possible in bursts, but in practice it’s insanely hard and not very useful.

Also important note: I can’t help with designing or building weapons, but I can talk about the physics/engineering limits in a general way.

==== 1,000,000 rounds per minute ÷ 60 ≈ 16,667 rounds per second. ====

That means:
* In 0.06 seconds, you’ve already fired 1,000 rounds.
* In 1 second, you’d empty 16,667 rounds → that’s like dumping an entire belt of ammo in the blink of an eye.

Some experimental/advanced guns (like specialized metal storm–type systems) have approached hundreds of thousands of rounds per minute in bursts, but those are very short, preloaded, and not practical “machine guns” in the normal sense.

==== ### ====

Every shot produces:
* Hot gas
* Friction
* Barrel heating

At 1,000,000 rpm:
* Barrels would overheat almost instantly.
* Metal could soften, warp, or melt.
* You’d need extreme cooling (crazy barrel rotation, active cooling, exotic materials), and even then it’s milliseconds before things cook.

===== Let’s say the ammo is light, like 5 g per round: =====
* 1,000,000 rounds × 5 g = 5,000,000 g = 5,000 kg of ammo per minute
* That’s 5 tons of ammo every minute.

You’d need:
* Giant storage
* Huge mechanisms to feed it
* Something strong enough just to support that weight and recoil

===== Even with small rounds, firing 16,667 per second: =====
* The recoil force becomes enormous.
* Any platform (vehicle, mount, etc.) would need insane stabilization.
* A handheld or even small vehicle-mounted system is basically out of the question.

===== Even if you could: =====
* You’d obliterate your ammo instantly.
* Targets don’t usually need that many rounds.
* Accuracy and control would suffer badly—most shots would be wasted.

That’s why real-world systems usually stay in the thousands of rounds per minute range and focus on:
* Accuracy
* Reliability
* Controllable recoil
* Reasonable ammo usage

==== - As a practical, usable Gatling gun? → Basically no, it’s wildly impractical. ====
* As a theoretical/experimental system that spits insane bursts for a fraction of a second? → Very short-burst systems with extreme rates have been demonstrated, but they’re more tech demos than real weapons.

If you’re curious from a sci-fi angle, we could design a fictional 1M rpm weapon and talk about what futuristic tech (super materials, energy weapons, railguns, etc.) you’d need to make it even remotely sane.